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Essay writing Tips

Essay writing is gaining more and more importance as a component of the personal assessment round of the top B schools. The general notion about writing an essay is to organize it according to the word limit, structure it into paragraphs and make it worth reading. But while writing an essay for the IIM admission, you better check your watch than planning the structure and counting the words.

While IIM Bangalore will give 30 minutes to write the essay, the time will be even lesser for IIM Ahmedabad and Lucknow. While the Written Ability Test of the IIM Lucknow is of 15 minutes, the time for writing the essay is as less as 10 minutes in IIM Ahmedabad.

Here, the key is to write as fast as possible in order to finish the essay. Don’t waste time in thinking and planning the structure of the essay, you will not be able to complete it. For this, you would need sufficient practice before you actually take the plunge.

According to a student of IIM Ahmedabad, who is also a student mentor, best way to practice is by picking up a current affairs topic everyday and write as much as you can for 10 minutes.

Your focus should be to start the essay and put as many important points as possible. It is not a compulsion to present it in an impressive and flowery language. But accuracy and correctness of spelling and grammar definitely matters a lot.

The evaluation is based on the number of new ideas or points you can produce in a given time, the different angles in which you analyze the topic and the logic behind your arguments.

It is important to develop the ability to think and articulate fast. For the B-School panelists, it is a tool to see how you structure your thoughts and produce them in least time.

Topics of the essays

Like GDs, essays also have a vast array of topics. They can be on anything under the sun from political, social, economic issues to something abstract.

Some of the last year’s essay topics are:

-- The NGO sector in India is not getting due recognition from the society
-- Should India change from a multi-party system to a bi-party system
-- Pen is ‘not’ always mightier than sword
-- Space tourism
-- News channel’s coverage: A reflection of people’s tastes
-- Corporate Governance
-- Fitness classes should be made compulsory for all politicians
-- Should Nehru’s centers of learning remain elitist?
-- Indian education system does not encourage creativity

Some of the topics for this year which have high probability are:

-- Union and/Rail Budget 2009
-- Women’s Reservation Bill
-- Indo Pak Talks
-- Sachin’s Double Ton
-- India in Olympics

The significance of Essay as a precursor to the PI round

The essay you wrote in the first half of the personal assessment round can generate some questions in the interview round. The interview panel can ask you questions about the essay you have written and you have to defend it. Questions on the topic can also be asked, which demands you to know a lot about the topic. But don’t get tense if you don’t know something. You need to simply admit it.

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IIM-L final placements: 370 offers made

The Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, (IIM-L) concluded its final placement process on a high note by placing 315 students, the largest-ever count for a graduating IIM batch. A total of 370 offers were made to the 315 students, including 41 pre-placement offers (PPOs) and 123 lateral offers for higher-entry placements.

IIM-L does not reveal the highest salary levels offered to its students. However, sources on the campus said the highest salary package offered this year was Rs 75 lakh by a multinational company for a general management profile.

The placement season was much better compared to 2009 when 284 offers were made to 267 students.

A total of 121 recruiting companies visited the campus this year. The number during 2008 and 2009 stood at 98 and 103, respectively.

“Several of our students have been offered senior job profiles because 90 per of our candidates had prior work experience, which is highest among all IIMs,” a placement committee member told Business Standard.

Meanwhile, the placement week saw the return of the finance and information technology (IT) sectors in a big way. At the same time, 32 first-time recruiters including Centrum, Microland, Pfizer, Siemens Information Systems Ltd, Suzlon and Thomas Cook also came head hunting to the institute.

Banks and financial sector firms led with 24 per cent of the total offers in investment banking, proprietary trading, treasury, mergers and acquisitions and global risk management. Prominent companies included Calyon Bank, Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Nomura, Kotak Securities, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Yes Bank, among many others. Sales, marketing and IT/IT-enabled services sectors followed closely with 20 and 19 per cent offers, respectively.

Top recruiters, including McKinsey and Co, Procter & Gamble (P&G), Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Group, Deutsche Bank, Deloitte and KPMG were among the 121 companies that participated in the placement process.

