For the aspirants of 2021 batch MBA Program

Let me start by telling a story, a person has died and has to choose between Heaven and Hell. Both the places have decided to give him a tour. Heaven showed the pleasant places, told them about the serene and peaceful life and about some regulations on no drinks and being a vegetarian. Hell showed the party places, vibrating music, drinks and drugs, introduced the celebrities residing there and the happening life. The person chose Hell as it seemed more exciting. From the very next moment his torture started, he questioned about what happened to all the promising afterlife they showed, the reply was“back then you were a tourist, now you are a citizen”.

This is more or less true about life at Joka, there is a huge mismatch in the expectations vs reality. It’s not an accident but by design and once entered into the program one has to feed it instead of discarding it. For example, consider the information on platforms like Quora which are perceived to be relatively liberal, on something simple like how the hostel facilities are Link 1 and Link 2 answered by the students, the pictures present to you a five-star hotel kind of place but in reality, they look something like this Link3. The alumni, the present students and the professors only present half-truths which are in favour of the Institute as this will only help them and they don’t tend to show anything less glossy about it. The brochures, websites, youtube videos by the Institute paint a different picture, they show it as a peaceful academic environment where it makes an all-round development of a student which is little in relation to the ground reality. The mentors you have been allocated and the ER team and the upcoming city meets will only show you the facades, you need to understand from their side too, their motto is to bring the best students available to join the campus, in the Joka lingo get those students who might get to A or B.

Congrats to the people who have converted the interviews and got the admission but please don’t blindly go by the flow, take some time in knowing about the Institute life before you make a choice. On the face of it, it looks all bright, you look at a FB profile of a Jokar it looks all merry and it is natural that one aspires for that, but all those have costs which most people are ashamed of and wouldn't let them known to the world at all. All I want you to do is to collect more information and make an informed choice. After this choice, you will have little chances of a return because of the heavy sunk and opportunity costs (as most will resign their jobs, there will be a heavy loan to pay too).

Please do find about other MBA Institutes (A/B/L/FMS) before making a choice, most friends at IIMC have said to me that other institutes too have a similar process. I am not sure of them as I haven't experienced unlike C but I feel the doubt is worth taking.

The myth of FEE: The fee you pay for the two years is just a Market price and not the number of facilities or resources you get from the college. Don't expect to have an Infrastructure at par with the price paid. As said in this video the scholarships are not so easy to get, the process contains an interview and rigorous evaluation. Even if you get that, it only covers 30% of the fee to be paid and not a full waiver. The intention of the administration is to how not to give a scholarship or how can I stop getting it in stark contrast with that at IIT’s where the intention is that let the maximum students get it. This shows rather clearly in the scrutinising process, for example, there are students whose family income comes at the margin of the bar set by the scholarship, after the summer internship of two months stipend ( usually at 50k per month)these people will stop getting the scholarship (amounting to 6 lakhs), in comparison IIT’s never check these things for the 4 years duration. I am not saying which is correct or wrong, this is just to illustrate the intent of the administration regarding scholarships.

Placements: The majority of your time and efforts at the campus revolve around the placements. The first two terms will be completely dominated by these activities. Unlike in IIT’s where more or less good education results in good jobs, here academics and placements have no or little connection. One has to go through this process if they like it or not and no dissent is tolerated regarding this. If you choose to come out of the process there is little the campus offers other than loneliness. The results of the process which get published in the placement reports and media even surprise us, check these internal memes Link 4. Remember there is no way these can be checked and the professionalism of it is highly questionable. Let me illustrate the means of production of this process and you can judge the professionalism of the process.

