In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2020-22, we feature MBA students who have walked that extra mile and done that little more to stand out! One of those featured in today's story, Harishankar, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve his true potential. Read on and find out his story!The following are Harishankar’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Harishankar's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his own words.Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life."Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart." - Roy T. Bennett. It was 2017, and I was in my 3rd year of engineering at NIT Silchar. I was an active member of the Chess Club there. The All India INTER-NIT Chess Championship was due to be held in April. We had narrowly missed out on a podium finish the preceding year by placing fourth. We did not want to miss out this time and so were practising hard. The notice for the competition was out in February; It was to be held at NIT Srinagar. The situations in Jammu and Kashmir were terrible in the Burhan-Wani aftermath. There was a lot of violence and fear propagating in that part of the country. We were initially reluctant to go. Then we made our minds up. The college budget constraints did not allow us air travel for the entire distance, and for trains, we could not get reserved seats. Yet, we decided to give it our all. We travelled in unreserved compartments through the scorching summer heats of UP and Bihar and switched to a flight from Delhi to the chilling sub-zero temperatures of Srinagar, and we bore it all. Once we got there, we dived into our preparations. We gave it our all and won the 1st ever gold medal in the 50-year history of NIT Silchar since its inception, against all the odds, travelling over 3000 kilometres.When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.In my second year of work experience at Ashok Leyland, I was shifted from the Tooling department to EDM Cell as one of its senior members unexpectedly resigned. One of my responsibilities in tooling included updating the daily tracker. High volumes of tool settlements during the time due to new projects led to 2 hours a day to update. The responsibility was shifted to another member. However, he was on leave at the time and returned after a week. Upon his return, there was immense pressure to update the list to present for the monthly review within three days. He was distraught and felt overwhelmed. Those three days, I decided to stay after work to help him out. After office hours (6:30 P.M), we would work on till 10:30 P.M., taking turns. We talked and joked our way through. The positivity and patience helped change the feelings from that of frustration to that of feeling empowered.Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?During the last four months of my training as a GET, I was placed in the tooling team responsible for the cost settlement of tools with the supplier. One of my initial assignments that turned into a significant challenge during this stint was the updation of the daily tracker. It was a database of all the tool quotes received, offers sent, and offers settled with all the suppliers on a day-to-day basis. The volumes of transactions were huge. The daily updations were to be done by one of my colleagues and me on alternate days. It took us way beyond 2 hours a day to update it. I recognized a scope for system improvements. When I suggested that we focus on system improvements by contributing a few extra hours for a few days to make our work more effortless in the long term, my colleague brushed it aside, stating it would be a waste of time. Since I could not convince him to try out things differently, I decided that the best course of action would be to try some stuff out myself initially and show how it works. I upskilled on Excel and incorporated several formulae into the sheet to save on time. I also automated the summary tables. After upgrading the Excel file, I displayed the file to my colleague, who then was intrigued and wanted to know more of such improvements we could make. We joined forces and came up with some other formulae that helped our cause. Eventually, we could update the tracker in less than an hour, saving a whopping 30+ person-hours monthly.What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?Chess. It doesn't matter if I haven't had food or not slept for stretches - if I get an invite, I still will play chess. Chess induces in me the "state of flow," as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi prefers to call it. When I am playing a game of chess, I turn entirely oblivious to my surroundings and get involved in the game. The level of involvement is also what exactly drives the joy. The fact that I have played >10000 games online over the past year serves as a testament.I first learnt chess from my father. After that, I developed an interest through playing with my twin brother over time. I, later on, have earned the following accolades over the years:2012 - District U-17 Silver Medal2014 - Emerging Player of the Year award for being the Best Player on Debut at NIT Silchar (1 in 600+)2014-18 - Podium finish for four consecutive years at the Intra-NIT Chess Championship (1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), captain Hostel 3 Chess team2017 - Gold Medal winner in the All India Inter-NIT Chess Championship held at NIT Srinagar (1 out 21000 wins)2020-21 - Medal winner for both the years in XLRI's annual chess competition2021 - Anointed the Captain of XLRI Chess team out of 720 candidates2020 - Led XLRI to a podium finish out of 150 players, and a cash prize in India's biggest B-School Fest by SPJIMRIf 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?From the 20 million dollars, I will initially set aside 200,000 dollars for my family - to enjoy life the following year.I would then take assistance from a senior investment specialist to understand how to allocate the remaining funds to different areas to generate the best returns. 10% of the returns annually would be directed towards social service. Areas for philanthropy will be determined through Pareto principles to understand where the major issues lie. Investing the other 90% ensures that we will have constant cashflows throughout, and we can maintain a sustainable virtuous cycle fulfilling our needs and serving society at the same time.Any Other Comments Or Factors You Would Like To Highlight About Yourself? Following are some of my significant achievements:1. Academic:1.1. Granted the Prime Minister's Scholarship for four years for being a Meritorious ward of Paramilitary Personnel - 2014-18.1.2. Achieved a Maximum score of10/10 in AISSE and was granted the Certificate of Merit by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) - 2012. 1.3. Scored 99.64%ile in the qualifying examination for JEE Mains'14.1.4. Bagged a State Rank 108 in JEE Mains to Qualify for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2014.1.5. XLRI Top 17 (Top 2.3%of 56,981competitors) in the TATA Imagination Challenge to qualify for the 2nd round.1.6. Quarterfinalist out of 1000 teams in the Global Management Challenge - the World's Largest Strategy and Management Competition, 2021.1.7. Secured a State Rank of 5 in the 1st Biotechnology Olympiad conducted by EduHeal Foundation and a State Rank 7 in the Interactive Maths Olympiad in 2007.2. Work Experience (22 months - Deputy Manager at Ashok Leyland)2.1. Settled 78.2 Lakhs worth of tools single-handedly, realizing a cost-saving of 16.53 Lakhs in 2019.2.2. Nominated by the Vice President (Head of Procurement) as the All India SPOC for Sourcing & Supply Chain in the Change Management Committee for Ashok Leyland from 500+ employees in S&SC as a Core Team Member, while also being the youngest.2.3. Realized annualized cost savings of 1.78 Lakhs by ideating & implementing solutions to counter Pareto rejections, whilst exceeding the set targets by 11.2%, to get a Letter of Appreciation from the Plant Head of the Bhandara Manufacturing Plant, Ashok Leyland. 3. Placement Operations at XLRI:3.1. Worked as a Senior Executive Member of Team Controls - Placement Operations of XLRI, placing 530 students over 220+ jobs, 100% virtually in record time by incorporating features to increase the efficiency by 33%.3.2. Ran 1100+ hrs of simulation 3.3. Conducted 100% virtual placements in line with the Green initiative at XLRI.3.4. Ran the Placement Process with 3123 unique GD/PI instances4. Internship and Live Project4.1. Interned with Flipkart, earning a stipend of 2.48 Lakhs in two months.4.2. Bagged a paid Live Project with Invest India with the initially agreed stipend increased by 300%.Read the stories of the other Employable Graduates here!