DAY '0'

When I heard the alarm of my cell phone, I had two simultaneous realizations – one, it was morning and two, I had my eyes open even before the alarm rang. I am not sure whether I slept that night or not but yes, I was having a severe headache which normally happens when I do not sleep and am tensed. Day ‘0’ had begun and I was nervous :(

At this point of time, let me tell you what Day ‘0’ means. In ISB and IIMs, we have a placement week during which almost 95% of the junta gets placed. Companies mostly come for their placement process during this week. The placement week lasts from Day 1 to Day 7. Each company is assigned a Day of the week depending on the preferences of the junta. Day 1 companies are the ones that are the most sought after. At ISB, Day 1 companies are the consulting biggies like Mckinsey, BCG, Oliver Wyman, Booz Allen Hamilton etc and IBs like Deutsche Bank etc. Since their selection procedures are lengthy and last more than a day (these companies have multiple rounds of interviews), they come a day before the Day 1 so as to wind up their selection processes by the end of Day 1. This day just before Day 1 is called the Day ‘0’ of placements.

I had as many as 13 back to back interviews scheduled on Day ‘0’. I had my first interview with HUL (formerly HLL) scheduled at 0830 hrs. HUL people missed their flight from Mumbai due to which their GD/interviews started late. Therefore, I could not participate in their GD because their new GD/interview timings clashed with my other interview timings. I did not even have time to make a request to them. So, HUL was out :(

I then rushed for my A T Kearney (ATK) interview. Just then I got a call from Oliver Wyman (OW) guys saying that my interview that was scheduled at 1500 hrs had been preponed. Since OW was my dream firm, I did not want to turn down OW’s request. I talked to ATK guys about my problem (without taking OW’s name) and they agreed. One of the ATK guys, Pranshul (name changed) said to me, "Do not worry Abhishek. Each and everyone shortlisted will be interviewed, be it even at 0200 hrs tonight. ATK understands the problem of students having multiple shortlists." I breathed a sigh of relief and moved on :)

I was damn serious for OW. May be, that was the reason why all of my OW interviews were pretty good. In the afternoon, I did find time for my ATK interview and I thought it went pretty well. I got some 15 minutes off in the afternoon. I headed straight towards the Canteen on the ground floor to fill myself in but as soon as I got down to the ground floor, my cell phone rang and a female voice asked me to appear urgently for my next round of OW interview. I had no option. OW was above anything else. The fact that OW’s request was coupled with a female voice, made my choice easier ;). I said to myself, "Never mind pal. No breakfast, no lunch…hope it pays off and I have a grand dinner tonight." The interview was good.

By the time I wrapped up initial rounds of interviews of other companies like Accenture, it was around 2000 hrs. OW people said there was just one final round remaining and they wanted to interview me right after the candidate who was then getting interviewed. Pranshul of ATK wanted my next ATK interview right then. The student volunteers who were managing OW interviews made a request on my behalf to ATK guys to let me off for another 30 minutes so that I could finish my last OW interview. Just then Accenture people started searching for me for my second round. I requested them to give me 15 minutes so that I could get done with OW, and they obliged. Accenture and OW interviews were happening in adjacent set of rooms. Accenture guys saw me waiting for my OW interview in the adjacent seating area for the next one hour (and I had asked them for just 15 minutes). OW people literally locked me up (with my consent) in one of the rooms so that Accenture and ATK guys could not pressurize me to interview with them.

My final OW interview was my 11th of the day. I was very, very tired and so was the interviewer. I was asked to solve two cases and was told it was ‘make or break’ for me. I somehow managed to solve them. I knew I was through as the interviewer dropped enough hints to cement my inference :))

According to the ISB Placement Policy, the results are actually released at 1800 hrs on Day 1. Since it was Day ‘0’, the companies were not supposed to release their results. But it is not that you will have no inkling of your selection. You will.

I then went for my Accenture interview. After going through 11 interviews, I was enervated. Though I needed a job on Day ‘0’, I was sure I did not want to join Accenture. Everything became clear in my mind as to which company I wanted to join. The interviewer was literally holding my hand and making me solve the case. I finally gave in and gave it to him straight, "Amit (name changed), I am sorry but I am not interested in Accenture." The interviewer was kind enough to leave me. I then headed straight to Pranshul for my ATK interview. It was 2300 hrs. "Hi Pranshul. Can we have my interview now?" I said. Pranshul replied, "Abhishek, we are done for the day. Rest of the interviews will be conducted tomorrow. Why don’t you come at 0900 hrs tomorrow? Do not worry. We will definitely interview you. Go to your room and relax."