THE CON: This is the starting week of our entry into the Institute, for the starting week none of the Seniors were talking to us, there was heavy surveillance on our activities, seniors noting down our registration numbers for entering the sports rooms, gym or walking in corridors at night. We were denied all kinds of institutional information (like how to turn on the hot water, where to have a hair cut etc). After a couple of days, there was a crasher (*meeting) where all the batch was asked to come to the Auditorium with a dress code. We were made to stand in a line and a bunch of senior students who claim to be StudC were checking every one of us for the cellphones, dress code, if the shoes have some shine, if the buttons are proper, if there are any bits of unshaved hair on the faces. We were made to wait like that for 4 hours, students were being shouted upon and being sent back to the room to shave/redress, in cases someone protested the whole bunch (10) of PGP2’s fenced on them and threatened, there was continuous shouting and yelling from these seniors on other students in the line who are mumbling with fear. People who are not up to the mark were sent back to hostels and made to come again in the proper attire. After they ensured that every one of the 450+ students was up to the dressing they preferred, we were let in into the auditorium. The session in the auditorium was more intense, with people monitoring around the hall on the posture we are sitting in, how our hands and legs were rested and even our eye contact. It was absolute silence and we were all sitting like machines (* as shown in the 1983 apple add). The next few hours were complete thrashing from the seniors on the PGP1’s on how they behaved in the past few days, students whose registered numbers are noted down for smoking, drinking and other things were all singled out and were publicly humiliated in front of everyone. Then we are made into groups and given some tasks and left to our hostels late at midnight. How we leave the auditorium is also controlled with one row of seats after the other and everyone in silence and in line. This continued for the next two days, every day with more stringent rules and more humiliation to students on the level expected from the given tasks. After that, someone from the campus had complained to the higher authorities and the ritual had to be stopped, the next day everyone had been called to the L2 and the seniors revealed that everything of this was just fun and they are not the real Stud C but from the Dramatics club. Most of the same seniors who lectured on alcohol and smoking started smoking up (* weed) right in front of us and taking off their shirts to reveal the Marujana T-shirts behind. Most of my batch cheered up after the revelation and this was the ice breaker which made the bonding between the two student groups, people thumped the tables and screamed “C for Chill” while leaving to the LVH Hostel for the fresher’s party where all kinds of intoxications were available.

What this con did was to establish the hierarchy between the batches by showing in practice the dependency of the groups. It fundamentally showed that there are no rights for the first year students and a complete subordination has to be followed. In due course, the PGP office, CDPO office (placement office) took full leverage of the situation.

CDPO and the CRASHERS:

The first crasher was done in L3, the foundation laid by the CON had been of use, everyone came well dressed and shaved for the crasher. Yet, we were made to stand in line for hours in absolute silence. Attendance was taken multiple times before letting us into the room. It was a small room with a capacity of 150, we were made to sit on the aisles and still, there were few people who didn’t find the place. The place reps came in and shouted on students who left some aisles for fitting their legs. They were made to stand and were scolded upon, after this treatment every one of the 458 students was accommodated in the room squeezing one upon the other feeling the neighbours breath on them. People who had a smile on the face were made to stand up and were humiliated, “Is this a joke for you, if you don’t get placed that's the joke” these are the words and practices which I would be hearing for the next 3 months. Then the ChairPerson arrived, right up front in the first meeting Professor Manju Jaiswal the then Placement chair had clearly said that “ you need to make a choice between placements and academics” she left after that and the Crasher continued elaborating about the rules and procedures of the process. First, the defaults were explained by example, people who are smiling, people who are not with IIMCal notebook ( any other notebook is not allowed except this) and people who are not overdressed ( when in doubt always overdress is the slogan given) are fined. Then they gave the phone numbers of the place reps and the set procedure in which they should be approached. No one should talk to them outside the CDPO office, even wing mates shouldn’t knock their door nor should they be asked of anything. No one should have eye contact with them or smile at them — It’s exactly how I read it in the books about how the upper castes practised untouchability with lower castes. And this is what everyone practised or was made to practise for the next few months.

Here are some videos which show a glimpse of them Link5 and Link6. Here is the ZIP file of the videos (Link13) And these are the pictures of the room Link 7

PLACE REPS:

Place reps are the students who are responsible for the whole placement process. Inviting the companies, booking their travel visits and selling the batch to the corporates constitute their core activities. There are 10 place reps, half selected by the professors and half by the student body. They enjoy special privileges in the campus, for example, most of the time they leave the classes early and the professors allow them because they are place reps, after becoming a place rep it's imperative that their academics take a backseat. Most of them have huge dips in their GPA’s after becoming the place reps. The level of disrespect they show to every other department in the campus is awful, for example making a proxy for attendance is a common thing but place reps get proxies for exams where their exam is written by someone else. The investigators don't dare to catch them even if they found them, accidentally this year one such place rep got caught with his sheer negligence and miscommunication, the TA who caught him went pleading to the Administration to leave him. Finally, the PGP office let him go considering it as a proxy of attendance and not an exam. This is just to illustrate the power they enjoy in the campus. Most of the place reps don't have good CV points and I haven't seen any place rep who comes from the top 5 IIT’s but eventually, they grab jobs which are way out of reach for a normal student with the same credentials. Some common traits of a place rep are never to smile and always have a serious face, to shout loudly on anything and to ask the reg number to fine.

CV Building Exercise

The CV building constitutes a two-month full-fledged activity from the start of the first crasher. Two CV’s are considered — A Master CV which includes all the activities of the student right from his childhood till his first trimester at IIM C and a Final CV which goes to the companies. Every achievement has to be substantiated with proof from the concerned school/office. This is a rigorous process and something which IIMC takes pride with the recruiters for being an authentic resume compared to other MBA institutes. But the process in which this verification happens is far from ideal.

