THE CULT CULTURE

Posted on May 5, 2015 by IBS India

Every human being is born with very little self awareness. And from that moment on, begins a lifelong exercise in construction of one’s unique identity. Personal identity is possessively guarded by the person and the sense of self is supreme. Despite this deep internal knowledge, each individual strives to be a part of something greater than the self; to become an element of a larger shared consciousness. Every one secretly wants to belong.

CULT BRAND

Cult brands aren’t just companies with products or services to sell. To many of their followers, they are living, breathing surrogate family filled with like-minded individuals. They are a support group that just happens to sell products or services. Picture a cult brand in this context, and you’ll have a much better understanding of why these brands all have such high customer loyalty and devoted followers. – Matthew W. Ragas

A Cult Brand is a benign cult or group where a high involvement product or service provided by the brand has a committed customer base. The members of the ‘tribe’ are passionately attached to the brand and share similar interests. The followers often engage in ritualistic behavior (like jargon or uniform) surrounding themselves with brand associations. Star Trek fans, for example, invest millions every year on the memorabilia of the hit series.

After the company has satisfied the general criteria of being a good brand, there is another distinctive factor which appeals to a potential cult consumer besides the need to belong. Something that is above and beyond the product. Something so strongly attractive to the person as to turn him into a brand loyalist. Something extraordinary.

That something, we find, is the promotion of self through the practice of projection.

That something is Image.

Since a cult customer shares the values of his beloved brand, relevant information can be conveyed about him on examining his possessions and patron-ship.

SPOTTING A CULT BRAND

There are a few traits common to a Cult Brand which can help make the identification:-

Identity lending

Dedicated customer loyalty

No true substitute or competition

Sense of shared ownership

Timeless, sustained allegiance

A lifestyle, not just a product

Strong internal and external communications

CULT BRANDS ARE THRIVING BRANDS

The Brand and its faithful followers both benefit from their inclusion in the phenomenon of Brand Cult.

When a group of customers has very strong associations between a brand and a desired feeling, the brand possesses equity which it can leverage to grow.

Oprah as a brand stands for ‘heart’ and the quiet joy that one derives from helping others. No wonder she has such a large and steadfast fan-base.

The loyal customers display low price sensitivity and willingly pay a premium for the value derived.

Moreover, there is practically no actual rival in the market. This is so because the deep emotional connect biases consumers in favor of the cult brand. They find no other brand’s product equally satisfactory.

Cult Brands expand naturally. They enjoy further purchases from link and kin of cult members who are keen to join the exclusive club thanks to the positive word-of-mouth advertisement.

CREATING A CULT BRAND

A lot goes into the making of a cult brand.

Cult Branding is the consequence of a higher understanding of the customer. This understanding in turn is made possible by the deft matching of product development and marketing with consumer insights of human needs.

In order to create a cult-like following, experts suggest firstly identifying your best customers and keeping an open line of communication with them.

Your repeat customers and referrers are your brand lovers. A well-maintained database, carefully crafted surveys and a regular review of the online brand-related noise will help you determine who these people are.

Interacting with them or even plain listening to them will make it a lot easier to recognize the intangible emotional clues that make you who you are to your customers. You will know why they chose to give you their business.

Now comes the time to serve your customers.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says, “If you’re customer-focused, you’re always waking up wondering, how can we make that customer say, wow? We want to impress our customers—we want them to say, wow. That kind of divine discontent comes from observing customers and noticing that things can always be better.”

Amaze them, embrace them and celebrate their loyalty; let your customers know you are grateful and that they are special to you. Deliver them a life-style which fascinates them while facilitating self-expression and aspirations.

THE GOLDEN RULES

To truly capture your customer’s heart and foster the forces of customer loyalty, authors BJ Bueno and Scott Jeffrey state seven rules which all Cult brands abide by:-

Rule #1: Differentiate

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. – Margaret Mead

Offer your customers the chance to be part of a crowd while not neglecting their need to stand out from it.

How does one do that, you ask?

Simple.

Be the inclusive group that is different from the mainstream groups. Be remarkable!

