Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Zafar Sawant on February 20, 2012 at 8:52pm

I think this would only add to the 'bleeding' for the e-commerce companies...

'e-Commerce' would be the new BPO...

Atleast for few years, mediums like TV, media houses aka Web18/Times Group or tech giants like Google/Apple could be a better option for these grads.

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Permalink Reply by Sanchita Dutta on February 20, 2012 at 10:08pm

hey, loved this one. i too feel IIMs who are used to Cushy life, AC office, All expenses paid salaried jobs can never sustain the uncertainties and rigours of a real struggle that most start up companies have to go through. perhaps they would never have joined IIM at the first place if they were capable of that. Remember that story when a young man said he is working and studying very hard to get into a Govt Job so that he doesnt have to work hard again and can lead a paid for hassle free tension free life for ever. What an irony.

Second set of fools would be the Start Up companies themselves. i feel they need street smart people and not IIM grads. they are better off doing calculations and analysis for biggies...

And i really like the humour part. do share a lesson on Viral marketing though. Was planning to google that next!!

 

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Permalink Reply by Kartik R on March 12, 2012 at 9:32pm

Just interviewed 7 IIM grads out of 22 who applied. 

These questions have come real handy :) .. Thanks !

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Permalink Reply by Alok 'Rodinhood' Kejriwal on March 12, 2012 at 10:50pm

the important point is how did they answer!

share as general feedback naa?

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Permalink Reply by Kartik R on March 13, 2012 at 12:21am

Sure Alok,

One of the students of the same  batch is our campus representative and she is very sharp. I had very high expectations and was a little dissapointed that I couldnt get any talent on board.

The IIM curriculum does have case studies but they are outdated ones. They do not really understand digital media or dot com businesses. Basic questions like name few revenue generation channels for websites did not go beyond 1.) advertising 2.) product sales (ecomm). 

Measuring social media impact etc questions seemed unheard of. They are unaware of cost per acquisition, cost per sale, cost per lead etc terms which trickles down to them not being fully aware how e-commerce portals bleed.

The first 4 questions were enough to weed all applicants. I did not get the pleasure of asking the rest 3.

Most probably the best candidates who knew answers to all 7 were recruited on day 0 placements. Most from the ones I interviewed were freshers. I believe they are having a tough time living up to the IIM brand expectations.

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Permalink Reply by Abhik Prasad on March 13, 2012 at 10:27am

I think we are taking a pretty short term view of things here.

Ages ago at one point of time in life, i wanted to become an i banker and work on wall street (yes, Gordon gecko was partly responsible for it :) ) While doing the research on the kinds of people that the big banks hire, I came across an article that those places hired people from diverse backgrounds including History and Art majors from the ivy league colleges. Their main criteria for hiring was intellect with the reasoning that finance and excel skills could be taught over time...but they focussed on hiring the best and the best places..

I think we need to look at the IIMs in a similar light...even though our education system is far from perfect, the IIT's and IIMs bubble up a reasonably good group of intelligent and hard working people. Some of the key learnings that most people imbibe sub consciously at these places include, learning to learn new stuff, hard work, appreciation of a deadline and getting work done. They are also pretty hard working and motivation for money is not necessarily a bad thing.

So in that context, asking them very pointed questions on e commerce might not be the best way to judge them...the basics of e commerce can be learned very quickly...what needs to be looked at is their thought process and how they can bring about a different line of thought compared to to the 'veterans' who have been in the industry.

cheers

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Permalink Reply by Venudhar Bhatt on March 16, 2012 at 8:50pm

I fully echo the view here. As I read all the comments, I had already thought of writing something like that myself but am glad that I have been saved from the effort from doing so and you have written it very well.

We complain that Indian education system promotes rote learning but people focus on rote learning because they are evaluated on that and not on the real intellect or traits such as what I call "learnability". Do you think that for a smart individual it would be very difficult to pick up these things quickly? I myself have done well in a domain (technology enabled learning), that I have learned nothing about during my formal education (plastics technology). Only good companies hire people not for what they know but what they are capable of knowing, understanding and doing! Essentially these companies have a long term wholesome view of managing business.

However, most others are worried about the results tomorrow. It is for the same reason that training or learning and development in this country is largely nothing to be talked about. One is trained well only if there is no other alternative, like in the software industry where companies like Infosys hire engineers who specialize in any domain (such as mechanical or electrical engg.) to be trained for 6 months on programming and turned into programmers.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Felix on March 16, 2012 at 2:46pm

Alok , The f***ers inside the Industry cant answer more than one or two questions , actually :D

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