On 19th June 2018, I received a mail from XAHR stating that I had been shortlisted for the HRM program. Prior to that I had given up all hopes and was preparing myself to get a job from somewhere and starting my preparations for the entrance exams yet again. The assignments and deadlines were very scary and rough for me at the beginning but after a while, I kind of got used to them. The best classroom experience I had, happened in a 3hour special Introduction to HRM class where our mam took a surprise assignment test. We had to form groups of 8 with almost all students being from varying backgrounds having different experiences thus making each group diverse in all possible ways.
We were then given a job description reading where we had to decipher which firm it belonged to and what position was the job description for which a deadline was given. In our next task, we were supposed to enact as real HRs and were supposed to make a note on the attributes and indicators while looking for potential candidates. Then we had to show how we would advertise, & when and where we would look for potential candidates.
In our last step we had to prepare a CV showing all the details that we as HR professionals would want in it, specify which tests we wanted to use and why we would want to use them, and in the end, we were supposed to develop our own interview strategy telling various details about the interview process and giving weights to different criteria. While this cumbersome process was very tiring for almost all of us, we enjoyed it a lot as it gave a lot us the first real experience of what being an HR is like. We were confronted with the challenges and problems that real HRs face. I hope we are faced with more such assignments as I personally believe that this form of learning via using practical assignments and exercises imparts much more knowledge and experience than just the textbook pattern of learning ever could.
Which ABG company would you like to work for and why?
The ABG company that I would be interested in working in would be Aditya Birla Finance. Since my background is Commerce I think that this is the best company where I could fit in as an HR manager. Since I have a good understanding in the field that Line Managers would work in Aditya Birla Finance group I think it would be a bit easier in understanding their issues and readdressing them properly as is required by an HR manager. There would be no communication gap between the employees and the HR department, as arises in a lot of other firms due to lack of knowledge about the work done in the firm by the HR manager.
Pratik Mahajan
MBA-HRM, 1st year
XAHR-XUB