Apple is a case in point. It is the epitome of a cult brand. Its brand slogans like ‘think different’ and the receptiveness of its customers demonstrate the manifestation of personal identity.

Rule #2: Be Courageous

Dare to be different. Believe in yourself and take calculated risks. Do not obsess about followers. Do your all to better serve them and have the confidence that success shall be yours.

Rule #3: Promote a Lifestyle

Experiential purchases help customers to pursue their aspirations and celebrate distinct lifestyles. Supporting the customers’ emotions will forge a bond between your brand and them.

Rule #4: Listen to Your Customers

Hear out your customers. These are the enthusiastic followers of your brand. Have the strength to take criticism or discontent and create solutions. You can turn the half-hearted followers into fervent believers just by showing them that you were really listening. Starbucks came up with the ‘splash stick’ as a result of the company’s ongoing idea exchange with its clientele.

Rule #5: Support Customer Communities

Build strong, ongoing relationships with your customers by developing and supporting customer communities in order to generate powerful, long-term goodwill. Setting up social events and online forums that reflect your brand’s mission is a promising way to show support and initiative.

Today, Coca Cola has an engaged global community of over 50 million avid evangelists connected through Facebook.

Rule #6: Be Open and Inviting

As a cult brand, do not discriminate. Welcome everyone. You must not exclude those who do not fit the profile of your ideal customer. Your customer will not come in the same packaging everytime.

Rule #7: Promote Personal Freedom

Be empowering. Let your customers feel in control and free to articulate themselves through your brand. Promote the message of self-expression minus the threat of consequences. Harley Davidson, for instance, sells the opportunity to experience feelings of raw freedom disguised as a bike.

The Brand and the customer enjoy a symbiotic or a mutually beneficial relationship. Cult consumers tend to stick with their favored brand over time. They care about what it stands for and what happens to it. They share a purpose with the company and other kindred souls in the cult. And they rave about the brand brilliance to anyone willing to listen.

Cult brands, on the other hand, are driven by powerful ethos and acknowledge appreciation of the loyalists. They adopt the Reverse Branding Model by initiating Brand Marketing strategies from the inside out. These brands are pervasive, inspirational and make genuine efforts to please their customers. They are relatable yet exceptional.

It is not a tough task for the cult brands to draw in the enthusiasts since they are a source of indescribable joy to their customers – the joy of belonging, owning and expressing.

At their core, cult brands are always fun. They make us happy. They uplift our spirits. They cheer us up when we’re down and give us confidence. They help us enjoy life. They not only make us feel better about ourselves, they also give us a temporary escape from the drudgery of everyday life. – Matthew W. Ragas

The future is bright. Even as new brands emerge to claim the mantle, we see established ones gathering a greater cult status. The culture of cults is bound to continue and prosper as long as brands have a host of ardent admirers who are cherished.

Contributed by Ankita Verma (Class of 2009, IBS Hyderabad)

How to learn about Crisis Management through MBA

Posted on May 4, 2015 by IBS India

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently” – Warren Buffet

In October 1982, Johnson & Johnson fell off the ladder to find itself in trouble when seven people in Chicago were reported dead after taking extra-strength Tylenol capsules. It was reported that the medicine was tempered by some unknown suspect who allegedly put 65 mg of deadly cyanide in the Tylenol capsule. The market share of the product fell from 37% to 7% after this incident.

Once it was established that the deaths were caused by consuming the medicine, J&J had to do the damage control. It had to work on finding the best way of dealing with the problem while at the same time, prevent the reputation of the company and its most profitable product. Putting ahead public safety, J&J immediately recalled all the capsules from the market across the country. The massive product recall amounted to 31 million bottles and a loss of more than $100 million. The company also stopped all forms of advertising for the product.

Although J&J knew they were not responsible for the tempering, they assumed responsibility for the whole incident. Despite much speculation in the market regarding the company’s inability to revive from the sabotage, J&J re-launched the product after two months with temper proof seals supported by extensive media and marketing campaign. The company regained its product market share back to 31% within one year.

J&J’s handling of the whole incident marks the genesis of crisis management in corporate history. The company’s prompt action and effective response minimized the damage to the shareholders and the brand image of the company was held up and high.

