Spending 2 years in a place called Billekahalli on Bannerghata Road means many things to many people. The masses tend to assume that you belong to the cream of the intellectual cream that this nation churns out every year. The future of the country it seems, is safe in our able young hands. Some even go to the extent of proclaiming this in front of one’s parents. This of course is most disconcerting to the martyrs who on numerous occasions been given enough reasons to suspect permanent brain damage in their sons and daughters. It was that fall from the tricycle you know… things were never the same after that. The stupefied look on those wizened faces hardened by years of futile battling to drive sense into the considerably thick skulls of their wards is priceless to say the least. The father knows something has gone fundamentally wrong with the universe when his colleagues ask his numskull son for his views on how the budget will impact the banking industry and carefully listen to the pearls of wisdom. It hurts even more if the said father has more than 30 years in the field. The mother is equally confused about her social standing among her friends suddenly shooting up from the day ET came out with its Rs.1.44 crore headline. To all the bemused parents out there, I assure you, your precious sons and daughters continue to be the same. The world may see them differently, but they continue to be as hopeless as they were before. Just that they spent two years in Billekahalli and are now worth much more.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Summers Process
In one of my previous posts, I had referred to the summer internship selection process as one of “madness”. I would like to correct myself; it is one of unbridled madness with dollops of opportunism and greed thrown in. In my opinion it is nothing less than a cancer eating into the innards of an amazing educational institution. Think I am exaggerating? Read on… Let me assure before proceeding further; I am one of the beneficiaries of this process. Hence when I state my case, it is definitely not a case of sour grapes. Another caveat to be kept in mind is that whatever I mention in this post is what I have seen happen in IIMB. So, drawing generalised conclusions across IIMs would be at your own peril. On the other hand, I did interact with my peers in IIM A and C and found that the summers process is largely the same in method and spirit across the 3 IIMs. So there, now I can burn all my bridges and start making enemies left, right and centre.
Summers – Strictly speaking, it is an academic requirement. You got to intern for two months, if you want get your goddamn diploma (Oh yes, we are not MBAs at the end of 2 gruelling years. All we get is a sorry diploma, but that is fodder for a separate post). So, that is what it is at the end of the day – a course completion requirement. At the face of it, the objective of the internship was laudable. Though, I have not spoken with the faculty, I guess it was to expose raw students to the sectors they would like to make a career in. Even in case of students with work experience, it did make sense to expose them to their target sectors. While it sure was great to intern in an organisation of your choice, it finally did not make much of a difference in terms of the company you finally got employed in.
And this is how things were, till a new variable entered the equation some years back – Pre Placement Offers (PPOs).
PPO – Let us assume a guy interns at his dream company and the latter is happy with the work done by the intern. Having seen him perform well for 2 full months, the company decides to offer him full time employment. Only that they make the offer, at the end of the internship or in rare cases during the internship. That is a PPO. Again, the objective of a PPO is laudable. The intern gets into the company of his choice, the company gets the employee it wants and everyone is happy.
Now let us combine the summers process and PPO in the high pressure cauldron that is IIMB and presto, we have a problem.
Summers + PPO - To get the dream job in the dream company is the dream of every person who dreams to walk the hallowed portals of the dream that is IIMB. While the previous sentence sounds rather repetitive, you get the picture, don’t you? Usually, you had to wait for 2 years to have your shot during the final placement season. The summers-PPO combo allows you to take your shot twice – first within 4-5 months of joining and in case you screw up, during the final placement season. Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? What could be wrong with giving a guy two shots at his dream?