Mentor Allocation: Each one will be allocated a mentor from the senior batch, they are supposed to guide on what points to be kept and what points to be left. There is no choice for the student here and it depends on what type of senior he gets. If lucky you might get a considerate senior who would help you with the points and If unlucky you might get a senior with loads of attitude who might skip the meetings or pain you if you are a minute late to complain to the placecom who will for sure penalise you or he might just strike off all your points with a single penstroke. The system as in doesn’t give you any help, it will be at the mercy of the senior. Other than the mandated CV mentor, one is free to meet as many seniors as they can to seek information regarding how to frame the points, what power verbs to use and how many points are required for their specific job interests. In general most of the seniors are pretty helpful in these cases and the word of mouth spread fasts about who does these things better and one chooses to visit them.

CV Review: Just check this picture (check number of views against the post) to know the amount of pressure and importance this event has. There is a tremendous amount of pain and pressure during this process.

The CV review happens in stages, the first Master CV verification happens after two weeks of the briefing. Each CV point should get valid proofs, for example, something like “best outgoing student from school” you need to get a stamped paper or email from the school. The short duration given is very much hectic for the students to get all these things, owing to the number of such points, on an average a student needs 50 such points. the way they are written is also pretty dramatic like quoting numbers for each event approximating them and asking the concerned authorities for proofs of such. These two weeks will be completely frenetic.

The CV review happens all night long, people will be given slots at very arbitrary timings something like at night 3 am and have to wait there to get there chance, the control of the placecom is pretty high here, the NTB C3 room looks like an interrogation cell, there will 8–10 placereps reviewing the CV’s once you enter it you get a very unpleasant welcome, some placereps shouting on others, other students with scared faces rechecking all the documents and emails on their laptops. There will be no arguments on what points the placereps allows and doesn’t allow. Many times there will be valid calls owing to insufficient proofs but there are exceptions too. Students who have very good points will be cut down of them and students with poor points will be allowed to put some points without proofs. The idea of the placecom is to get everyone placed. To get the best job suited to your abilities is not their concern and the intention is to present a uniform batch to the recruiters. In order to push your points, to get them validated one should repeatedly go through this process, plead with them and show them a degree of submission. People who fight for their self-respect, like who tell the placereps not to shout on their face or don’t show submission ( like the placerep says you are late even if you are on time, you are expected to say a sorry and please let it go if you fight on that you aren’t late you will be damned) will be weeded out in this process. Like not approving the best points to completely delaying and not doing the verification. There are cases like this even last year.

After three such review sessions in the next few weeks, group bargainings and some tussles, the Master CV verification ends.

Meanwhile, the midterms and quizzes for the courses go on, the academic work, group projects and other activities like management games get little attention from the students, there will be hardly any time or enthusiasm left for such events. There is a frenzy to get more CV points, students join the clubs for these, participate in competitions and do all sorts of activities in search of the CV points. It's important to note that the Term 1 GPA won't be listed in the resume, so for people who think that they can come here to undo the past undergrad mistakes (low GPA) and get a good job with that, the route is closed. An example to illustrate the hunger for CV points, there is one scholarship for low-income students where they get money of Rs 1000 odd which in essence is of no help, a huge number of people applied for it when asked the reason, it was not for the money but for the additional CV point in the scholarships section.

Summers CV: The final CV is a one-page document which is a subset of the Master CV, it can fit a maximum of 45 points. The making of is a mixture of art and science and a lot of bull work on Microsoft word. One can make four such CVs from their master CV to cater predominantly the four major sectors Consulting, Finance, Marketing, General Management & Product Management. Though the layout is the same, each has a specific format to be written and specific weights of points distributed across four sections -Academics, Work Experience, Positions of Responsibility and Extra Curricular activities. For example, Marketing jobs are said to need more points in Extra Curriculars, more strength in Academic points for Finance jobs and a balanced resume for Consulting. This is precisely the knowledge which is only known to IIM students, I have called a friend of mine who graduated 3 years before from IIM C, he hardly remembers the basic demand-supply graph but has perfectly intact knowledge about how the CV points should be written. The senior students offer much help in training the juniors regarding this. On an average, a student spends about 20 reviews with different seniors in seeking help to best write the points (buzzwords, grammar, power, bolding etc)and fit them in the resume. Interested seniors open slots on an excel sheet giving timings to the juniors for this preparation. This process is way liberal than the others in the placement drive, the preparation team ( it is a team which is a part of the placement team but contains individuals who have specific knowledge about how to prepare for interviews with companies - For each industry there are few coordinators) is more cheerful and takes a lot of the load off during this. On average, each coordinator does around 100+ student reviews. This is also the time where the Industry selection for students happen, depending upon the CV points they have and the CV points required for a specific industry the seniors suggest them the industry he/she has most chances with, the student generally makes a choice of this industry and concentrates his/her future preparation on it. This is the stage of a reality check for many, the ambitious dreams have to settle down.