While, P&G, Goldman Sachs and Cognizant made maximum offers at 10 each, Yes Bank and Deloitte hired nine and eight candidates, respectively. PPOs were made by Boston Consulting Group, JP Morgan Chase, TAS, Diageo, Agro Tech Foods, Marico, ITC and Reckitt Benckiser.

The Higher-Entry Placement Program witnessed over 100 lateral offers by Olam International, Philips, Goldman Sachs, Yes Bank, Ernst & Young Dubai, Deloitte, Cognizant, Mindtree Consulting, IBM Consulting and Rediff, among others.

Key recruiters in the sales and marketing space included Nokia, Puma, Pepsi, Cadbury and Reckitt Benckiser among others. Conglomerates such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, RPG, Essar and Siva Group were prominent recruiters. Philips, Asian Paints, and Arshiya International were firms offering Supply Chain Management profiles. The PSUs, who visited the IIML campus this time, included ONGC, Power Grid, NTPC and Shipping Corporation of India, who offered lucrative profiles in Finance, HR and General Management.

 

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XLRI Highest placement of Rs 50 lakh

JAMSHEDPUR: Pharma major Novartis offered the highest placement offer of Rs 50 lakh (USD 1,10,000) at the XLRI School of Business and Human Resources here for its prestigious HR leadership role at Basel, Switzerland.

The highest domestic package was Rs 26 lakh made by a consulting firm for its Mumbai desk whereas the average domestic package was at Rs 14.2 lakh, a 20 per cent increase over last year's figure.

The placement process attracted 75 companies giving a total of 205 offers to a batch of 120 Business Management and 60 Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (HR) students, XLRI Placement Committee Secretary Venkatesh K told reporters here last evening.

The campus recruitment programme 2010 saw 90 per cent of the batch accepting offers made by some of the most coveted organizations for their Indian and international locations followed by a strategically planned rolling process which enabled 100 per cent placements, Venkatesh K said.

XLRI, Venkatesh K said, maintained its position as a destination for premier finance roles as 28 per cent of the total offers came from the financial sector such as Goldman Sachs, Nomura Holdings, Edelweiss, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, ICICI, Axis Bank and YES Bank.

He said marketing has drawn renewed interest from the students and was the most sought after profile with 30 per cent accepting offers.

A total of 25 per cent of the students received top notch consulting offers.

"XLRI has once again reinforced its long standing supremacy as the best B-school in Asia-Pacific for Human Resources Recruitments continues to be robust and growing with the participation of major firms in this sector." 

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Future managers should put theory into practice

The pursuit of success unfolds many challenges and choosing right career option is the first step towards meeting them. However, a few understand that it's not the end but a beginning. Certain careers beckon students for their good job prospects.

Management education is one of the most sought after options today. Aspiring MBA set their eyes on getting a toehold in the best business school. However, the industry professionals say students are under a wrong notion that entry into a premier management institute makes things easier for future. More than teachers, infrastructure or syllabus, it is perception that makes the best business institute stand out. Management is not just a lucrative career option but it's an attitude, the experts feel.

Students should understand the whole concept, says Dr (Capt) Chitale, dean, department of management sciences, University of Pune. "In order to become good managers, students should know what management is. It is part of every walk of life. Many aspirants have some vague idea about management. There are sub-options like finance, human resources, marketing, IT, communications and so on in the management field. Students should zero in on the branch they would like to pursue. When one is clear about one's goal, it can be approached easily," Chitale adds.

According to him, management schools should act more as academic institutes. "They give knowledge and create a solid foundation. Nowadays, many of them appear acting more as placement agencies. The syllabus is more or less industry-centric but all that matters is its implementation. There are certain things, current affairs for instance, we cannot incorporate in the syllabus. B-schools should organise seminars and workshops on issues like global warming, terrorism, budget and the like. Management is required everywhere, right from home to traffic to governance. These could be good lessons for budding managers," he says.

Students should not be learning the basics after joining jobs, he feels. "Proper orientation is needed. Many of them can't recollect in the fourth semester what they learn during the first. If they want to succeed, they should think beyond jobs. Most industries are not happy with today's management school products. Why have any disparity between needs of the industry and education?" he wants to know.