I was tensed though I knew OW was in my kitty. Unless I got the OW offer in written, I could not have assumed that I got the job. I did not feel like having my dinner. Sleep dumped me as if it were my girlfriend who had caught me two-timing her. Tring, tring…my cell phone rang at 2345 hrs. "Am I talking to Abhishek?" a male voice croaked from my phone. "Yupp, you are listening to Abhishek. May I know who is calling?" I replied. The guy responded, "Hi Abhishek. This is Pranshul from ATK. I just called up to assure you that your interview will be taken and that you should not worry about it. Have a nice sleep and come to us tomorrow at 0900 hrs." I had my Aditya Birla Group (ABG) interview scheduled at 0930 hrs the next day. I wondered how I would make it to the ATK interview on time. The next thought that crossed my mind was to ruin my ABG interview and rush for the ATK one.

Amidst all what I went through on Day ‘0’, I could not talk to my inspiration – my ‘best friend’ for the second consecutive day. She did not know my placement week had already begun. When I called her up, she was upset and I did not have the energy to explain things to her. I had no good reasons. I told her that I was having mock interviews for the placements but she was clever enough not to buy that reason. Had she known about Day ‘0’, she would have tried her best to help me out and relieve me off my tensions but... :((

Just when I heard her disconnect the phone, I also heard the silence of my room mock at my helplessness. Lying in my bed helpless as if in coma, I waited for another inevitable stressful and grueling day just like an old man awaiting his death which he can't evade...

Reliving the Placement Experience…

My sincere apologies to those who wanted me to come back with my new posts much before than I actually have. I was a little busy with my family business. I now have quite a few experiences to write about, the first two of which would be my state just before the placements and my state during the placements.

As I told you in my last blog, I did not form a group for my interview preparations. What happens in an interview prep session is that one guy in the group interviews the other. The rest of the group members observe and later give feedback. Group members take turns and interview.

Almost everyone had a group by December ’07 end. On the other hand, I kept on procrastinating joining a group. In January ‘08, when I returned from Patna, I started to feel the heat. I asked a few groups to let me in but they were already overflowing with additional members. An offer from a group of IITians finally came and I joined them. I attended their prep sessions for a week. After a week, I left their group because their objectives were not in line with mine or rather we had different ways of working. They were a sincere bunch of guys but they were reviewing different courses before they would get into case-study interview sessions. I knew Management Consulting was my priority and case-study interviews formed a major portion of these interviews. I do not work more than what is required. I, therefore wanted only case-study interview sessions. I then joined hands with a girl named Neha Iyengar that did help a lot. Though I had only 2 sessions with her, I learnt a lot. I think I will seriously remain indebted to her because she cleared all my doubts and also filled me with confidence. Other offers to join any group were turned down by me because those groups might not have been of much use to me.

I started prepping (preparing) on my own. I used to interview myself. [Wait a minute. Do I hear guffaws???] I know it sounds weird but this is what had happened. My quadies (‘quadies’ comes from quad-mates which means the students I used to share our quad with) had laughed at hearing this. Anyone would. But they used to say I would get the best job. I guess they knew my capabilities or may be, they were just being sarcastic.

One week before the interviews, I was totally lost. Jaundice made my life tougher. Check out my pics on my orkut profile at

http://www.orkut.co.in/Profile.aspx?uid=12944013261399948546&pcy=3&t=0

in the albums to see my condition just before placements. I had shortlists from all (except one) Consulting companies. The issue that worried me was whether I would be able to convert at least one of them. I always knew I would get the shortlists because I had a powerful resume. Few alums (alumni) who reviewed my resume told me that their companies would think that I had a fantastic resume and that I had done in 1.5 yrs what others do in 4 yrs. They thought I was pretty sharp but then the next thing that came to their mind was, “This guy is just 23. He is still a kid.” The alums scared the shit out of me when they said I had done a big mistake by not forming an interview prep group. My friends used to look at me with pity. My confidence plummeted leaving me worried.

