Summer placements at IIMB: The last lap

Just done with my mid term exams for this term. Earlier I used to think Open Book exams were the coolest things on earth (after warm water in Bangalore). But now reality has struck me hard. These blasted things only make you feel worse. Imagine having an international edition text book in your hands and still not being able to answer most questions! Does quite a lot to one's sense of self respect. Anyway, people have lived through this and exited. So this will pass away too! :)

Now that mid terms are done, it's only going to get even more hectic. For at least a week more.

SUMMER PLACEMENTS!!!

It's probably the biggest ever happening in one's life at an IIM. Bigger than the Vistas and Unmaads, and maybe even the final placements! Cos this is invariably seen as a sorting exercise - segregating the I-bankers, the consultants, and the rest. Once the summers process is done, one's company becomes one's own identity. Even more so next year when juniors land, they would tend to judge a senior by the company he interned with.

So bloody unfair!

This is where peer pressure rears its ugly head here. It does in Acads too, in the first term. But typically people start chilling out once the first term is done. They do not take grades too much to heart (the vast majority. The others are the ones who belong to the Director's Merit list).

So the point is that almost everyone wants to become a consultant (no one talks about I-banking any more than the world of magic talks about Voldemort). One might truly be interested in marketing or operations or HR. But not willing to be seen as a determined loser, he would still pursue "better" (day zero) roles he is not interested in. Not many realise that the "betterness" of the role is actually subjective!

But going by my interactions with seniors here, I think the realization DOES come. After summers. After people go through myriad experiences at their internship locations and return, they seem to have an uncanny sense of stability of thought. Maturity. From what I hear, people are more reasonable during the final placement process. They listen to their hearts. At least most of them.

BTW, back to the summers process. Consulting interviews are actually loads of fun. They are typically case interviews, where you would be given a business problem, or would be asked to estimate some number. You then keep asking questions to the interviewer and solve the problem. Once one gets into it, its quite enjoyable.

Some samples:
A regular case question could be:
A beer maker from the US launched his product in India. But sales have not been good. Can you find the problem?
So one would first ask a few questions and understand the company, the market in India etc. Then one would get down to specifics and crack the case. The problem could be anything as "trivial" as "the colour of the beer does not match people's preferences" to the supply chain being inefficient to the product simply being very costly. It could be anything! How one goes down from the generic question to this specific issue is what is tested in the interview. Exciting stuff!

Guesstimates are even more exciting. At first sight they might appear totally random, but one can find some way of getting an answer.
A very simple sample:
How many bottles of wine are drunk every week in the US?
One way of solving this could be:
- US population - approx 300 mn
- Roughly 250 mn could be adults
- Roughly 200 mn could be those who drink
- Roughly 150 mn could be those who drink wine
- On an average, lets say each person drinks 2 glasses per week. This means 300 mn glasses of wine are drunk per week totally
- On an average, 5 glasses make a bottle. This means 60 mn bottles of wine are drunk every week in the US
DONE :) Reminds you of Alaipayuthey right?
The point about guesstimate interviews is that the numbers are inconsequential. What is important is the structured way in which you zero in on it.

Got a whole weeks of preps of this sort left :) Wish me luck!