From an early age businesses had excited me, reading about different models made me happy, and the possiblity to start one someday made life exciting.
I was born in a middle class family in India, with my parents being graduated from top universities in the country. Naturally, like every other household I was expected to become an engineer like my father. I loved to read about the economy, how money works and things are sold but had to learn how to make code, and how algorithms work. Completed dejected, did not prepare at all for JEE and joined a Tier 3 college. Soon, realized that this won’t work out so decided to simultaneously pursue BCom along with engineering. And in the final year of graduations all I was doing is dreaming about getting into an awesome Business school and become a management consultant. So I shifted my focus, and started studying things I did not like to improve my grades to get into a B school. Along with the grades, competitive exams were just one year away and I forgot everything and just started my preparation for the competitive exams, gave mocks every week and joined classes with laser like focus. Had to manage two degrees, work for the placement team, take part in campus placements and do my exam prep simultaneously. I sacrificed everything I had or wanted for just one goal which seemed impossible and kept going even when the chips were down. And after one year of sheer persistence, 25 mocks, 500 PG karma, and some sleepless nights, I was able to do reasonably well in all the exams, securing calls from some of the top B schools in the country.
Scores:
- CAT 97.76
- IIFT 98.02
- NMAT 99
Though I was depressed after my CAT result for a while, being a GEM fresher and after scoring 99+ in most of the mocks in the second half, after getting calls from some cool B schools decided to put up a fight for the GDPI.
Calls: New IIMs, MDI G, SP Jain, IIFT, NMIMS M, DFS, DSE, DBE, IMT G, IMI D etc.
Now, the next challenge ahead was to convert these calls. Being a fresher from a tier 3 college with not much interview experience, I got into my crazy persistent mode, and after in depth GDPIWAT preparation, I was able to do well in almost all interviews I gave.
Converts—DFS Delhi University, NMIMS Mumbai, Several New IIMs, DSE, DBE, IMI Delhi, IMT Ghaziabad
Now, Have you made an unconventional move in your career that you are proud of?
Having converted NMIMS and new IIMs I felt ecstatic but still had some discomfort of investing 25 lakhs to learn, when a real business can be set up for less which I always wanted to do.
Luckily also had admits from DU MBA courses, with no fee. So, decided to take the road less taken and switched to DU after a month at NMIMS. Getting into those Non-AC classrooms of DFS, against all odds, and leaving my privileged world to fight on merit. And that place built me from the bottom.
The courses turned out to be vastly different. DU had quality academics but lesser exposure and structure. It was a startup like MBA where one could take charge and decide his fate. Tempted by that, ended up growing more, working with great organizations by being placed at the top of my batch thrice - for summer internships, winter internships and then finals. This gave me a chance to work in Hedge Fund operations at Arcesium (DE Shaw), Investment Research and Valuation at Duff & Phelps and finally a full-time job at the backend office of EY-Parthenon as a strategy consultant. Attempted CFA, FRM and other courses along the way to keep learning sharp. And being the President of the student-run placement cell gave me the chance to pitch industry leaders taking care of the exposure.
With money saved, finally ended up setting my pizza store which gave me invaluable lessons and with an additional recurring income that effectively cost me nothing, and now navigating my corporate journey with more ease. While it felt nice being unconventional and working hard enough to make it worthwhile, the desire to work as a management consultant was left unfulfilled. And the feeling of getting less than what I deserve wasn’t helping either.
But as I did my research I realized that moving from the backend to a frontend management consulting role is indeed a very hard transition to make. And at least 90% of people working in those roles at top firms had a tier 1 MBA or substantial years of experience.
Frontend management consulting roles were rare and limited in India but I got determined to do whatever it takes. Being a tier 3 GEM, playing against odds had become my forte now. And as fate loves irony, not only switched to a proper frontend management consulting role after just one year in backend at Deloitte Consulting S&O - India practice but also got a promoted position of Assistant Manager and around 65-70% salary hike. All this without any fancy the expensive degree or special workex or national level spikes in CV.
I will share my story and journey which might be helpful for someone in the same boat. So, first I spent hours going through the profiles and researching to create a CV carefully tailored for the roles I was targeting. Next, proactively built a network and following of 25k people on LinkedIn to brand myself and kept looking for opportunities. Once I did manage the shortlist to get into the interview room, the odds were still stacked against me, so read around 50 case studies in one week along with all possible frameworks from the major case books and was able to clear two long and grilling rounds. Then I finally had the chance to make all this count, got into the room with the partner, and challenged him on a case, and after 30 minutes, the partner wanted me in his team.
Then came the negotiations which stretched over weeks with me straight out rejecting offers with 30% hikes, and taking the risk even after everything I had been through because a massive correction was due. And finally, it all paid off in the end, they budged, and I was able to correct my market valuation. The world always succumbs to the willpower of a determined man.
This job I got is now is the exact same job as offered at IIM A/B/C, ISB, etc on campus, (same package, profile, team and designation). Took me an extra year, but saved the INR 25+ Lakh fee and built an awesome growing business on the side. This took a lot of different kinds of hard work. I later also converted an offer in the backend office of Bain with a whopping ~90% hike, leveraging this offer but moving on to front end just to chase the excitement of what I wanted to do while preparing for CAT. Might not be as big an achievement as it feels to me but I’m 24 now and against odds gave my everything in the past 4 years to change my life, so pretty sure at least the amount of consistent growth is extraordinary. Would be grateful to get a platform to share my story!?
