 |
Lists of the “Best Companies to Work for” or the country’s “Best Employers” come out every year with boring regularity. Little changes; it takes years of attrition for a company to slip down the ranks and off the radar screen. Far more exciting is a list of companies that no one writes about ? the Best Companies to Work for while preparing for your MBA.
Every year, a horde of graduates is unleashed from the universities. Many of them don’t see their degree as an end to formal education. This is true even at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Engineering, it seems, goes only a little way. If you want to make it big in your professional life, you must have an MBA degree.
“IIT is not the pot of gold at the end of the student’s rainbow,” says D. Singh, a Mumbai-based human resources (HR) professional. “Everyone wants an MBA, preferably from one of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).”
Not everyone makes it. The top 25 B-schools have a total student capacity of around 6,000. Against this, some 150,000 appeared for the Common Admission Test in 2004. In 2005, it was 1,55,000. Every year sees a new high; in 1998, the number was only 87,000.
So what happens to those who don’t make the cut? Some join the lesser institutes. There are today more than 1,000 B-schools in India. Many of them are money-making machines (the annual fees can be as high as Rs 8 lakhs), recognised by nobody but their own students. The large mass, however, take up jobs to try again the next year.
There is a lively debate going on in various Net forums on the best companies to work for while you are preparing for CAT. Check out PaGaLGuy.com, which bills itself as ‘insanely different’. Peggy is a newcomer there. Her posting runs: “Can you guyz working at Infosys or just left Infy please gimme email ids. I would like to ask them some stuff since I just got a job there. I want to know about the kind of work I have to be doing, how many people go on to write CAT, whether they get time to study, how hectic the work is etc.”
Varun has a similar question: “I’ve got on-campus job offers from IBM Global Services India and TCS. Although I have some idea about the latter, I really don’t know much about the former as regards job profile, what I’ll be working on, CAT ka scene...”
There is a lot of advice from those who have gone through the process successfully. The highlights:
* People from Infosys are all over the place at IIM entrance interview stage. If you are with someone like IBM, you get more noticed.
* At a Yahoo!Groups’ forum, the consensus is that at TCS it depends on where you are posted. Some locations simply don’t have a “study” atmosphere.
* It is easy to get seduced by the atmosphere, challenge and pay at several companies. The way to go is to set up a study group from the very beginning.
* The “brandname” of the company matters at the interview stage. But more important than that is your work schedule in the company. If you don’t have time to study, you won’t get a chance to drop names anyway.
So, which are the organisations at the top of this ‘best companies’ list? You have the IT majors ? Infosys, TCS, and IBM. The global consultancies like Mckinsey and Ernst & Young also feature. And there are the foreign and new private sector banks and some multinationals.
Is it a compliment to belong to this list? “Not really,” says the HR head of an IT major. “But you can’t stop it. I see my job as ensuring that the best of them return to my company.”
HARD TIMES
What to do while preparing for CAT while working
The studying must necessarily be done in the morning, as you cannot be sure how long you will be held up at work.
Do mock CATs regularly. But don’t worry if your scores are low.
Check out your company’s attitude to preparing for CAT. You may be able to spend coffee breaks on that.
Read at least one pink paper daily and the main business magazines.
Set up a study group.
Schedule at least two hours for study on weekdays and four on weekends.
Join a coaching class, but a study group is always preferable. Others in the coaching class may not be working and could leave you far behind.
Give up all personal life. If you have acquired a “significant other” make sure he or she prepares for the CAT with you.
Source: Collated from the forums at PaGalGuy.com and elsewhere