Managing activities - Clubs, events, sports, cases..*tiring*

One of the standard refrains from MBA students is the amount of workload. It's true in most schools, and more so at INSEAD simply due to the compressed nature of the course. Let's take a simple list of all the things I will be doing this week

1. A bunch of case submissions (we have about 25 case submissions in the next 4 weeks, and each case requires a decent couple of hours of work)
2. Studying all the mandatory materials for the next days class
3. Sending in my creative substance to a major event happening next week (more details coming soon)
4. Participating in 2 club activities
5. Running 2 clubs (I founded one, and am leading the other in Singapore)
6. Participating in 3 different career services events (not recruitment, these are more about development, strategies for searching etc.)
7. Playing soccer against the other section ("we'll kick your @ss!")
8. Completing my CV - which takes insane amounts of work. That's a topic for the blog. Getting an effective CV / Resume in place within 1 page is incredible hard work. All the reviews and all the reworks..it's crazy. If you are a new intake, get a basic CV in place before you land up here or you'll spend tons of time doing one.
9. Bidding for electives in P3. We can bid for 3.5 credits, there are many interesting electives but unfortunately we can only get 3.5.
   
10. Other sundry personal work I need to do - like booking flight tickets for travel, hotels, blogging, meetings, eating, sleeping...

Tiring. But I'm lovin' it. I would hazard a guess that it is similar whether in Wharton, Columbia, Stern, Chicago or any other school.

Sitting Duck -- Or a Duck sitting in the class.

In my last post, I mentioned the INSEAD Dash. Here is a pic that describes it's spirit. You can only imagine how distracting (and funny) it is to be sitting in a class looking at a big fat ducky. And then imagine how hard it must for be for the professor whenever he looks at that section of the class. Not only does he have to deal with a whole bunch of weird outfits and super ugly cheerleaders ;) he also has to look at a BIG DUCKY in the eye!




In a way, this describes the spirit of the class and INSEAD. Lot of fun, lot of work. I'll tell you more about some other amusing practices we have. But that's for later.

The INSEAD Dash

This is a short post, and I will hopefully add a few pics later. But today, we had the INSEAD Dash, a hilarious "run" from Heritage (the condo complex where most of us stay) to INSEAD, wearing really ridiculous costumes...men dressed as disgusting cheerleaders, hot nurse outfits, a dumb birdie...what not. And then those who are dressed up funny sit in the class with the same outfit - distracting and entertaining.

There are a few INSEAD traditions I will probably write about later..

Thanks, Zanat0s (a.k.a. Stefanos!)

Thanks, Stefanos, for mentioning my entry on recruitment style in international b-schools vis-a-vis Indian management schools. Your own story might be an interesting supplement on how motivated job searches can lead to interesting outcomes.

For other aspirants, to just get an idea of how networks can be leveraged, read his latest entry.

We are coming to a close of Africa week, and Desi week preparation is under way. This week (and the next 2 weeks) promise to be full of activities apart from tons of case work and group assignments. To those NYU Stern people, your professor (who is currently also teaching OB at INSEAD) Doug Guthrie is very good, his opening class yesterday was fun. And we could tell that some of our class shenanigans (we have interesting class behavior  - all in fun and good spirit) took by a bit of surprise (pleasant ones, don't worry).

I need to do a post on our professors some time.

INSEAD Americas office - New York

http://www.pr-inside.com/insead-opens-americas-office-in-new-r271995.htm

We'd heard about this from Frank recently. This should be a good move for the coming years to increase brand awareness in US and also help more INSEAD students tap into the US market. Before some one asks - no this is NOT a new campus. This is more like a relations office.

So many case studies to submit next week...it's going to be a busy weekend.

Recruitment / Placement : IIM / ISB vs. International Schools

update:Turns out this post needed more follow-ups, here is an update post covering salary ranges, base salaries and other such matters

I receive a fair amount of e-mail from my blog readers. Many pertain to application evaluation/essay evaluation. And some pertain to recruitment and similar career related questions - and several of these are from potential Indian applicants.

This post is to summarize some principal possible differences between recruitment in the top Indian business schools like IIM/ISB vs. top International schools (typical FT top 10 or M7 + LBS/INSEAD). Keep in mind the following

1. I can write about IIM / ISB experiences based on what I've heard and read. I haven't studied in one of them previously (yes, many IIM grads do study MBA again in international schools) but I do know many who have, including a sibling.
   