Pressure never eludes me. My uncle (my mother’s cousin), a graduate from IIT KGP and IIMB had already bagged an offer from Barclays, London. Let me tell you, Barclays offers a hefty package. Comparisons between him and me were inevitable among our relatives. That my friends from other IITs always kept saying I would get a 1 cr package obviously did not ease the pressure off me. People do not understand that it is only 1 or 2 guys who get the 1 cr offer and not everyone. Even those who get it have considerable experience under their belt whereas I had just a year and a half. Every relative and most of my friends I talked to were like, “You will get lacs of rupees. Tumhari to life ban gai hai. You are so lucky.” Yes, this is what happens. You slog your guts out to get into IIT, to get into ISB, to get into companies like L&T and Oliver Wyman, etc and people will call you ‘lucky’. They will not appreciate your hard work (may be because then they will have an excuse for not being in the same situation as me). Do not get me wrong. Do not think I am contradicting myself when I say I am just average. But yes, I wouldn’t refute having worked hard and having been focused on my aims. I cannot comment on whether their wish of me getting one of the highest package was genuine or not but I certainly knew, it was not doing any good to me. I did not tell my parents and other relatives/acquaintances that the ISB Placement Week was just a week away. I did not even tell my closest friend about the placements. However, she always told me I would get the best. It seemed the objective of every expectation in this world was to intensify the pressure on me. And the problem was that I could not share it with anyone. Had my head been made of some highly elastic material, I would probably resemble an alien with a 5 feet diameter head. I still wonder whether everyone was conspiring to convert me into an alien.

My “orkutting”, talking for hrs on my cell phone, chatting on gtalk, going back to Delhi, Mumbai or Patna in each of the 7 term breaks and also thrice during the terms seemed determined to let me down. It was then that I decided to talk to myself. I told myself I could do it in a week’s time too because “Impossible” says “I M POSSIBLE”. I then prepared all alone 18 hours a day for 4 continuous days. I interviewed myself about 50 times in these 4 days and after each interview analyzed my performance.

February 14, 2008 - Valentine's Day was the day before Day ‘0’ of placements. I was nervous. To make matters worse, I had arguments with my closest friend too. I couldn’t tell her that I had my interviews the next morning because that might have pressurized me even more. I had thought talking to her about other things in the world without telling her about the Placement Week, would calm me down a bit. I know had she known about my situation, she would have supported me a lot and would have talked to me until I felt better. So finally I was left all alone…no close friends, no relatives with whom I could share my fear, my nervousness, my anxiety…My condition was so pitiable that even my sleep betrayed me that night :(

Each time I talked to myself, my brain and my heart said in chorus - "Jaane hoga kya."

My Mind’s Extramarital Affair…

“Hi dude! Kahan ja raha hai? Any assignment due tomorrow?” I asked one of my batchmates at 2000 hrs last night. He replied, “Nahi yaar, going for case-prep.” The placement week is not too far and everyone at ISB is busy preparing for interviews.

Almost all the students here formed their groups for interview preparation in November itself and since then, have been preparing for case-based interviews (in which you are given a business problem and you are required to solve it), personal interviews (in which you are asked behavioral questions) and technical interviews (mainly for areas like finance). The fact that these guys here are so sincere and hardworking makes me wonder whether ISB did the right thing by letting me in.

If you are an ISB aspirant or an ISB new admit and reading the above paragraphs made water vapor condense on your forehead, just relax…ISB is not full of these guys who slog it out day and night just to crack an interview in which you are asked a simple case. There are also a FEW studs ;) who never formed a group and are pretty cool at a time when more than 95% of the junta here is slogging.

I am one of those “groupless” people at the moment (though I am not a stud). I did a few cases in different groups but dropped out very soon, after I realized that cases are not that difficult to crack; you just have to be logical and need to have good reasons for your assumptions and recommendations. Moreover, I am bored of the set procedures that we are supposed to follow in the case-interview (and I do not think this boredom is because of jaundice that I am suffering from). If I prepare more, by the time my actual interview day arrives, I will be bored of solving cases which would undoubtedly show on my face during the interview. I do not think cases require the kind of preparation these guys are putting in. I will not call there preparation an ideal preparation. They are working like school kids and are probably memorizing the cases by heart.

I normally remain cool but when I see these people preparing so hard, I cannot resist asking myself, “Should I become like them and start slogging like they are, or should I believe in my capabilities and be what I have always been – abhishek ‘cool’ chandra???”

May be they are not wrong and do not deserve the criticisms I am bestowing upon them. May be I have a different way of working that suits only me. I know it won’t be long before I have these hypotheses verified. But until then, my mind that is married to “my aims” will have a tough time sleeping with “the above questions”…And I can’t help but be a mute spectator to my mind’s extramarital affair…


Note: Guys, I promise to increase my frequency of writing blogs but it will be after the placement week. Though I am not working too hard and stressing myself, I think I should at least pretend to ;) !!!]