MBAs: Commodities pushed into a cattle market

March 2005……”Congratulations! You have been selected for the Business Management (BM) programme” As the words flashed across the computer screen, yet another person rose up from faded obscurity to a shining hope of being counted among the highest echelons of the business society. Within minutes, two hundred students across batches and departments showered their best wishes on the lanky bespectacled lad in the computer lab… the “chhapa” of XLRI on my resume was supposed to be a one way ticket to fame and riches… my ambitions were much less pretentious… a job I love where I don’t get bored of dull monotony…. Just enough money to ensure that I don’t lose sleep over financial problems….

Come November, and the only buzzword on bschool campuses across India is summers…. Students across India come to bschools for a brand value and quality education, and the placement process in the college itself is designed to portray the students as commodities…. How is this different from a cattle market? Really silly things can happen in the runup to the process....

Make the juniors sit through endless hours of company PPTs which invariably start with the formation of the company in 1847! The star of these PPTs is invariably an alumnus who passed out like 2 years ago from the same college... He walks up and talks about how fruitful the whole experience has been!!! They all end up giving the same speech, and by the time the juniors reach PPT # 10, they have mugged it up perfectly...... just in case they have to blurt it out to their own juniors.....

the seniors also come and go, indulging in their own feeble marketing endeavours.

"My company was the best.... foreign offers in Timbuktoo" it is totally a different matter whether the company would still exist in april when u land there for the internship....

“Peck my company higher. They offer a lot of stipend… “

“No peck mine higher! Excellent project profiles….”

“My company has the best brand name” yeah, it doesn’t matter if all you do there is sell credit cards or organize parties…

You get to hear all reasons ranging from location preferences to birthday celebrations, booze parties and hot chick bosses!!!! Ridiculous!!! Did any of these seniors bother to delve into the thoroughly confused junior’s skill set and find out what his interests were?

I can hardly think of anything more embarrassing than the ramp walk…. Bunch of people sit and ask the juniors to walk the ramp, shouting their names…. “so that they can remember the juniors”…. Yes, each senior sitting there has cracked innumerable memory tests specially designed to remember 250 names in less than 10 minutes!!! And this certainly is a better way to remember names than looking up the juniors on the college website… If the seniors have peanut sized brains, lets jus not talk about the juniors who bend over and do exactly as they are instructed!!!!

Are we FMCGs to be packed in one room and taken to 30 different companies in a single day? Why do colleges have this insatiable need to showcase their brand value to the outside world using a metric as ridiculous as the time it takes to place students? My neighbour is majoring in marketing. He did his summer internship in ICICI Bank…. The secretary of finance club in our college went to HLL… Who are the real stakeholders here? The public which reads about bschools in the front page of Times of India? What do they care? Just a few comments to their spouses over morning coffee about how well the economy is booming and fat paychecks for kids in these colleges…. End of story…

The real stakeholders are students here… they dont give a hoot whether the process gets over in 2 days or 3 months!!! as far as they are concerned, they want to work on a good project in an industry of their choice.... the 2 month summer internship programme is an excellent opportunity for them (many of them without any significant industry experience) to get some practical insights in the field of their interest. What happens to them? They are being made innocent bystanders in the battles of bschool egos across the country….

A fortnight and millions of deliberations later, the juniors end up applying to each and every company that comes down, irrespective of whether they are interested in the field or not….. why? Or else you will be the only one left without an internship offer after 2 days! One simple question here……. So???? So what???? What if I am the only one left after two days??? peck XYZ Ltd on top… whatever happens…..No, I refuse! They offer marketing projects and I wanna major in finance … it doesn’t fit in with my long term goals…..neither do I want to sell credit cards for a bank just because they offer fat stipends… This is only a 2 month internship process…. Who is here to judge me? I will do whatever excites me without giving a shit about what society thinks…. If good companies are refused just because they give a small stipend, I will apply personally to these companies…. I will take my fate in my own hands instead of letting my ego hijack my future….