2. I haven't started the recruitment season at INSEAD yet - it starts next April for me. But I've seen quite a bit so far. So if this post needs an update later, I will do so.

So, compared to the Indian Institutes, what are probably the principal differences?

1. Recruitment is a long cycle - The process of finding a job can takes months, sometimes 4-6 months. The process involves substantial amount of career coaching, CV polishing, schmoozing, meeting with recruiters, follow-ups, attending cocktails and networking sessions, and then finally rounds of interviews. Jobs are not a "given", the idea is you learn all the skills needed to "earn" one.
   
2. There is no "placement week" with "zero day placements" and everyone getting jobs in 2 days - There is a recruitment season which lasts 2-4 months, but nothing stops someone from looking for jobs much earlier.
3. A lot of graduates get jobs outside career services / campus placements - A pretty high percentage - often as high as 30% (could be more depending on the year, school etc.) get jobs outside placements. They do so for variety of reasons - but the most important one is that search for the right job in a company of interest. Getting jobs like this is again a long process that involves lot of research, networking and persistence.
   
4. Astronomical salaries are usually outliers - Yes, someone from Columbia this year got half a million. Many from INSEAD do get high salaries. But keep in mind that these are statistical "outliers." They do not represent typical salaries. When I read many reports on IIM/ISB I read about many "1 crore" salaries which translates to over 250,000$ base salary for associate or 3rd year analyst positions. I might be wrong, but such salaries from banks may be specially given to IIM / ISB students because I don't think any of the international schools get such salaries on a regular basis. I don't know. But the typical average in most of the top schools is around 110,000 USD.
   
5. You are often pitted against those from other top schools - There are many interesting jobs and positions often open only to a select set of schools. What that means is you are not competing for it with just your class mates, but also with those from the other top schools - you compete on a whole new level. Without mentioning names of companies, I can tell you there are specific roles that companies open only to the typical FT top 10. The flip side is you are competing with all of them. Most of the companies recruiting are high profile and have access to the best talent around the world, so they're not standing in a queue to recruit you.
   
6. Job placement is a whole lot about specific roles and fit - A lot of placement is for specific roles and positions. This makes fit very important. There is very little of "we'll come in a bus, pick a bunch of grads, and then put them anywhere in the organization." I can say that this is a critical difference between lot of international blue chips that come on campus vs. Indian company style recruitment (of which I can speak of with considerable experience).
7. Placement is truly global - jobs are offered around the world, and often in very interesting management rotations that take you to multiple countries.
   

Does it mean that it's a hopeless case to get a job? Uh..no. Most of them get great jobs in interesting companies and with pretty good salaries. But you need to work really hard to get them. In the process, you become a whole lot polished as a person. And this is a reason why some schools don't really worry you with grades (INSEAD doesn't) so you can focus on all the other critical skills you should be polishing as an MBA, and it's not all about theory and books.
updated note: needless to mention, these skills should come to aid later in life when you are job searching on your own as well.

At some point later I might post some interesting jobs that get offered. If you have a correction suggestion to make, please send in a comment and I will make necessary changes. I hope I answered a few questions and cleared some doubts about how recruitment typically works. This is not just for INSEAD, as I said, it holds for many other international schools as well.

update:Turns out this post needed more follow-ups, here is an update post covering salary ranges, base salaries and other such matters

update: Here is a post on Consulting recruitment at INSEAD and for those who think about GMAT Relevance in interviews, here is my post on Relevance of GMAT Score in Consulting recruitment

In memoriam

Of a dearest friend.
A wonderful human being.
A fellow participant in dreams, hopes and fears.

Will always be missed. Forever.

Imperfect combinations

When you combine a regular flu / cold and a late night party with strong long island tea (it's not tea, I assure you!), what you end up with is a miserable next day. As other fellow bloggers have mentioned, it's getting pretty stressful with exam preparation - they loom right ahead, next week.

 

No matter who says 'grades don't matter' and what not, when you see interim test results where the average score out of 25 was 22 for a batch size of 150 (Singapore) you know that you better hunker down and get to work and avoid being the last dud in the class. The Z-score grading is evil in the sense you could get 80% on your subject and still be a *failure*

 

That's the thing about INSEAD - things move at warp speed, you're settling down, getting to know others, and you're drowned in events, parties, case studies, company presentations and before you catch your breath to study, the exams are here. P2 promises to be harder -  10 less days. I also put in my preference for bidding - I plan to be in Fonty P4/P5. As expected, there was a huge rush for Fonty people to come to Singapore in P3 to avoid winter...tough luck many got wait listed due to the rush - Singapore is becoming very popular now :) and a large number do the switch of campus.