Putting theory into practice will take students far, he opines. "Perfect application of theory is crucial. Learning process continues all through the life. Management education is mere preparation and real learning starts with experience. They should hone their skills and get the basics right. Basically, why should one learn for getting jobs? If we study to build competence, success follows," Chitale says.

Good business schools should develop students' ability to think and anaylise, he says. "This is what management is all about. That's why it is called an attitude and way of life. Let students learn the basics and rest assured. B-schools should focus on this ground reality," Chitale avers. 

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IIFT 100% Placements

The Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) this year has seen its highest international salary package, till date, of $150,000 per annum, besides recording the highest average salary of Rs 11.54 lakh.

The final placements season that began in December last year saw 62 companies making offers to 164 students.

“This time around, the placements took place in three phases — international companies, lateral placements and final placements that ended in the first week of March. We spread this out as we did not want the recruiters to be under pressure,” said Munish Bhargava, corporate and placement advisor, IIFT.

About 30 per cent of the batch of 164 students, had pre-placement offers from firms like Cognizant Business Consulting, Mahindra & Mahindra, Johnson & Johnson Medical Systems, Tata Steel, Reckitt Benckiser, among others. Almost 10 per cent of the batch got placed overseas with Olam International offering the highest salary of $150,000. Other international recruiters included Triton Group, Sudima International, Punj Lloyd and Wilson International.

The highest domestic salary was Rs 13.08 lakh, while the average salary increased by 53 per cent over the last year at Rs 11.54 lakh per annum. Moreover, real estate companies along with energy and infrastructure firms were the new ones who visited the campus. The first timers included Amazan Agro, Daimler India, ONGC, Johnson & Johnson Medical Systems, Religare, Tata International, Jaypee Capital, ICICI Securities, Cairn Energy, SBI Capital, Gati, GE Corporation, MARG Group, Interglobe and Vistasoft.

“This year’s highest salary crossed the pre-slowdown levels. Last year, 30 per cent of the students opted for public sector jobs despite getting higher offers from private companies as the sentiment was to have a stable job,” added Bhargava. However, the institute still follows the one student-one offer policy as part of which a student can’t sit for another company’s exam if he already has one offer.

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IIM-B final placements

Providing a strong indication of a positive sentiment for the economy, the final placements season at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) was closed in just five days — half the time the institute took to place students last year. The highlight of the process was that 90 students accepted offers in slot zero (generally the first day) — a 41 per cent increase over the previous year.

Slot zero is the most coveted slot given to recruiters, usually investment banks and consultancies. Over 120 companies came to IIM-B this year for a batch of 270 students. Like last year, banking and financial services companies were at the top of students’ preference, with 27 per cent choosing to work with them. Consulting was the second, with 22 per cent, followed by IT & Systems (20 per cent), marketing (12 per cent) and general management (9 per cent). The rest was accounted for by private equity, healthcare, energy and public-sector units.

IT companies were the surprise package this year. About 50 students accepted offers from these companies. This is understood to be nearly double the number of acceptances last year. Wipro, HCL, MindTree, IBM and Cognizant were among the prominent recruiters. Wipro is said to have made eight offers, while HCL made 5 offers. “After a lull in the sector last year, IT companies have come back with renewed hiring requirements. They have offered good salaries to students in roles like consulting and sales and marketing,” said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-B.

Consulting firm Deloitte made 10 offers, the highest in IIM-B, followed by McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group, who made nine offers each. Some other slot-zero recruiters this year were Bain & Co, Booz & Co, AT Kearney, Diamond Consulting, Alvarez & Marsal, Nomura and Temasek Holdings. P&G, ITC and American Express made six offers each. There were 15 new companies, including healthcare group Narayana Hrudayalaya, which offered senior level positions to six students, on the campus this year. The institute refused to comment on salaries, but it is learnt that there was an increase of 10-20 per cent in average salaries across sectors. Seventy-two students had received pre-placement offers from the companies they interned with.

