Monday, November 29, 2004

After Poseidon, we are back in the class ...

Today I had only one class ... Operations Strategy. The first class was impressive. Professor Bassok is lively and gives a lot of examples to drive the concepts. Negotiation Analysis is the Star course but unfortunately due to various reasons, I didn't opt for the course.

Now the rate of Preplacement talks has increased. Tomorrow we have three PPTs and we have atleast one PPT on each day in the Month of December. Students are pretty happy with the list of companies visiting the campus though the list is dominated by Finance and IT jobs. Marakon impressed students on Saturday with hefty pay and with three varieties of Chicken after the PPT. The sad part is that they are going to hire only one or two ... There was good audience for Patni too ...

Friday, November 26, 2004

Today I am applying to Seven Seas, Dubai. I was thinking about whether to apply and whether the job role would suit me, and finally decided to give it a shot.

My focus is on IT Product companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Yahoo !! Apart from these, I may apply for service companies such as CTS and Verizon. I don't know whether to apply for Infy, Wipro or Satyam as backup. But I am not planning to apply for non-IT jobs, except for a very few companies.

I see names such as Mindtree and Sasken, which are new in this field but show good growth potential. But further research is required to decide whether to apply for these companies.
The campus is busy ... A lot of new faces ... Waves of enthusiasm everywhere ... Organizers busy in arranging for the events ... Ladies & Gentlemen, poseidon has arrived ...

Organizers have come up with unique idea of making visitors (students from other Bschools) stay with the students in the stident village. We are having earthquake rock show on Sunday evening but much awaited event is Barometer. Yes, as you guessed, tt is the Fashion Show to select the ISB Item Bomb ...




Thursday, November 25, 2004

I don't know what happenned to my previous post !! It appears blank !!

Ok, My exams are over and 6 weeks to go for the Placement D-Day. Yesterday Deputy Dean spoke to us about the importance of placement preperation. Today I can see the effect! I can see students polishing their resume and working on industry analysis in small groups. The list of companies visiting the campus will be out by Tomorrow.

I am also starting my preperations - I have bought some preperation books and have got some industry analysis books from the Library.


Monday, November 22, 2004

Friday, November 19, 2004

I don't remember whether I said about my participating in ITC competition. My team-mate Muthu got some project work and left the campus two days before the deadline for the competition. I managed to write a B-plan in 5 hours with help from another friend, Suresh and submitted it just because we gave the commitment to participate. I didn't include any financial or any roll-out plan. But again the L factor is in my side and our team is one of the six teams selected for campus round !!

Yesterday, I attended a lecture by Captain Raghu about leadership experiences from Siachen glacier. I should say that it was really an eye-opener. There were a lot of assignments and exams are on Monday but still, by God's grace, I attended it. The lecture was like a tour to siachen and as he said, I can't explain in words the smell of blood and the -40 degree cold, but it gave me a perspective of the hardships faced by our soldiers. It was interesting to hear that in that temperature, if you drop an iron rod, it will break into pieces like a glass and if you splash hot water from a kettle, it will turn into vapor before falling down.

My key take-aways from the lecture was that For a manager, Company comes first, his subordinates second and third will be his own welfare. He explained this with examples, may be this may not be that impactful without examples. Another take-away was thinking about crisis. What is crisis? If I lose one grade in one subject or If I am unable to get a good job in campus, is it really a crisis? When he talked about situations of life or death, I understood what is real crisis.

So, future aspirants ! If you make into the ISB, the key learning will be from speakers and not just from lectures. You will have assignments, exams and what not, but try to maximize your learning. I now regret not attending some lectures, which I heard was very good. Fo instance, the lecture by top management from Tata Motors, Cavin care and Pantaloon were supposedly very good but I didn't attend. They may visit again next year and don't miss these talks.

Today we have interviews from JDPowers. They have a unique way of interviews. Each one will be interviewed for a max of five minutes. Let me see how it goes.

And finally - I am receiving a lot of complaints for not being regular in blogs. I will try to be more regular. I know it is not fair to blame my assignments and exams for not posting. I will try atleast three posts per week. Lets see how this goes.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Happy Diwali !!!

Deutsche bank shortlist has been announced and the interviews will be on Nov 15th. Good luck for all the interviewees.

In the IT side, I could see IBM, Yahoo, Amazon, Verizon, Satyam and Wipro lined up for Preplacement talks. There is another job posting from Seven Seas for a position in Dubai. I don't know much about the company and would have to research on this.

Goldman sachs ppt is on Nov 18th and I am not even planing to attend the PPT. This year most of the abroad positions are for Finance from companies such as SCB, HSBC, GOLDMAN and Deutsche. There is another big Ibank lined up.

Apart from these, this month we have PPTs from Novartis, Marakon and Olam international.

My resume is almost ready. I have customised it for IT-Products and IT-Services. While applying for the jobs, I will customise it more according to the culture of the companies.

I see students who are disappointed for not being shortlisted for Deutsche. For IT guys like me, the game has not yet started. I know there will be a lot of disappointments, a lot of surprises and a lot of difficulties. Everyone has started worrying about their placements and academics has taken back seat.

In sum, the Placement season has begun and everyone is looking for the D-Day Jan 10th.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

I had to cancel my XLRI plans due to the sudden fever. The fever has spoiled my whole plans. It has impacted my assignments, my ITC Bplan work and ELP project work. Only now I realize how much I am working daily that taking rest for just one day costs so much. In Micrososft terminology, I am drinking from the fire hose.


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ISB has launched Poseidon. Poseidon is the annual b-school festival at the ISB. More about this even from the colloborative blog:

Poseidon offers a common platform for students from the finest business schools all over the world to test their mettle in competitive events. The following events would take place:·

Twister – Online strategy game·
Tsunami – Biz Quiz·
Vortex – Fin Quiz· Bounty – Fin Paper Presentation·
Blizzard – Mktg Quiz·
The Coke Wave – Mktg Case Competition·
Turbulence – Energy Case Competition·
Horizon – Emerging Markets Debate·
Typhoon – Entrepreneurship Case Competition·
Torrent – Tech Quiz·
Cyclone – Tech/SCM Paper Presentation·
Bermuda Triangle – Tech Case Competition

There will also be many informal events like Rock Show and Blind Date. Special note should be taken of Twister – the online strategy game. It’s the toughest strategy game to be played in cyberspace. For details, please visit www.isb-poseidon.com .Dates: November 27-28, 2004Venue: ISB Campus, Hyderabad, IndiaContact address: Email: poseidon@isb.edu www.isb-poseidon.com

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Tomorrow I have my mid-term test in Indian Financial Systems. I am yet to start my BPLAN for the ITC competition for which the deadline is this weekend. I am yet to prepare slides for XLRI competition (which I may eventually end-up doing in the flight). My placement preparations are astray and in the middle of all these, I got fever.

No wonder, Bschools are called as Hells.

The placement website is being filled up with the preplacement talk schedules. In November we have Marakon, IBM and Sierra atlantic PPTs. HSBC has already posted for their International management positions. Dec is going to be busy with a lot of PPTs and placement committee is contemplating on how to bring students to the PPTs.