 

I'm looking forward to the little break after P1 (4 days) and then we hit P2 - I also plan to travel a  bit in P2 (cambodia, vietnam on list)

 

(my next post is something I've been asked to address quite a few times by potential indian applicants - i.e. recruitment styles in international schools compared to the Indian biggies like ISB and IIM. It's quite different so I hope to get some facts across without the hype.)

 

 

Of learning/and my influential blog readers!

before I get to that, I stumbled upon this new INSEAD blog. http://flyingalongonacurrentofhotair.blogspot.com - welcome, flyingalong!

 

So, what is it about learning and keeping an open mind? At INSEAD we meet people with a range of experience and from diverse functional backgrounds. We have engineers, investment bankers, commercial bankers, lawyers, consultants, reporters, sales managers, marketers, vice presidents, founders - name it. And then we have people from "every which" company - whether it is the usual suspects McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Roland Berger and then a multitude of other companies - Deutsche bank, Barclays, UN, Amex, Cisco, Total, Shell, Booz allen, Dell...and so on. The beauty of the mix is regardless of one's own experience, it is useful to hear other points of view. And then we have all these classes - Market pricing strategies, corporate finance, accounting, organizational behavior - subjects many of us are studying for the first time.

 

To me, this is excellent. You could be cynical and be critical of everyone and hate all your subjects or you could absorb the immersion constantly asking yourself "how will this help me next time." I chose to "unlearn" many things I did in my experience and understand how to do things better, how to manage people better, understand several new business concepts. When I look back at my experience, I can already spot areas where I might have done better with the tools I am equipping myself. Ultimately, it is about what we want to take out of a program - a closed mind is not one of them.

 

I am also researching my careers, and noted that there are people from my "target companies" who visit my blog. My dear readers, I may seek you for information and help sometime in getting to know your organizations better :)

 

In other news, I have also discovered, much to my consternation, that several wines and vodkas do nothing to me. I am not even a drinker - in fact, I barely touch alcohol except in some parties, but damn! And singapore is expensive - you don't want to get too happy during 'non-happy' hours or you'll leave with an unhappy wallet. It's so expensive it's almost criminal.

 

We've been having a bunch of activities - to name a few

 

* Australia/Korea/Japan week - loads of fun, BBQ, clubbing

* Deadlines for several banks - made many people run around

* Informal bar hopping/dinner events

* and huge loads to study

 

the coming week is very hectic and we have an interesting online game to be played between Fonty, Singapore and Wharton. Whartonies, here we come! The game lasts a week - and promises to be interesting. Provided we survive through all the activities and slogging as we get closer to the first exams. It's crazy, a month is over and it just whizzed by!

 

 

X60 tablet update/Learning/3 of 2/subjects

When you join INSEAD, they say that you can do 2 of the 3 things - Network, party or study. Very true. The subjects have caught pace and it's becoming really difficult to do all three and most people are beginning to prioritize. You ask yourself the question "is this relevant? is this valuable? should I do this?" for everything and then decide. There are tons of things you can do here, and it becomes all the more important to decide what your time is worth.

Having said that, I'm actually enjoying the subjects - for the first time, I feel smarter when I read FT or WSJ. Some of the terms make sense. I actually feel like I'm learning something. We're covering broad microeconomic theories, use of statistics, fundamentals of corporate finance, organizational behavior and accounting. Everything is new to me and it feels to good to learn all that. The teaching started slow but is now really fast paced and it's critical everyone reads for the next day and does all assignments, or it's really hard to catch up. The professors are great - no surprises there.

INSEAD conducts huge number of exec education programs - these are also excellent sources for us to network with senior executives from influential organizations - Shell, Nokia and what not. We are given the opportunity to set up meetings with them, and I think it's a fantastic chance to learn details of organizations we are interested in. We also soon have a INSEAD alumni gathering which is attended by some real heavyweights.

In other news, I had written about my use of my tablet. I can tell you now officially that it works really well. I use it for all my study note-taking, solving exercises and it works like a charm. Here is a screenshot.