You may watch the session here!
For the second half of our conversation with InsideIIM's Best 30 - The Most Employable Graduates of The Class of 2019-21, we spoke to
1. Isha Mittal (IIM Calcutta, 99.09%ile in CAT, Interned at BCG and secured a PPO),
2. Niharika Gupta (IIM Lucknow, 98.58%ile in CAT, Interned at HUL and secured a PPO at Colgate Palmolive through a Case competition),
3. Abhinaba (XLRI, interned at P&G and got a PPO),
4. Shailesh Maheshwari (IIM Shilong),
5. Abhay Shankar (IIM Kozhikode, interned at Uber, placed at Deloitte Consulting).
This is a two-part article. To read the first part, click here.
1. Let's start with you, Isha. You're a CA and worked with a Credit Management company before IIMC. You found socialising a bit of a task, but you made your way to the Student Council. What did this experience teach you about influencing people?
Isha: While everyone was partying on Friday nights, I was probably auditing. Coming to Joka transformed my life. The culture here is hugely encouraging, and all my seniors say that if you have the enthusiasm (we call it "enthu" here), you can do anything. I was apprehensive about contesting for elections, but I had my seniors' support, my friends' help. They encouraged me to try and see how you can work around it, and I did it. It was astonishing for me to win, although even then.
2. What are the other experiences that stood out for you?
Isha: For me, Summer Placements was a very stressful time. That's the time when your true nature will come out, and it's a nightmare to be. First-year you have to sustain the MBA Life, and second-year is relatively easier to handle. That's when I had to make a choice. Being a CA, I had a decent number of shortlists and for me to drop that and opt for Consulting, having the clarity of what I want and what I was good at was a risk-taking task. It required a lot of mental support from my peers, which Joka culture provided me, which is irreplaceable. That is one thing that stood out.
3. That was an answer from your heart Isha. So, Nikariha, how did you come to be a co-author of a Marketing Case published in the Harvard Business Review? Take us through your journey.
Niharika: I have always been interested in Marketing. Before joining IIM Lucknow, I worked for two years in Sales and Marketing in a B2B. So I was very sure I wanted to do everything Marketing. I even joined the Marketing Cell at my B-school, interned with Unilever and going for Case Competitions in Marketing-related.
After you get a PPO, you relatively have quite some free time to pursue your interests. So I reached out to a professor who writes many cases for IV, HBR, etc. I worked with him, wrote a case with one of his clients and it was test submitted across IV, HBR etc. That's how it got published.
4. That sounds like an incredible success journey! So Abhay, during your Summer internship at Uber, you came up with rider incentives and designed a playbook to capture tourist markets. Uber Jaipur piloted your recommendations. What is the broad methodology that you used?
Abhay: Uber initially had a flat scheme of incentives, and they weren't differentiating much between the customers. They didn't have Amazon Prime for Uber. I recommended them to use it to target a particular set of customers. By using some machine learning algorithms, I created a scheme which they piloted.
5. Shailesh, you're a CA, but you presented a feasible business idea to Jubliant Life Sciences. How did you go forming it?
Shailesh: It was a tough one because the last time I studied Biology is in Class 10th. In this competition, the second round needed two white papers which were Greek to me, but I had the right partner.
We read many research papers, contacted a lot of experts and got a lot of insights from them. We spoke to Good Food Institute, leading the startups in India to provide them with a good ecosystem and knowledge about plant-based proteins in India. We also talked to Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, the American pioneers.
In the third round, we again did a lot of research. We used an Indian ingredient (which is not used anywhere) and combined it with the skills we learn at the B-school. And that's how we could do it.
6. Abhinaba, you have taught at more than 30 NGOs. What drove you to give back to society, and what were your significant learnings from this experience?
Abhinaba: I started doing it as a weekend activity, a part of my National Service Scheme (NSS) enrollment during my Undergraduation. I formed a vast network there, and I grab every opportunity I get to teach at NGOs.
7. Let's talk about your Interview experiences and Summer experiences.
Niharika: There were three rounds in HUL. It started with a GD (Group Discussion) with 12-13 people out of which five were selected on-spot. HUL asks questions that are relevant in a marketing ecosystem. So it's essential to read and know what Brands are doing these days. The next was a GI (Group Interview) round. It was similar to SPJIMR format where all five of us had to answer the same question. And they were very technical questions like, "If you're a Brand Manager, how would you launch a brand?" etc. So having some marketing knowledge is a must. The PI (Personal Interview) round was individualistic. It depended on your profile. For me, they expected me to know about Sales and Distribution and how I could use my learnings from a B2B space and apply it to B2C. It was a conversational interview, which wasn't intimidating at all. It was a pleasant experience overall, both the interview as well as the Internship.
For Colgate Palmolive, we had a competition in the first-year called "Colgate in a Circle". We had to submit an SOP, followed by an interview, and then you get to visit the Headquarters in Mumbai for three days where they gave mini-projects and evaluated based on that. It was again super-technical, and the three-day visit was like a sneak-peek into the life of a Brand Manager at Colgate. I got a PPI which converted into PPO after a rigorous interview.
Isha: Consulting internships are supposed to be a lot of fun offline, but my internship was online. My project was in the Petroleum Industry, and I had no idea about how hydrocarbons work or fractional distillation works. But the environment was very conducive, and my mentor was always there for me to reach out to him. He helped me understand many technical terms; I struggled with basic phrases like viscosity, temperature, pressure and how they'd impact.
You learn at BCG that first principles are what you need and you can learn everything else can on the job. They helped me structure my work, arrive at the next logical step, know what you have to do and plan accordingly. Everything and anything can be structured and broken down. Everything can be achieved if you structure it. First-principles helped me a lot apart from my mentors.
Abhay: My Summer Internship was at Uber. It was a good experience (though not as expected because it was online), because being a Startup, you're not aligned to one particular role, but I felt it was relatively fast-paced too. I was inclined towards Consulting, and after my MBA, I'll be joining Deloitte Consulting.
Shailesh (PPO at DE Shaw): The learning was very different from other batches because it was online. They could share minimal data, but it's a lovely culture out there. We had a lot of sessions, fun sessions in fact, by the team that onboarded us. I even worked with Teams in the US daily, and everyone was friendly.
Abhinaba: I worked in HR-Tech during my Summer internship. My project was related to PAN India Digital Transformation of 8 plants in P&G - there were International and National stakeholders and vendors. So I got to learn a lot about how systems work in India, how they can be improved, and gradually getting there with the increasing uptake and acceptance of such technologies. I'll be joining as an HR Manager of one of the verticals, and our Vision would be to bring in more such new technologies that are already being implemented in other parts of the world.
8. So what would you advise the students for cracking the interviews and get PPIs and PPOs?
Abhay (PPI from Google, Amazon and Accenture Strategy): I have PPIs because I participated in many case competitions. It was quite gruelling.
Niharika: If you're a fresher, they expect you to have basic Marketing knowledge like going through your basic Kotler reading well. Basic understanding of STP and 4Ps is a must.
It's always better to form an opinion on what major FMCG brands are doing - if they have new product launches or how they are innovative, are they purposeful brands or what do you think? About it's CSR activities or advertising etc. Have a nuanced opinion - whether you like it or not, how it could've been better etc.
Thanks to all the Interviewees for such insightful answers.
In the next part, we have the most employable graduates from SIBM Pune, SPJIMR, XLRI and IIM Lucknow who did their Summer Internships at Pidilite Industries, Amazon, P&G and AT Kearney.