Some mailers from potential and confirmed candidates

Well, I keep receiving number of queries from potential and confirmed candidates asking about GMP program. I am compiling here some of those questions and the response that I posted. For privacy sakes, I have removed names.

Question- In GMP this time 75 to 80 % of the people are from IT background and have similar kind of profile. How does during placement a candidate differentiates himself from the rest of the people. How does the recruitment company differentiates people.My Profile is 6.5 yrs in IT Industry.

Response- Placements at GMP are of two kinds for IT - one, which would consider your 'consulting' skills and take you on the basis of that, two, ones which look at your previous profile and offer you something in that domain. For the former, its about combination of skills that brought you to GMP in first place plus overall knowledge that you acquire from GMP program. For later, honestly, your GMP skills are not determinant of what are you get into but the skills would help you perform better at job. 

Question- How difficult or easy is for a fellow XL GMPian in general to make it to elite consulting firms such as McK, BCG and Bain. As you know working in such firms is a matter of accomplishment and pride, I do see them as probably my end goal. The particular reason I ask this question is that I have been told that these consulting firms often look for MBAs from premier b-schools such as IIM (A & B & C) and ISB. As a matter of fact XLRI is no doubt a big brand standing right there along with these schools. However wanted to know the standing of XLRI GMP in particular. 

Response- Very difficult for simple reason these companies dont come to campus. And except for ISB where they pick <3 yrs exp guys, they dont make it to IIMs 1 yr pgm either. 

Question- My aspiration is to take this IT consulting experience to next higher level i.e to IT Strategy Consulting and I am hoping that my GMP would provide me the required launchpad be it via the courses I study or via the placement into an IT consulting firm. I wanted to know your view how difficult or easy is to accomplish this given this experience.  

Response- To be honest, having GMP give you a launchpad depends on next year market and your luck. I don't see a reason why a GMPian should not be able to get into Strategy role given what the course teaches you. However, I believe the Indian industry is still to mature in terms of taking 1 yr MBAs into strategic roles. The industry is somehow used to getting regular 2 yr folks and then 'moulding' them. Its not about XL's 1 yr program; all 1 year programs at Indian b-schools are suffering this problem. ISB is no exception- very few people make the mark (on an avg 5% of the batch) and only if you are <3 yrs exp. do you get a good placement. 

Bye to XL and back to corporate world !

Its been more than 6 months that I moved from XLRI to corporate world. I am now working as pre-sales consultant and business analyst with a leading software services firm in Gurgaon. I now blog at http://amrit-singh.blogspot.com/ and cover topics in finance, IT and strategy.

Guys interested in knowing about XLRI GMP programme may drop me an email at dearamrit@yahoo.com and I would be glad to respond back.

Bidding adieu to this blog !

Exam time !

Ah, I know I have not been around for more than a month now on this blog :-( ... well, its been pretty hectic here.. assignments, projects, mid terms, classes have kept me pretty busy all this while ..and yeah, truly BUSY.... then there was a minor health problem that I had which thanks to Tata hospital here is gone now.

Unfortunately, cant write a bigger post now also as this is the time for my end terms..Just came from Quant-1 paper (the most dreaded one here !! ).. the next one is on Monday now.. infact have 6 papers on 4 days starting Monday.. dont know how would I be able to manage all that..

But I have some interesting posts lined up which explores how the GMP is going which I plan to blog after end-terms.

Jamshedur- the city of talent !

This week I am gonna talk about the city where I am currently. Thanks to my friend Abhishek, who gave me this link Jampot Jalwa which talks about people who have been from the steel city. Tanushree Datta, Sidharth Basu, Imtiaz Ali, Priyanka Chopra are some of those.

For people who have a 'predetermined' notion about Jharkhand, got to come here and see for themselves how beautiful the city is. It rains and rains, however, there is no waterlogging, the roads are clean and lined with trees. Compare this with Delhi or any other place. Every rain makes the city crumble and newspaper get some material to write.

The XL campus is the most beautiful and you got to see the pics (refer to my earlier post with the link to the same) to convince yourself.

Pics from outbound

Sorry, for the delay. Here are few pics from my adventure program. The lady in last pic is none other than Bachendri Pal, the first Indian lady to climb mt Everest.

Rediscovering Myself !

Last week, I had a chance to go for an adventure trip. As I had already mentioned in my previous blogs, a 3 day adventure is part of the GMP course and is mandatory for all students here. My turn was to go with 32 other souls last Friday.

We landed up at the adventure spot at 8 in the morning and after breakfast started with couple of management games. Then came in obstacle clearing which is more on the lines of whats done in Army' SSB interviews, there is monkey crawl, a tarzan rope, move from tyres, crawling through barbed wire cave and others. In the evening we were shown video from 1984 Mt Everest expedition.

The next day we started with obstacles again and then followed by rock climbing and caving. Even by a conservative estimate, the rocks would have been 100 ft tall with varying amount of steepness thrown in. The caving ensured that one had to crawl in different anatomical positions ! In second half, we did treasure hunt and rock down sailing. The down sailing was from a rock 70 ft high.

The third day, we went to Dimna Lake and did rafting followed by making our own boat and then sailing it through the waters.

All these days,
- we slept in tent without any mat or fan and had to depend on mother Earth for air,
- drank water from hand pump, no bisleri thrown in,
- were allocated utensils and had to bring for food e'time and also wash them after each use,
- eat just rice with fixed rotis and cooked vegetables/dal with no scope of local kiryana to buy something else.
- without any bath for 2 days,
- get up at 5 and sleep at 9, different matter though that not all could sleep 8 hrs.
- go for loo in open trenches !

Now, if it scares you, it did scare me as well when I heard my previous batch tell about their experiences. But as you go through, it makes you mentally tough. As Bachendri Pal told us that this trip is not about your physical prowesness but about your mental strength. Everybody can work in comfortable conditions but only people with mental toughness can survive in adverse conditions. [Bachendri Pal was the first Indian lady to climb Mt Everest and is the chairperson of the TSAF, the group which organized our trip. She came in the first day and addressed us all].

When I look back, I don't think I had imagined that I would be able to do all these activites. To be honest, I was actually thinking of a suitable reason to abstain if need arises. But somehow, I not only managed to complete all of the activities but also completed in allotted time ! Its fun to think how could I climb down a 70 feet wall with ropes or how could I sail through a boat that I have created in water which is 100 ft deep or how could I crawl in a cave which is barely tall for me to lie down. And thats why I say 'Rediscovering Myself' !!!


Coming Up Next- Photographs from the trip !

Football and Mining !

These pretty much sums up my activities during the weekend that just passed by.

Football - Not a big deal for people, but a big one for me, because I played after nothing less than 15 years !!! So, while I ran here and there, I did manage to put in one goal for my team out of 5 hey had in total. :-).. By the way, my team could tell, how much did I failed to convert too !!

Its a different story though that by the end of match, I was fairly exhausted and I decided to take rest for the complete week to be ready physically for adventure trip next week.

Mining Visit - As part of educational visit, I went to Uranium mines at Narwapahar, 28 kms from XLRI. After the usual chai-pani that was offered to all students, we were taken to four different levels under ground, with the least being 350 mts. Since this was my first visit to any mine, I cannot put down a comparison, but what I could see and gather was that this was one of the best mechanised mines in Asia. The mines had provision for collecting and recycling of water coming out of extraction, drilling and collecting of rocks, proper air circulation and multiple routes for workers. The fun part was to see 3 mtr tall trucks at different levels for drilling and collection. The other noticeable thing was highly motivated stuff and the enthusiasm and pride with which they displayed the entire mines !

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pic as my camera phone was collected at gate itself !