Lateral placements, for which only students with over 22 months of work experience are eligible, saw a total of 66 offers, compared to 50 offers last year. There were 30 companies in the lateral placements this year.

Praveen, one of the members of the student placement committee, said nearly 10 companies that had not hired last year returned to the campus. The institute had a provision in place this year to refund fees of students who took up jobs with non-government organisations for three years, but officials said they were yet to get a confirmation on this from one or two students who were interested.

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Teaching: Business sense for entrepreneurs

KOLKATA: They are just as sharp and focused as some of the youngsters they train. And they could easily have been in their shoes, taking charge of the country's corporate sector. But they have chosen a behind-the-scene role of grooming business leaders, which has also proved to be a lucrative career option for many of these IIM and IIT graduates. Running a CAT coaching centre, they say, could be as rewarding as a multinational job if not more profitable and satisfying. 

Take Naveen Saraff, for instance. The IIM-Bangalore passout quit a job with Reliance Capital in Mumbai to train CAT aspirants at IMS Learning Centre in Kolkata as a franchisee. The reason: he found it as promising and interesting an option as any job that he could land with his IIM degree. "I wanted to be in Kolkata and preferred doing my own thing rather than a regular job. Also, the jobs offered to us on campus were not as lucrative as some of them now are," says Saraff, now the city head of Career Launcher, another CAT training institute. 

Saraff enjoys sharing

his experiences with students and helping them with 

insights and inputs that only an IIM passout can give. "It allowed me to do what I wanted to. I was confident of earning enough," he adds. 

A teaching stint at Time, another leading CAT training institute, changed the course of Rahul Reddy's career. The IIM-Calcutta graduate switched over to teaching entrepreneurship in Kolkata after holding senior posts in MNCs. "The entrepreneurship bug bit me on the IIM campus. I always wanted to be in the education field and try and do things differently. Also, I felt that I could help CAT aspirants do better and help more crack the test," he says. 

Others like Nikunj Bhagat, a partner at Career Launcher, made the switch since it made his professional life more flexible. "Working 12 hours a day and living out of a suitcase was not my idea of happiness. I was better off without the pressure," says Bhagat, an IIM-Bangalore passout. 

With a mechanical engineering degree from IIT-Kanpur and a management diploma from XLRI, Charapreet Singh never really saw himself as a teacher or an entrepreneur till he started teaching CAT aspirants at IMS as a part-time job. Singh, however, didn't take the plunge immediately. After successful stints with Tata Steel, PwC, Compaq and HP, he finally returned to his CAT training job as an entrepreneur. "I have no regrets," says Singh, who now heads the Praxis Business School. 

A growing number of students from leading B-schools across the country are joining management entrance coaching centres. And IIMs are no exception. Last year, two IIM-Ahmedabad students and one from IIM-Indore joined IMS as managers. One from XLRI, Jamshedpur, did the same. 

But are they losing in financial terms to pursue their interest? Yes and no, according to the teacher-entrepreneurs. "Considering the rise in the number of CAT aspirants over the last 10 years, the market has expanded phenomenally. When I started in 1999, around 3000 would take the test from Kolkata," said Saraff. "Now, the number hovers around the 14,000 mark and nearly all of them go through coaching. On the other hand, corporate salaries have gone up manifold. The highest salary offered on campus was around Rs 6 lakh when I passed out. It's five times that figure now. So, at the end of the day it is an individual decision." he adds.

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MBA aspirants file RTIs and may move to court

Even as many students got calls from the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other business schools for personal interviews and group discussions, many others are upset with their low scores in the Common Admission Test (CAT) and are raising a “transparency” issue with the institutes, besides mulling legal action.

The IIMs were just recovering from the uproar over technical glitches during the CAT. Now, at least five students have filed applications under the Right to Information (RTI) law. More are said to be in the offing. Students that Business Standard spoke to did not wish to be named, but said they are also in discussion with lawyers. More, some IIM professors are said to be lending support to the entire initiative, as they were themselves not happy at the manner the first computer-based CAT had been conducted.