The fun starts when on entering the institute, the student is relentlessly subjected to a propaganda barrage emphasising the importance of summers by the placement committee (placecom) and certain seniors. This starts right from the first week the student lands on campus. The summer internship is presented as a short cut to that dream job and career. When the student is supposed to be being oriented into 2 years of business and management education, he is subjected to insidious and mind altering mumbo jumbo about the importance of summer internship. From then on, IIM B in the mind of the student ceases to be an institute of higher learning and becomes a glorified placement agency. The attitude towards placecom and the placecom members (placus) is almost slavish. This is not to suggest that the placus are evil. On the contrary, most of them are very decent chaps and happen to be good friends of mine. Just that they are too good in what they do and they play upon the inherent insecurity of the fachha pretty well. With no one around to protest against this all consuming focus on summer internship, the fachha is as good as gone.
The focus by now has shifted from learning for the sake of education and wisdom to preparing for the summers interview while studying when possible. Hours and days are spent perfecting the resume, wording and rewording that sentence, trying to come up with that one “bullet point”; all for that illusive summer internship and that PPO. Seniors who have interned in the dream companies and have PPOs become the new Gods; dispensing “knowledge” to the brain washed juniors. Who needs professors when you have such seniors? The process becomes even more convoluted when the companies get in touch with their former interns (current seniors) and ask them for recommendations. While some of the students have the moral courage to refuse to recommend anyone, there are those with no such qualms, who go ahead and recommend their favourites. Did I say that the seniors are the new Gods?
To make matters worse, the focus in the initial months is always on “Day Zero” companies viz., the big consultancies and the bulge bracket investment banks. It is almost as if there is no world outside of these companies and it is a crime not to be getting into these companies. The media plays its stellar role by focussing on the Rs.1.44 crore salaries and ever increasing average booties on offer. All this reaches a crescendo by the time the Day Zero companies release their shortlists. This is when the first wave of disappointment strikes the students. The shortlists are actually predictable. Given that the companies do not have the grades of the students, they tend to go for candidates with the best pedigree. Ideally this is what a company wants –
Education – IIT/ BITS / Certain NITs/ St.Stephens/ CA-CFA/ “Some place that sounds interesting” – Bonus points if you are a 9-pointer / University topper
Gender – preferably female (and this is when I start checking for poison in my food)
Extra Curricular – Anything at state/national level
While there are exceptions that make it to the shortlist; they are precisely that, exceptions. One can safely say that at least 40-50% of the batch would not fulfil the above criteria. This means that there is a very high probability of them not getting into any of the shortlists and that is what happens. No one bothered to inform them that it was impossible for everyone to get that coveted day zero shortlist. It is just one of those minor details that get left out.
One gets to see aspects of human behaviour that one would have thought had no place in an IIM. A student with multiple shortlists boasting away in front of less fortunate batch mates about his shortlists is not an uncommon sight. The impact this has on batch morale can only be imagined. It must be remembered that this kind of behaviour is restricted to a few in each batch but then all it takes is a single rotten apple. The fight for shortlists continues even up till the D Day i.e. Day Zero with a few students trying to get shortlists by hook or crook. All I can say in defence of such students, is that a couple of companies behave even worse. I would not like to elaborate on this further, but anyone who has been part of the Day zero process will know what I am talking about.
Six months down, the internships are over and the PPOs are made. However, summers continue to wreak havoc on the academic environment. There are instances of students giving up on their academics the moment they get the PPO from their dream company with straight A students descending to Cs and even Ds. Fellow students are downright scared of having some such students in their project groups due to the extent of free-riding that happens.
The summers process in my opinion has mutated into something completely different and unintended. The only people benefiting from the current arrangement are the companies who get to have an extended 2 month interview with the interns and make PPOs if they are happy with their performance. We also have to keep in mind the segment that loses out the most under the current dispensation - Those with stellar academic achievements in IIM-B with none too impressive background, as a result of which they could not get to intern in companies of their choice. It is argued that such segments get a chance to get what they want during the final interview. While this may be true in most cases, there are still instances of brilliant students who do not get what they want. It must also be remembered that a number of companies visit and hire from campus only during the summers process and these students lose out on such opportunities.