In today’s digital age, everyone is vulnerable to crisis. It could occur due to factors that may or may not be under your control. Natural calamity, labour disputes, computer data losses; all these could cause a crisis situation for a company. Some might be temporary and curbed while some might even cause the demise of the company. Dealing with a crisis situation might call for absorbing short term losses in order to maintain the long term business health of the company. That was the reason of J&J’s comeback in Tylenol case.

Companies today have started to put crisis management quite ahead in their list of focus areas. There are teams in place that not just deal with a situation in reaction to after it has already happened. Their key role is also to forecast, project and plan for any potential uncalled for situation. It is also called proactive crisis management. Few important attributes that one needs to learn for effective crisis management are:

Importance of quick decision making – In a crisis situation, there is stress and time pressure which impairs your ability to take wise judgment calls, and your decisions are generally reactive. The bigger an incident is in magnitude; larger is the requirement for conscious analysis. Assess the potential of damage, check the availability of resources needed to do the damage control, prepare a time line and execution of action plan. Clarity of thought, ability to think under pressure and imagination to make the very best of what is available at hand in finding the way forward are the key expectations from a leader heading the crisis management team.

Communication management – The need of handling and maintaining the PR accentuates in the time of crisis. Staying aware of what is being said about you in social media and outside, by your employees, customer and sometimes competitors can help in picking up negative trend, which if unattended can turn into crisis. A bad word of mouth from any resource at any platform can be the genesis of a potential damage to the firm’s image.

Planning and monitoring – Some people might also call it risk management. The recognition of potential threats should be an ongoing aspect of every organization. Developing infrastructure and resources to gather, monitor and analyze information that will give warning of future problems is a vital aspect of pre-crisis phase.

Avoid self-inflicting a crisis – in times of changing consumer expectation and availability of multiple options, reputation today is a very fragile issue. Lack of customer care and value for loyalty can hamper your growth. In the field of marketing, word of mouth travels fast, and if it is bad, then it travels faster.

A crisis can also occur due to internal factors, as is evident from Maruti’s labour unrest, which caused India’s one of the most violent industrial incidents in July 2012. The company’s product image might not have been affected due to this incident, but it brought in light many internal unresolved conflicts faced by India’s largest passenger car maker. The incident led to the death of a manager, arrest of 147 workers and dismissal of 2000 workers from the Manesar plant.

The whole Maruti crisis asks us to ponder over the effectiveness of labour and industrial relations. The incident did eventually lead to revision of wages of the workers, but the basic problem of contract workers (that still constitute around 75% of Maruti’s workforce) still remains unresolved.

Though still holding a back-foot in Indian corporates, many companies abroad are implementing crisis management programs, conducting training and conferences to guide managers through this high profile process.

Crisis Management during MBA:

The field of crisis management in India is more prevalent as disaster management and is offered as an advance course. It deals with the specific case of impact through natural calamities or sometimes political emergencies and defense related issues. The context of crisis management education in India is everything but contemporary business.

For those pursuing MBA, crisis management is not a very sought after field either. In Indian B-school curriculum, the focus on this important field of management is rather average. But the future possibility of being associated with a company in crisis cannot be ruled out. Even if you are not exactly at a position that might call for taking responsibility and decision making, you will still have to face the impact, directly or indirectly, of a crisis ridden company. Hence it is important to understand this relatively new yet challenging field of management.

B-School curriculum should increase its focus on this field of contemporary management besides teaching other functional aspects of running a business. Crisis may not always necessarily appear at a larger or organizational level, it could be observed at a smaller or divisional level as well. Whistleblowers, manager disputes and harassment cases, all these could lead to intra-organizational crisis situations that could harm the employer’s reputation.

Currently, most MBA students know about crisis management only though case studies and some generic references by their professors. It is important to increase visibility to this field through simulation to inculcate better decision making, response and strategic thinking amongst students, preparing them for more real life situations, instilling long term planning and course of action.