The issue largely revolves around the lack of transparency in the marking scheme and lack of access to details on the test papers. A few faculty members of a test-preparing institute, who also took the CAT exam, said their score was as high as the 90th percentile, though they did not attempt most questions. “We have a team of people who take the exam from our institute. We divide the sections among us and attempt only that. So, many of us just attended one section, but have ended with scores as high as the 86 to 90 percentile. We are sure this has happened to students across the board,” said a faculty member from one such institute. 

“IIM professors have told us to go ahead and file a complaint, as none is coming forward with an explanation on the procedure they used to score us. Besides, Prometric (the agency conducting the test) has also not been helpful in removing our doubts,” said a student, who said he had scored highly in the US-administered Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) but not in CAT, “despite it being an easy paper”.

After IIM-Ahmedabad said it had replaced its admission procedure from a point-based system to one with more weightage to class X and XII marks, students have been upset about not having been informed earlier. A CAT candidate said, “It is unfair of IIM-A to change the admission procedure after the results, although they may have the right to do this. The entire CAT 2009 had been a shock for us and this only makes matters worse for us.”

“Many are not happy with the results, as some of them have scored as high as 99.2 per cent in XAT (test for admission to XLRI and XIMB) and only around 96 per cent in CAT and are getting calls from top business schools but not the IIMs. Also, it is unfair for the IIMs to change their admission process at this time,” said Gautam Puri, vice-chairman, Career Launcher.

“We don’t try to search for different permutations and combinations by excluding a particular criterion like Class X or XII scores while screening candidates, as we do not want to come across as biased. Instead, we feed all the pre-requisites of selection criteria into a system and send call letters to all those who fit the eligibility criteria. As for replacing the point-based system of gauging academic performance with a straight 70 per cent score in Class X and XII exams, the move was to simplify the whole process and not discriminate any student,” explained Diptesh Ghosh, chairpersons-admissions of IIM-A, in response to the allegations.

Students, meanwhile, have also written a letter (signed by over 100 students) to the IIMs and faculty members on the issue. “Prior to the CAT examination, IIM authorities had categorically stated that the difficulty levels across papers in a slot were consistently maintained by generating a large number of questions of equal difficulty to establish equivalence; but now have introduced a vague term in the scorecard, ‘Psychometric equivalences’ to adjust for the difficulty levels. There seems to be a contradiction. We students are confused to see such a marking scheme introduced without prior notification before the exam and till now, no explanation has been given from the IIMs or Prometric,” states the letter, among other things.

“It is the right of the candidate to know about the changes in marking scheme, if any, prior to the examination. None of the IIMs or Prometric informed us regarding differential marking. IIMs were following only equal marking all this while. In the absence of the appropriate information regarding the changes in the examination and evaluation pattern, many serious candidates are now in a state of shock and disbelief. At the same time, many low-scoring candidates have expressed their surprise on the high scores,” said a student from Delhi.

“If the IIMs and Prometric are sure of their methodology and calculations, please make the detailed scores of each candidate public. Let there be no doubt in the minds of the students, by making each parameter of CAT 2009 transparent,” asserted another student.

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Top consulting firms at IIM Calcutta Placements

Kolkata: Several top consulting firms, including Oliver Wyman Group, McKinsey and Co., Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Co. and Opera Solutions have confirmed their participation in the final placements round at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) starting on Saturday.

US-based Oliver Wyman would be visiting the campus for the first time, said Samyukktha Thirumeni, external relations secretary at the institute.

The Singapore government’s investment arm Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd would be returning to the campus after a year, Thirumeni added. Swiss bank UBS AG has also confirmed participation in slot zero—or the first round of recruitment in which companies hunt for the best talent.

Finance companies such as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital have already offered jobs to students who interned with them during the summer of last year, according to Thirumeni.

These are called pre-placement offers, or PPOs. Last year, IIM-C students received 50 “slot zero PPOs” and 39 job offers in slot zero. With so many finance and consulting firms confirming their participation in slot zero, IIM-C students are expecting much better offers this year, Thirumeni added.

