Be ready to work hard, as an MBA and a career after an MBA is hugely demanding

..says, Sanjeev Kumar in conversation with Reshma Majithia. A B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad, he has to his credit a work experience of 33 months with Amdoc (pune) and is currently pursuing his MBA from IIM-Calcutta.

Tell us about your educational background. When and why did the MBA decision come about?
I am a person, primarily driven by the desire and conviction to be the best at what I do.
My distinguishing qualities are an open learning mindset, perseverance and sincerity in all that I undertake.
My place of origin is, Jamalpur, a small town in south east province of Bihar. I did my entire schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jamalpur. Being good at mathematics and logic, I chose engineering as my career launch pad and began my B. Tech from IIIT Allahabad. As a part of our academic curriculum, I was selected for a 6 months internship with Intel Bangalore.
I started my professional career with the R&D department of Amdocs, an end to end software solution provider for telecom companies such as AT&T, Sprint etc.
After having worked as an IT professional and witnessing the vicissitudes of   several projects and plans I understood the importance of knowledge and the kind of leverage it can be in eschewing the wrong decision and converting the envisioned ideas into  successful ones, which brought me to IIM-Calcutta, with an incoming Rank 18.
MBA was a career choice with an objective to feed my intellectual curiosity with a gamut of business issues and perspectives. MBA to me is an opportunity to get exposed to a breadth of work in terms of nature, complexity and culture.

You have worked at Amdocs (Pune) for 33 months and also worked at Intel Bangalore. How has your experience working with Amdocs and Intel been?
Although the Internship with Intel was a part of our academic curriculum, I still consider it to be my first step in the professional arena. I got to work with the team and was given a lot of independence to control the implementation of my project. But a few things that I learned in Intel were high emphasis on being proactive and maintaining high standards of quality.
Amdocs, to me was the real transition into the professional world from an academic one, in the sense that it gave me individual responsibilities and authorities. I joined Amdocs as an SME (Subject Matter Expert) Trainee, and managed to get the first promotion to SME in 6 months. I got an opportunity to work with cross-cultural teams from Israel and USA. In my 33 months stint with Amdocs I spearheaded three onsite deliveries and project upgrades in Indonesia, Israel and United States with global clients. After 18 months I was promoted to senior SME and led a team of 4-5 people as a mentor. Thus as a whole I can say that along with technical skills I also learnt some managerial and leadership skills at Amdocs.
I also worked with the community relations team of Amdocs, raising funds during the ‘Joy of week’ for NGOs and took teaching sessions at the orphanage, Hope House.

What was the biggest hurdle in your CAT preparation and how did you overcome that?
Well, preparing for the CAT along with professional responsibilities was quite a mouthful, and can be considered as a big hurdle in the preparation. To manage these dual requirements, I tried to stick to a routine of around 2-3 hours of preparation on every weekday and 6-8 hours of dedicated preparation on weekends. I also joined IMS AIMCAT test series and did the analysis of the AIMCAT papers very seriously.
Along with these I gained a lot from websites such as Pagalguy.com, TestFunda.com, and TotalGadha.com etc. as I used to browse these websites during my leisure hours in office.

Tell us about your GD-PI experience at IIM Calcutta. How exactly did it go? What do you think were the factors that impressed the panel in your favour?
My GD-PI process started sharply on time at 0900 hours in Mumbai, Catering College. There were 10 candidates in my panel. We sat in a circle with the judges being a part of the circle. Topic of my GD was: “Business of Business is Business”. I was the second entrant into the GD, and over all managed to bring a lot of points with examples to prove the importance of other factors like social, ethical etc. which were as important if not more to business as making money. GD lasted for 15 minutes and each of us was given 20-30 seconds to summarize the GD.

After GD, interviews started immediately. My number in the interview was 6th. The Interview panel comprised 3 persons, 2 professors and one very senior alumnus. My interview started with a self assessment of my performance in the GD. Then there were a few puzzles and a few probability questions. We also had a discussion about my hobbies, in which I mentioned Latin Dance and Reading. They asked me questions about forms of Latin dance and recent books that I have read. Overall the Interview was good, and finally the professor offered me chocolate which I happily accepted.

What were the main challenges that you faced while preparing for B-school and how did you overcome those challenges?
Apart from time management the main challenges were maintaining good verbal scores in the AIMCAT, and preparation for GD-PI. For verbal preparations along with regular preparation, I religiously read The Hindu Editorials. Also the Know your English (KYE) sections of the Hindu were really interesting and helpful with grammar tips. Along with this I was a regular reader of The Economic times.

Would you say that your professional experience made you a better candidate for B-school in any way?
An MBA is a mixture of many subjects in which some are quantitative and others are qualitative in nature. I, personally, feel that my professional experience helped me understand some of the qualitative aspects better, as I could correlate some of my personal experiences that happen in a professional world with the concepts being taught in the class. Having said that I would like to emphasize that there was little advantage that experienced people get in recruitments or otherwise in a B School. In fact I believe one of the unique features of an MBA with IIM Calcutta is getting to work in a mixed environment of freshers as well as experienced individuals.

What would you say are the most important skills and qualities required to make it successfully through the B-school selection process?
Following would be important skills to get through the selection process :
Learn Time management: As clearing the CAT is much an art of beating the clock with accuracy rather than a test of hardcore quantitative skills.
Effective communication skills for the GD: One should start preparing for GD right from the start and not wait for the calls.
Creativity & trouble shooting abilities: This will be a big plus during interviews, as an interview is too open-ended to prepare exhaustively.

What has been your biggest learning at IIM C? How would you advise aspirants to prepare themselves for life at IIM-C?
If I have to pick one among many things that I have learnt in IIM C, it would be the ability of handling pressure situations. Life in a B school is much more difficult than the selection process itself. One should be ready to put more and more effort once selected. Also it helps to be good with multitasking, as a B school has various demands from the limited 24 hours we get to perform them. It helps to have the ability to manage several things and one should also be able to prioritize tasks at hand so that proper monitoring of the progress of most important tasks can be done.

Where do you move from here? What is the role that you will be playing in your first post-MBA position? What excites you most about it?
Currently, I am pursuing my Summer Internship with Investment banking division of CITI Group. Mostly, my role would include working with the quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of various IPO/FPO etc that would be handled by CitiGroup. I intend to pursue my career in Financial Sector once I complete my MBA from IIM C.
Financial Sector has become even more exciting in the fallout of the recent crisis. It provides a lot of opportunities to learn the intricacies and perspectives of the complex sector. My implicit interest in economics also is a factor in my inclination to this sector.

Finally, how would you advise future MBA aspirants?
An MBA aspirant first should ponder a lot for the reasons of why he/she wants to do an MBA. Many a time candidates come to a B school by listening to all the rumors of big pay packages and all sort of wrong reasons. While MBA does provide a financial advantage, it should not be the sole motivation for doing an MBA. A candidate should ensure the following:
Be passionate about whatever you do. Keep an attitude of exceeding the goals set
Maintain high integrity & never indulge in activities that are against morals & ethics