Contributed by Isha Jajodia (class of 2010, IBS Gurgaon)

THREE BRACKETS FOR CHOOSING THE RIGHT JOB

Posted on May 4, 2015 by IBS India

What is the “perfect job”? Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist. This is not an alarmingly pessimistic point of view, but rather a real one. Every man and woman has different strengths, weaknesses, opinions, personalities, and an unfathomable amount of other characteristics that, when combined and utilized, can help in the search for a job role that is a good fit. When you focus on finding your job fit, success is almost guaranteed to follow.

Now that it’s April – a time during which many first-year MBAs get and assess internship offers, and the time when present MBA aspirants start deciding whether attending a specific b-school will help effect the career change they hope for – it’s a good time to examine a straightforward, three-step framework for evaluating any new job opportunity, one that can apply in any situation (from choosing among large multinationals to deciding which start-up venture is the right ‘fit’ for you).

More and more professionals are viewing their careers to be dynamic, touching diverse sectors and roles, but centering their work around what gives them meaning and purpose. The truth is, instead of testing for a role, job searching has become more like shopping. And like buying a new outfit, it’s helpful to have a thorough understanding of yourself before you go into the fitting room- your assets, your liabilities, and what makes you smile, instead of buying anything and getting stuck not being able to return it.

The key to getting a job is about understanding how you and your potential employer fit together. To do that, you have to know how you find value at work and what drives that. Finding purpose in your career is about finding what excites you, and ultimately, what will allow you to create the most consequential impact in the world. It’s about your desire for impact, personal growth, and relationships. Clearly gaining perceptive on your drivers greatly increases your odds of success in a particular role or company. So, as you’re “shopping” for jobs, start by asking yourself who, why, and how; Choosing a career path (or changing one) is, for most of us, a mystifying experience. Many will tell you to “follow your passion” or “do what you love,” but this is not very useful advice. When I graduated from college, I liked lots of things. But love? Passion? That would have been seriously exaggerating it.

Facing a roadblock in career can be demoralizing, to say the least. Luckily, some successful people prove that it’s possible to bounce back. Clearly, the pop queen Madonna was destined to become more than working at a diner, and J.K. Rowling wasn’t passionate about her job as a secretary. Steve Jobs went through a crisis and eventual transformation after the company he created fired him. Walt Disney went from being bankrupt in his first biz venture to building an entertainment giant. For some, walking through the hard way is exactly what they need to launch into the success stories they are today.

We all want to choose a career that will make us happy, but how can we know what that will be? Rather than going through the rough path, we need to take the cautious steps from the start. Research suggests that human beings are remarkably bad at predicting how they will feel when doing something in the future. It’s not hard to find someone who started out thinking that they would love their chosen profession, only to wind up hating it. In fairness, how are you supposed to know if you will be happy as an investment banker, or an HR, or a professor, if you haven’t actually done any of these things yet?

So if passion and expected happiness can’t be your guides, what can be? Well, you can begin by choosing a career that fits well with your skills and values. Since you actually have some sense of what those are (hopefully), this is a good starting place. But a bit less obviously- though just as important- you also want to choose an occupation that provides a good motivational fit for you as well.

The upside is that there are fundamentally only three things to consider – industry, function, and organization. The downside, however, is that it is easy to lose track of these simple measures and tempting to overcomplicate one’s preferences by focusing in on variables that tend to matter less in the long-run (such as variation in compensation or signing bonus at the start of a new job vs. the long-term growth or raise in one’s income). So keeping the above pointers in mind, we can elaborate the heads as:

Industry:

Regardless of what you do for an organization (from managing its supply chain to overseeing its public relations), the time that you spend doing that work means that you’ve amassed more and more domain expertise specific to that industry. Whether you work in telecom or IT, in wealth management or manufacturing, in higher education or research, your accrued time in that field converts to both practical know-how and capacity to innovate and capitalize on change that would be complex for a newcomer to replicate.

Therefore, a big driver of your MBA internship or full-time job decision should be the extent to which you would be happy being more and more deeply involved in the above profiles and the exposures provided.

Function:

Although one’s career options considering functions can sometimes feel vague (‘product management’ and ‘business development’ can mean many different things across industries), focusing on one’s practical choice- whether that function is finance, marketing, HR, operations, etc. can be an important way to not only build domain knowledge but also an effecting capacity and skill-set that can be applied across varied businesses and industries.

