Despite Medical Constraints, Post Work-Hours, I Prepped Even Harder For CAT - Shailaja Yeleswarapu, IIM K , InsideIIM's Best 30

"I hail from a multi-linguistic family, with my direct family settled in Gujarat for the last three generations. I am currently pursuing MBA from IIM Kozhikode and completed my summer internship at Deloitte USI in its Business Strategy practice. This stint taught me story-boarding and time management. I graduated from NIT Surat as an ECE engineer in 2018. Thereafter, I worked at Matrix R&D centre as a part of their Telecom Product Management team. This experience imparted teamwork and decision- making skills. I identify myself as an adaptable, optimistic, and determined person. I enjoy reading and playing Chess during my leisure time."

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.

I would rather call it a challenge than risk. This is because I was pretty confident about what I wanted. The situation was far from dilemmatic. However, some may even see it as a risk owing to the lack of proper back- up options to fall upon. In June 2018, just after graduating from NIT Surat with a B.Tech degree, I underwent Laser Eye Surgery. Mine was a special case. The corneal thickness was well below the minimum required for the surgery. However, I was operated on, using the state-of-art Laser SMILE technology, and was assured of zero side effects. I was asked to impart special care to my eyes. Within a week, I had to report for work at my first job. Although I paid adequate heed to my eye-care routine, long work hours started leading to dry eyes in the evening. After a short stint at work, I realized I could not have continued with my job for long. Although it undoubtedly provided me with a great learning experience, a purely technical job was not something I would have been comfortable with.

Although I have been reminded by multiple people that I should seriously consider an MBA as a career option, it did not catch my attention until this point. I believe that I am gifted with powerful communication and persuasion skills. Also, I had received multiple compliments on my logical and structured thinking, from both, my engineering peers and workplace colleagues. It hit me that I should give a sincere try for MBA. Fortunately, I had a recent MBA graduate as my colleague, who motivated me further to go for it. I hardly had 3-4 months on the plate. On the work front, I was offered hefty projects, which would demand my undivided attention and were considered lucrative for getting promoted further. However, I had to decide at this point. Considering my medical constraint, I had to employ myself judiciously in tasks. I decided to decline those offers and prepare for CAT instead. Although I dedicated sincere attention to my job during work-hours, I prepped even harder for CAT. There were some moments wherein I felt weak during the journey, but my clarity and family’s consistent support helped me ace the examination and subsequent interviews against all the time and physical constraints.

When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.

I strongly believe in what is cliched as the ‘Law of Attraction’. Simply put, it just means that every thought of ours manifests itself in a proportionate degree of its intensity. Positive thoughts attract more joy and happiness and vice versa happens with negative thoughts. Recently, my junior batch had their summer placements. As a general practice, I was helping many juniors with their CVs, GDs, and interviews. One of them had sent across her HR answer-set to me for verification. I was astounded to notice multiple grammatical errors. The language too seemed very unpolished. The girl had a fair idea of her language and communication-related weakness. She seemed a little nervous on that front too. Having understood the scenario properly, I devised a plan for overcoming this challenge. Since barely two weeks were remaining, I had to schedule interactions every alternate day. I started with rectifying the grammar and sentence structure. Then, I helped her grasp some keywords and sentence constructions that would come in handy during interviews. Also, we made it a rule that we would strictly interact in English so that her tongue gets attuned to the language. Every alternate day, she learned and progressed through mock interviews and feedback interactions.

All along this journey, I constantly reminded her to always think that she had mastered the language and presentation. I would nudge her to think that English came as an easy language to her and she would ace all her interviews. I narrated some success stories of my batchmates who had a similar kind of weakness but bagged coveted offers during placements. All of this helped her maintain a positive attitude throughout. She got placed on the very first day of placements in the first interview itself. This event brought immense pleasure to me. Not only did she convert a coveted offer, but transformed herself into a positive and confident personality. I am grateful that I could bring this change in her.

Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work in the Product Management department at the very beginning of my career. This gave me the much-needed exposure to structured thinking and teamwork, as well as inculcated the quality of taking ownership very well. Shortly after being promoted as the Associate Product Manager in December 2018, my team consisting of 5 members encountered a dilemma. We were assigned the task of devising an investment strategy for a corpus of INR 30 million on the upcoming version of our company’s Unified Communication (UC) application. We had to select some 5-6 priority features among a set of over 100.

As is the tradition in Product Management teams, intense brainstorming followed. This even led to heated debates sometimes. Since we hardly had two weeks to come up with a plan, I felt there was a need to expedite the process in a structured manner. The team by then seemed to have split into two on their opinions about feature prioritization. However, I had disagreed with both sides and opined something completely different. I suggested that there was a need to consult primary stakeholders before jumping to the conclusion. I presented a strategy that involved excessive competitors’ analysis, which would essentially encompass the secondary research and simultaneous primary research in the form of both in-house and dealers’ interviews. The competitor benchmarking would give us a fair estimate of where our application is lagging, while the interviews would help us determine which features the end-customers prefer more immediately. The strategy was well received by my team and we immediately set out on different tasks in groups of 2-3 members each. Our final presentation to the Team Lead and Vice President went about smoothly.

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?

Since my childhood, I was taught the habit of reading the newspaper daily for at least 15 minutes. It is more like a family tradition with even the eldest members and females practicing it religiously. My friends find it surprising when my grandmother presents a very intelligent opinion on the current state of affairs in the country. This has naturally led me to have an in-depth knowledge of the political and economic scenario of India. The regular and informed discussions within my family, with many different opinions being voiced, has made me understand the landscape in a holistic manner, rather than imparting a biased view.

I am even more grateful for the fact that I found some good friends with diverse backgrounds and having like interests. Also, thanks to many parts of my family scattered all across India, I come across information regarding on-ground affair first-hand. This helped me garner a more tangible and profound perspective of the state of affairs in India. Now, I willingly read more and delve deeper into issues surrounding our nation. I absolutely love to discuss and understand more regarding this subject.

If 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?

I would divide the corpus into two parts, one for fulfilling personal needs and desires, the other for two social causes I strongly believe in. The personal expenses would really depend on the situation and as of now, I do not specifically have anything in mind. I aim to become an entrepreneur in the near future, and hence, I may use the amount to fund my start-up.

On the social front, I would dedicate a significant part of the sum towards the betterment of the Security Forces (Army, CRPF etc.) and orphanages. It is my dream to earn enough to equip the Security Forces with the latest technological equipment so as to make them less vulnerable. It really bothers me to hear and watch the news of soldiers and police being martyred every few days. It generally happens due to opponent-attacks (terrorists, Naxalites, etc.) and sometimes weather conditions. Empowering them with the right technical equipment would make their position much stronger in the face of the opponent. It should be ensured that every security personnel posted in a risky environment at least has the basic defence equipment like life jackets and state-of-art revolvers.

Further, I sincerely wish to employ strict vigilance in orphanages. We hear cases of rampant corruption in money dedicated to orphanages and the children there being exploited. I would devote adequate resources to enhance security and accountability in the system. Setting up cameras, digitizing fund exchange, regular audits, and physical check-ups, etc., are some ways to tackle the problems.

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