The calm

The placement week is almost over. There are like 1-2 companies coming today and tomorrow each. Placing 400+ students in a week is not an easy thing and ISB always wants to up the challenge by increasing the number of students. While there were students who cracked the placements by getting the meatiest of roles or by increasing their salaries 3 or 5 times, law of averages also ensured that a few got pretty raw deals. Some did not get the kind of offers they wanted and have declined to take up anything. I made 2 more offers but for the moment decided to accept the Consulting offer. But all in all, although it was a really draining week for everyone involved in the placements it was good work all round!

Day 2

So I got my first offer. The consulting firm I was interviewing with today apparently liked me and after three rounds the question was popped. I should say the selection process was very interesting. In the first round I met the Principal of the firm and he administered a case and then I had to field a bunch of PIs. I actually messed up the numbers in the case and then announced myself that I want to do it again. The Principal smiled and I redid it. I thought I'm out of the process and came back for a nap.

To my surprise they called me for the second round. So then started the most interesting part of the process. I was given around 30+ pages of a case with lots of data. I was asked to make a presentation of case findings and my . It was a very interesting case and I thought I did that fairly well. Within 5 minutes I was called in for the final round. I was realizing that things were happening very fast. The final round was pure PI about all my professional experience and lot of scenario based questions. It went quite decently and finally the offer was made.

The firm is into sales & marketing consulting, an area of interest. I told them that I was not expecting the offer and I need some time to decide whether I want to sign it or not. They were nice enough to let me go back and huddle with my friends for an hour. They have given me a week to decide on accepting, so took my first offer. I have a few interviews for some challenging direct sales/marketing roles. So will try my hand and see if I can get something else more exciting.

Day 1

So the placement process has officially started. Day 0 was in full swing yesterday and Interviews were on till 4 AM last night. News trickled in about some of the majors trying to poach a few students. It feels a little strange that I don't have any interviews today but that is partly 'coz of the kind of applications I made. ADAG has announced a rather long list of interviews and my mates are going to be interviewed over the next two days. I think they are going to make some never seen before number of offers to ISB students. Tomorrow I have just 1 interview with a consultancy and day after I already have 5 companies lined up (with potentially 1-2 more looking clear possibilities). I hope I can make some sensible choices.

Day '-1'

"Zindha rahe tho agla haftha milenge" said one of the smart guys on campus. He was obviously kidding but taking a real nice dig at placements. Today is day '-1' and with day 0 tomorrow there are going to be quite a few on campus who will interview with big names starting tomorrow. My guess is that atleast 80-100 students will be out on day 1 and a similar number on day 2. There are already 543 different job postings this year and frankly there are a number of really meaty offers for experienced students. As the placement week nears shortlists have started pouring in. My applications are a mix of small-medium to really tiny companies. As of now, I'm sitting with a few shortlists but will start with just one on day 2 and many more starting day 3. The dream company with whom I'm interviewing for the last 2 months has still not announced anything and with 2 days to go, the ding looks more or less certain from them. Anyhow I should manage something next week if not during the month ahead, but it is truly one of the biggest experiences we came to b-school for.
ISB...Time to break a few more records :)

Meanwhile R2 results for Class of 2009 are out. Welcome folks. Time to party and chill.

Term 7 done - 87.5% MBA

So term 7 is also officially over. A surprisingly light one in terms of course work. I don't know of anyone who did four courses this term. There were people who did PAEV earlier and did just two courses this term. Anyhow I did three very good courses. Negotiation Analysis (NEGA), Advertising(ADVT) and Capital Raising Strategies in Corporations (CRSC).

If there is one course that is of greatest value for practical life it is NEGA. Recruiters beware, almost 300+ students have done this course over the last two terms :). Two amazing profs., ISB's own Dishan Kamdar and Catherine Tinsley from Georgetown Univ conduced NEGA this term. In every single class we had live negotiations and there were valuable lessons from each and every one of them. I just can't wait to apply these in real business negotiations. Advertising was another good course. Very light on work, good professors, lotsa videos in class and a final agency project. It was fun all throughout. Of the lot I really enjoyed the Mountain Dew assignment...To cap of a brilliant term we had two great professors for CRSC. The concepts of IPO, Project Financing, Film financing and rainfall insurance were presented so lucidly by Prof. Prabhala and Prof. Kapadia. I'm just amazed that in spite of placement pressures I could enjoy term 7 so much. Thank goodness.

Now all roads lead to placements, which start this Sunday. Shortlists and dings have started pouring in. More expected this week. Preps, mock iHopefully will have something interesting to post in about 2 weeks time. Adios amigos!

Internet advertising

Reason why internet advertising has still got a very very long way to go.

Google and Yahoo

So Google and Yahoo have come out with their results. While Yahoo has really disappointed the market and has announced 1000 job cuts, Google just missed analyst forecasts by a whisker (one penny to be precise). I think it is time for Yahoo to stop trying the turnaround story by itself and accept Microsoft's bid. With the portfolio of websites they have got I think an MS managed Yahoo can compete with Google better.


BTW I think this is the first time Google has missed forecasts since they went public. And one aspect that caught my attention was Google CFO's remark that ads from social networking websites have not monetized as well as well they had expected it to. I think there are two reasons why this is happening. One, Orkut is less popular in US when compared to Brazil or India where internet ad spends and click potentials are lesser. Two, while ads in orkut are still being experimented and debated in India/Brazil, I think the risk of appearing in wrong forums would make advertisers shy away from this medium. Some more rejigs are necessary before this channle can really bring in the money.


The more interesting thing for me however is to see whether the projected recession will make advertisers seek to invest more in clearly accountable Internet advertising. Can this be the some kinda goldmine during tougher times?