Having practical expertise can act like prevention agent against a dip in a specific industry (for example, marketing skills one develops in the automotive industry, could offer a good transition to marketing roles in hardware and technology). When MBAs pursue careers in banking and finance, they are developing their financial and strategy/consulting functional skill-sets primarily, though, those functional abilities are more often than not linked to a specific underlying industry (e.g., ‘technology, media, and telecommunications’, as a specific area of client service in banking). Over time, most MBA graduates experience a union of their industry capability and functional role having an area of focus and a track-record within a specific field, combined with a broad general management education.

Organization:

It may seem apparent, but opting for the right company whether a private sector corporation, nonprofit organization, or a public sector agency can make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful career, and there are three things to consider when choosing the right one.

The first is the organization’s current and future competitive course within its industry. Are its products and services good? Is the company’s name well known? Does it rank high in reliability with respect to all of its business practices? Does the organization have a talent strategy that makes it an employer of choice? Joining an organization that is on an upswing is better at all times than joining one that is facing downsizing, layoffs, restructuring, etc.

The second thing to reflect on and a factor not to be ignored, is your own ‘fit’ with a specific organizational culture. Though fit can also seem difficult to identify, here are some ways to check if a company is the right match for you. Is the stuff you read in media about your company pride worthy or it makes you cringe? The main aim is to choose that organization where you will feel most mentally stirred and socially content, and where your input to its efforts will connect to a convention and a set of recollections that you would be happy to narrate years down the line. Searching all of these positive pointers can feel impossible at times, but it nonetheless brings logic to seek out and select those businesses that signify more positives than negatives for you.

Last, organizations are made of people, and whether the group is large or small, those few individuals whom you work with closely have immense power on your ability to be successful and recognized for your contribution. It’s a smart b-school scholar who understands that his or her second-choice employer might trump the first-choice company due to the existence of a finer management and a functional affiliation that is likely to grow into the sort where he/she will be mentored for success and that can truly accelerate an MBA graduate’s career.

When coming across the people of a company, notice the way they practice their work, their backgrounds and training. Such points will deeply signify what sorts of talent and qualities are expected of you, as well as what you will likely learn and gain from your peers. Joining a small company, in which you are mentored by an industry leader with a wide network who is likely to recognize and endorse your capability when you seek your subsequent career step may be a better option than joining a large organization merely for the sake of the weak association with thousands of fellow firm members spread across the world.

Thus that’s all there is to it. These three brackets – industry, function, and organization, the elementary building blocks and categories for assessing a job prospect – are all that you need to make a good career choice.

Contributed by Deeba, (Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon)

Learning through challenges faced during MBA

Posted on May 1, 2015 by IBS India

MBA is a course where future leaders are created. There are challenges posed during the course which would enhance one in building their career with professionalism. Challenges which seem to pose as a threat initially, actually moulds us into a person we desire to become. Some of the challenges that we face during the course of MBA are:

Group Discussion
Gender Equality
Public Speaking
Presentation Skills
Interview Skills

Group discussion is a way by which one could assess about a person’s personality. It helps in understanding the technical capacity of a person and also how apt and ready he/she is for the job. MBA course organizes group discussion that helps in judging how a person will be in a corporate group under any given situation. Exchanging ideas and information among group of persons helps one to face a situation in a corporate office to engage in discussions to introduce newer policies and revolution into the company. Some of the ways by which we could excel in a group discussion are:

Being well prepared in advance on various topics like current affairs etc
Freedom of speech and confidence to be well built
Understanding the body language of other speakers
Enhancing listening skills, which will help us in not repeating the point already spoken and also speaking for/against a point
Personal attack should not take place
It is a platform to get recognized with effective language skills
Keep the group engaged in the discussion with relevant points rather than wandering alternatively

Working with the opposite gender could pose challenges for those who have not interacted much in their earlier lives. Based on a personal experience, it tends to get difficult as to how you would put across your ideas and thoughts to the opposite gender. We need to develop our body language and speaking skills in a manner which gets decoded in the same manner to both the genders. In order to achieve success in this arena, you could start with talking to people with opposite gender on smaller discussions. Next you could form a group consisting with both genders so that interaction is shared equally and there is lesser nervousness.