I am sure that there are people (many of whom would be my batch mates) who would disagree with the points raised above. But what cannot be denied is that we have a problem in our hands. I agree that the problem on hand is complex. I also agree that there are no easy solutions. What is required is for the students, faculty and alumni to sit together to figure a way out of the current mess. Placecom’s decision to opt out of the salaries game is definitely a step in the right direction. That they stuck to their guns even when faced with provocative press releases by sister institutions was a very pleasant surprise for me. The brand IIMB initiative recently launched by my batch in consultation with the faculty is another very laudable step. One can only hope that some good comes of it, for the sake of the future batches of students joining IIM-B. They deserve all the good that IIMB offers in terms of education and opportunities. Even as I pass out of this fantastic institution, I can only hope that it grow from strength to strength and from laurel to laurel. But if this must happen, we better figure a way out of the quicksand that is the Summers Process.
P.S. - Many of the statements and assertions I have made are meant to be provocative. So, if you have been provoked into even thinking of how things can be made better, I shall deem my post a success. It must be remembered that when something is terribly wrong, doing nothing is no longer an option.
Summers – Strictly speaking, it is an academic requirement. You got to intern for two months, if you want get your goddamn diploma (Oh yes, we are not MBAs at the end of 2 gruelling years. All we get is a sorry diploma, but that is fodder for a separate post). So, that is what it is at the end of the day – a course completion requirement. At the face of it, the objective of the internship was laudable. Though, I have not spoken with the faculty, I guess it was to expose raw students to the sectors they would like to make a career in. Even in case of students with work experience, it did make sense to expose them to their target sectors. While it sure was great to intern in an organisation of your choice, it finally did not make much of a difference in terms of the company you finally got employed in.
And this is how things were, till a new variable entered the equation some years back – Pre Placement Offers (PPOs).
PPO – Let us assume a guy interns at his dream company and the latter is happy with the work done by the intern. Having seen him perform well for 2 full months, the company decides to offer him full time employment. Only that they make the offer, at the end of the internship or in rare cases during the internship. That is a PPO. Again, the objective of a PPO is laudable. The intern gets into the company of his choice, the company gets the employee it wants and everyone is happy.
Now let us combine the summers process and PPO in the high pressure cauldron that is IIMB and presto, we have a problem.
Summers + PPO - To get the dream job in the dream company is the dream of every person who dreams to walk the hallowed portals of the dream that is IIMB. While the previous sentence sounds rather repetitive, you get the picture, don’t you? Usually, you had to wait for 2 years to have your shot during the final placement season. The summers-PPO combo allows you to take your shot twice – first within 4-5 months of joining and in case you screw up, during the final placement season. Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? What could be wrong with giving a guy two shots at his dream?
The fun starts when on entering the institute, the student is relentlessly subjected to a propaganda barrage emphasising the importance of summers by the placement committee (placecom) and certain seniors. This starts right from the first week the student lands on campus. The summer internship is presented as a short cut to that dream job and career. When the student is supposed to be being oriented into 2 years of business and management education, he is subjected to insidious and mind altering mumbo jumbo about the importance of summer internship. From then on, IIM B in the mind of the student ceases to be an institute of higher learning and becomes a glorified placement agency. The attitude towards placecom and the placecom members (placus) is almost slavish. This is not to suggest that the placus are evil. On the contrary, most of them are very decent chaps and happen to be good friends of mine. Just that they are too good in what they do and they play upon the inherent insecurity of the fachha pretty well. With no one around to protest against this all consuming focus on summer internship, the fachha is as good as gone.
The focus by now has shifted from learning for the sake of education and wisdom to preparing for the summers interview while studying when possible. Hours and days are spent perfecting the resume, wording and rewording that sentence, trying to come up with that one “bullet point”; all for that illusive summer internship and that PPO. Seniors who have interned in the dream companies and have PPOs become the new Gods; dispensing “knowledge” to the brain washed juniors. Who needs professors when you have such seniors? The process becomes even more convoluted when the companies get in touch with their former interns (current seniors) and ask them for recommendations. While some of the students have the moral courage to refuse to recommend anyone, there are those with no such qualms, who go ahead and recommend their favourites. Did I say that the seniors are the new Gods?