Yet, the institute has like last year decided to keep the placements open-ended, according to Prafulla Agnihotri, professor and chairman of placements at IIM-C.

“We would be placing the biggest batch in IIM-C’s history this year,” he said.

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IIM-B to refund fees of students opting for NGO placements

The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) will refund the fees of around Rs 8 lakh that students pay for their two-year Post Graduate Programme (PGP) if they take up a job in any non-profit entity (NGO) and work there for at least three years.

Students who work in an NGO for a year, too, could get a part-waiver of their fees.

IIM-B officials explained that the decision was taken because a number of students had expressed a desire to work with NGOs over the past few years but were concerned about their finances.

The IIM-B board of governors discussed the issue in a meeting in October 2009 and passed the proposal to take effect for the 2010 placement, starting March 4.

“We want our students to work in NGOs and even the government sector, where there is need for better management,” Pankaj Chandra, director of IIM-B told Business Standard.

The institute believes the move will encourage many of its students to gain a different kind of work experience, simultaneously helping people at the grassroots level.

“We have NGOs like Teach For India and Azim Premji Foundation coming to campus. We have had Narayana Hrudayalaya make a pre-placement talk to students,” said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-B.

The institute declined to explain how it was planning to make good the cost of the fee waiver.

Teach For India, one of the NGOs that made a presentation to final-year students at IIM-B, is looking to recruit students for its two-year Fellowship, which involves placing full-time teachers in low-income schools.

Shveta Raina, national head of fellowship research at Teach For India, said IIM-B’s fee refund was encouraging initiative.

“For two years, our Fellows will get an opportunity to be trained in innovative methods. At the end of the two years, they can avail of our placement services. Companies like McKinsey, Mastek, Thermax and ICICI Bank are interested in hiring from us,” she said.

IIM-B and NGO officials admit that pay-wise, there would be quite a gap in the salaries offered in the corporate and social sector but say the exposure from such programmes would come in handy even if they choose to go back to the corporate sector after a short stint.

For instance, as a fellow at Teach For India, an IIM student could earn around Rs 23,000 a month including stipend, house and classroom allowance whereas companies typically pay IIM freshers between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh a month.

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XIMB: 100% placements

Bhubaneswar: The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), one of the premier B-schools of the country, has announced that all its Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) and Post Graduate Diploma in Management(Rural Management ) have got placements in Xuberance 2010, the Institution’s annual campus recruitment process. 

“The PGDM batch of 2010 saw an average salary of Rs10.52 lakh per annum, a 45% increase compared to last year," said XIMB director Fr. PT Joseph. With over 27% of the batch receiving pre-placement calls from their summer internship organizations, the momentum of placements continued with over 58 companies participating in the recruitment process. Of these 16% were first time recruiters, he added. 

According to XIMB placement coordinator Kalpesh Kela, Xuberance 10 saw regular recruiters like Cognizant, OLAM International, HCCBPL, Deloitte, UB Group, Vodafone, Infosys, HP, Tata Corp HR, TCS, HSBC, Wipro, Axis Bank, Dr Reddy’s, Essar Group, Societe Generale, ICRA, Tata Steel, Fidelity, Mahindra, Idea, SBI, Tata Tele Services strengthen their relationship with XIMB. New bonds were formed with Nokia, Dell, RBS, Religare, Daimler, Vista Soft, AATCO and many others. The profiles offered varied in their diversity, encompassing corporate finance, equity research, investment banking, marketing, sales and distribution, supply chain management, business consulting, IT consulting, industrial relations and corporate HR. 

The Rural Management Programme of XIMB also witnessed 100% placements this year with all 53 students joining their fields of core competence. The placement week saw the participation of over 20 companies. Some of the star recruiters of this year were ITC, Amul, Mother Dairy, Institute of Financial Management and Research (IFMR), IMRB International, Monsanto India Limited, Manipal Education & Medical group, NASSCOM Foundation, IDBI Bank Ltd etc. 

The highest package of the batch was pegged at Rs 9.5 lakh per annum while the average salary stood at Rs 5.3 lakh per annum . The average salary increased by 18.83% compared to last year’s figures. 

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