Sharing mind spaces with both the genders during MBA, helps in understanding the thought process on both sides. Equality and no gender discrimination are learnt through this scenario. Working in a corporate scenario with people from both genders leads to sharing a comfortable space and eases out on talks. A sense of culture is developed during MBA which helps in understanding the corporate culture and working with ethics and values bestowed.

Public speaking is one of the most essential qualities to be possessed for every person to succeed in presenting their thoughts in front of others. When a person speaks confidently, each word spoken by him or her will be appreciated by others. Similarly when a person gets nervous in speaking, his body language talks more than his/her words. People start losing interest in their talks.

MBA poses this challenge in the form of various activities like giving presentations, stage events etc. To overcome this challenge, start gathering knowledge on various events that take place around. Start discussing it with your friends and family. Sharing one’s thoughts and understanding the perspective of other person will help in shedding away the fears of speaking in front of a crowd. Once you are confident in talking in front of a smaller group, widen it with more friends, discuss it with professors, engage in public speaking events and join in presentation activities. Smaller steps towards public speaking will make you a more confident and knowledge enhanced person.

The next challenge is presentation skills. When presentations are made, they require technical and intellectual skills to be reflected. For effective presentations it is important to

Thoroughly analyzing and researching on the topic
Referencing each fact and data
One sentence for each point
Adding extra information in the notes section
Make it attractive but not with too many colours
Arranging each slide according to the guidelines

In order to make effective presentations it is important to understand the subject well and to be thorough with its information around all dimensions. This will lead to effective tacking of all the questions that would be asked at the end of the presentation. Also if the presentation is well made and well presented, the audience will have a clearer picture on the case.

With each level of challenges being successfully handled, the last challenge faced during MBA is Interview session. All throughout the course we are surrounded by so many activities, that it helps in building our personality in and out. We enhance our language skills, body language, presentation and people skills. Similarly our sense of style in terms of clothing also changes. We understand the value of formal clothing and how important it is during an interview sessions.

Our learning for this challenge comes from mock interviews conducted. Our advantages and disadvantages are highlighted and we get to work on those skills, ahead of the actual interview. Once our intellectual skills, technical skills and people skills are built, we are ready to face the interviewer and answer to all those questions with confidence and greater ability. At this stage it appears as a learned stage rather than challenge.

Once these five major challenges of the MBA course are faced and learnt, it shapes the personality and career with a growing upscale graph. Motivation is one of the major requirements at each stage of challenge, to help us outgrow of it successfully. MBA gives a sense of responsibility which people carry ahead in the professional lives which outshines their career and scope of improvement. The challenges that one faces during this course are steps leading to a successful career with effective people management, enhancing talent and becoming a responsible citizen.

“The road to success is difficult and filled with hindrances, motivation and willingness to reach the destination, will fulfil those desires”.

Contributed by Anju Bafna, (Class of 2010, IBS BANGLORE)

Faqs About Placement That Bother MBA Students

Posted on May 1, 2015 by IBS India

Placements bother everyone from parents to students who take up an MBA course because they are all worried about future; the Return on Investment and the kind of packages this degree would lead them to. Sometimes, questions about placement and confusions cultivate in your fertile brains but you neither ask them nor clear our doubts and therefore invite trouble. Hence, you must ‘ask’ questions. Let us now know some answers that you, your parents and your friends might want regarding placements.

When are placements conducted in the campus?

Placement season generally starts by the end of third semester of the course while it may also start in fourth semester if not early. Also, I would like to tell you that some companies do offer pre-placement offers to trainees who perform excellently during their internship projects; which saves them from the process of formal placement process.

What is the placement procedure?

The placement procedure is lengthy but uncomplicated. Firstly, the placement committee announces the arrival of companies. Thereafter, pre-placement talk takes place. Students apply for the company after going through the job descriptions as well as requirements of the company. The resumes are sent to the company. Companies do the preliminary screening process and shortlist candidates.

Thereafter, the recruitment process on campus takes place on campus which includes Group discussion, Personal interview, written tests or all. Further, the results are announced and formalities to be completed by students, advised by the company are completed. Thus, one is ready to join the company on the prescribed date by the company.