To make matters worse, the focus in the initial months is always on “Day Zero” companies viz., the big consultancies and the bulge bracket investment banks. It is almost as if there is no world outside of these companies and it is a crime not to be getting into these companies. The media plays its stellar role by focussing on the Rs.1.44 crore salaries and ever increasing average booties on offer. All this reaches a crescendo by the time the Day Zero companies release their shortlists. This is when the first wave of disappointment strikes the students. The shortlists are actually predictable. Given that the companies do not have the grades of the students, they tend to go for candidates with the best pedigree. Ideally this is what a company wants –
Education – IIT/ BITS / Certain NITs/ St.Stephens/ CA-CFA/ “Some place that sounds interesting” – Bonus points if you are a 9-pointer / University topper
Gender – preferably female (and this is when I start checking for poison in my food)
Extra Curricular – Anything at state/national level
While there are exceptions that make it to the shortlist; they are precisely that, exceptions. One can safely say that at least 40-50% of the batch would not fulfil the above criteria. This means that there is a very high probability of them not getting into any of the shortlists and that is what happens. No one bothered to inform them that it was impossible for everyone to get that coveted day zero shortlist. It is just one of those minor details that get left out.
One gets to see aspects of human behaviour that one would have thought had no place in an IIM. A student with multiple shortlists boasting away in front of less fortunate batch mates about his shortlists is not an uncommon sight. The impact this has on batch morale can only be imagined. It must be remembered that this kind of behaviour is restricted to a few in each batch but then all it takes is a single rotten apple. The fight for shortlists continues even up till the D Day i.e. Day Zero with a few students trying to get shortlists by hook or crook. All I can say in defence of such students, is that a couple of companies behave even worse. I would not like to elaborate on this further, but anyone who has been part of the Day zero process will know what I am talking about.
Six months down, the internships are over and the PPOs are made. However, summers continue to wreak havoc on the academic environment. There are instances of students giving up on their academics the moment they get the PPO from their dream company with straight A students descending to Cs and even Ds. Fellow students are downright scared of having some such students in their project groups due to the extent of free-riding that happens.
The summers process in my opinion has mutated into something completely different and unintended. The only people benefiting from the current arrangement are the companies who get to have an extended 2 month interview with the interns and make PPOs if they are happy with their performance. We also have to keep in mind the segment that loses out the most under the current dispensation - Those with stellar academic achievements in IIM-B with none too impressive background, as a result of which they could not get to intern in companies of their choice. It is argued that such segments get a chance to get what they want during the final interview. While this may be true in most cases, there are still instances of brilliant students who do not get what they want. It must also be remembered that a number of companies visit and hire from campus only during the summers process and these students lose out on such opportunities.
I am sure that there are people (many of whom would be my batch mates) who would disagree with the points raised above. But what cannot be denied is that we have a problem in our hands. I agree that the problem on hand is complex. I also agree that there are no easy solutions. What is required is for the students, faculty and alumni to sit together to figure a way out of the current mess. Placecom’s decision to opt out of the salaries game is definitely a step in the right direction. That they stuck to their guns even when faced with provocative press releases by sister institutions was a very pleasant surprise for me. The brand IIMB initiative recently launched by my batch in consultation with the faculty is another very laudable step. One can only hope that some good comes of it, for the sake of the future batches of students joining IIM-B. They deserve all the good that IIMB offers in terms of education and opportunities. Even as I pass out of this fantastic institution, I can only hope that it grow from strength to strength and from laurel to laurel. But if this must happen, we better figure a way out of the quicksand that is the Summers Process.
P.S. - Many of the statements and assertions I have made are meant to be provocative. So, if you have been provoked into even thinking of how things can be made better, I shall deem my post a success. It must be remembered that when something is terribly wrong, doing nothing is no longer an option.
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