How to make my resume more appealing?

Your resume is representation of an overall you at the stage of screening and consist your abilities, achievements, skills and knowledge before you reach an interviewer or company. To make your resume appealing, please construct your resume around your strengths and make it short, crisp and neat. Do not fill it with excessive information or drain it of the essentials.

It would be prudent to reach out to your teachers, professors or professionals who are into personality or soft skill development department because this department is in constant touch with industry. Your resume must not exceed one and a half pages and references should never be paste because they may spoil a battle won with instantaneous efforts.

What type of companies should I apply for?

The type of company that you want to apply for should first go with your specialization, industry of interest, capabilities and values. There shouldn’t be a conflict between your and company’s value system. For that information please consult your contacts, friends, parents, newspapers, relatives, internet etc and understand how the company functions, operates and what sort of policies it frames.

Further, understand the packages, roles, kind of work, working hours etc the profile as well company demands. If still the company clicks with you, please feel to apply for it. Remember, no company is good or bad, everything depends on your outlook.

Which stream should I take for a better placement?

While doing the course, you gradually know your inclination as to which stream or kind of work excites you and what you would like to do for at least next five years of your life. Each subject leads to certain type of jobs and all jobs pertain to certain stream.

Mixing of streams is advisable if one wants to bring in a balance. Sticking to one stream is good if one wants a core job in that area. There is no such formula that marketing stream will get low packages than finance or vice-versa. Placement is a function of your knowledge, skills, awareness, willingness to work, agility, experience etc. Remember the stream will stick to your for life, whereas the first job will not!

Can I go for placement processes outside campus?

Generally, colleges do not prohibit sitting for placement processes outside campus. Remember never reapply in a company that you have been recently rejected for at campus placements. It is advisable to sit for other placement processes along with campus placement because this will increase your access to various companies.

Is there a fee for placement?

Mostly colleges keep the placement processes free of cost. It is matter of honor and pride for the colleges that their students get jobs before their actual degrees. Moreover, for any college better placements means better word of mouth about them.

Placement cells involve Placement officers, some faculty and sometimes placement representatives that assist students to get jobs and that too at no additional fee.

What is the eligibility for sitting for placements?

As far as the eligibility criterion is concerned, both institute and company can have criteria. To ensure quality employee to the company, institutes enforce a certain minimum qualifying grade point or performance in academics.

Also, companies impose eligibility criteria for their prospective employees such as stream, subjects, past academic record, present academic record, awards and recognitions etc. Eligibility certainly includes good moral conduct and character as no company or college would like misbehaved students in the placement process.

What kind of packages do companies offer?

Companies inform the placement cells about what packages they would offer for what position and location. These packages are in tune with the industry standards and abide to government norms and guidelines. Generally the package includes benefits, bonus plans etc.

A good package is one where you feel that the company is paying you worth for the effort it asks you. Remember you have to negotiate not bargain during the selection process for the location and package. In actual cases students get rejected for their roadside-peddler bargaining habits.

What is a pre placement talk?

Employers speak to students before the actual process and take up a presentation called a PPT or pre placement talk. Companies introduce themselves and talk about the management, work environment, campus etc.

PPT includes the history, domain, strengths of the company along with the position, package, growth prospects, benefits as well as selection process. They also take up questions, doubts, queries etc from the prospective candidates.

Will I get any training before actual work?

Generally companies prefer giving training within the first 6 months of your joining. It is completely up to them whether they want to give you training or not! The same may be asked during the negotiation round by you.

Is there any bond that I need to sign before joining the company?

Most companies do not ask you to sign bonds with them for working a certain period of time. However, it depends on you to accept or reject the offer, if they ask.

It is good to gather information and estimate the future but one must remember that placement infinitely depends on the economic situation of the country, recession or expansion of business cycle etc. Recession would mean less jobs and lower packages while expansion will mean the opposite. Hence, placement should be viewed as a chance to select the best suitable job in the present economic situation and not the only criteria to choose or reject a particular institute.

Contributed by Chayan Jain (Class of 2011-2013, IBS HYDERABAD)

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