Companies and Presentations:

From July the companies start coming to the campus and the students are mandated to attend these irrespective of their interests. The burden of showing interest to the companies is shared among the Hostel wings, its completely upon the hostel wing to distribute the burden of attending the Presentations. The placecom just gives the number of people it requires from a wing and most often they inform it at very short notice. If the required number of students are not sent everyone in the wing (usually from 6 to 12 mem) get punished. The punishment ranges from a minimum of 500 rs per person with public humiliation in crasher to banning the entire wing from specific companies and sectors. To get an idea, there will be more than 100+ companies with several activities (workshops, case competitions, company introductions) in the two months duration. It is very hectic as there will be more than 2 company ppts on most of the days, by the end of the placements an average student attends 50 Hours of PPT( Link 8) without the calculation for the preparation time for preparing questions, waiting, shaving and dressing. Some of these PPTs clash with classes and others are in evening and night times. In cases of a clash with classes, people often bunk the class or get their wingmates to help out. And because most of them are in evening times there is a significant effect on the extracurricular activities. There are no club activities in the entire two terms until the summer placements are done and the first year students hardly participate in any sports activities prior to this.

The company PPTs also should follow certain rituals, first is the dress code and to have a clean shave. The students are first assembled in a line where they will be checked for the above and then they will be kept in a room where attendance is taken (Link9), absolute silence has to be maintained. After the attendance, everyone has to move in a line and occupy the seats in the room, it should be done in the proper order of filling the seats, if a different direction is taken to occupy a seat he will be subjected to penalty, this order has to be followed while leaving the room too. The basic idea is every seat in the room has to be filled and any unfilled seat in the room will get lesser jobs to the campus. The placement representative will stand in the room with the company people and introduces the batch, then everyone has to bang the desks (this is called thumping in IIM C lingo) and the presentation from the company continues. The placement representative stands at the corner of the door monitoring everyone, a slight yawn/ a niggle from the peer/ a smile / or any questions which might be intimidating to the company are noted down. Those people will be subjected to a public trial and then punishment. To give you an example, in a company ppt while filling in the seats one guy left a seat and went to the next row. To find who did this, 2 hours of investigation of the whole batch was done in the following crasher, the whole row next to this line, around 20 people are made to stand and threatened to be taken out of the process if they don’t name that one guy, finally after many intimidations they found the one and punished him. This has put fear in the students’ mind regarding the ppts, there are cases where people cry and plead when they miss the ppts for a pardon.

The defaults are given left and right for any small activity which will identify you to be human than a robot. Here is the link to show you the magnum of the fines and penalties. Link 12

There is also a duty by the students to ask questions to the companies, the placerep monitoring the process also checks these and the whole batch will get the threats in the next crasher. Some times these questions are prechecked, meaning there should mandatorily be a prescribed number of questions submitted from each wing, irrespective of the situation these should be asked. As there are too many companies in a short duration, many times it is not as effective hence the other times the placement representative writes some questions on paper and passes to the students to ask the company.

In addition to the Company PPTs, the placecom also takes an initiative to invite guests who have the capacity to provide more jobs for the campus for guest lectures. The reputation and other things come in the second place and more often than not the guests take this as an advantage to show off their prestigious associations and students need to smile and cheer for their social media pictures. The Instuite supports it with enthusiasm. One such incident is the invitation of Mr Anil Agarwal of Vedanta. It’s important as many of the professors here at IIMC have worked against and published papers on the misconduct of this company. You can google/wiki for the company name and you can find a plethora of their cases proved and against them. While our sister institutions invite people like P. Sainath who worked against such corporations, we continue to invite people who can give funds or jobs. We are also the only IIM to invite Vijay Mallya too. It might be ok to invite but how the guest lecture went was quite objectionable.

On Sept 1st, just before the end semester exams of Term 1, the PGP office (which is responsible for the administration of academic activities) gave permission to the Placement team to take 250 of us students from a mandatory Library database introduction session to this guest lecture. This session is conducted only once in the year, the institute spends millions for these databases which we hardly know, needless to say, a majority of us have not used them even once.

Midway through this session, 250 students are taken away without any consent and made to sit in the auditorium waiting for the Chief Guest to come, meanwhile this video (Link 10)has been played twice, the PR team of the guest have circled the room with the posters of the CSR activities and donations done by him, and the lecture was nothing but a self-praise and the interaction with him was scripted, like people asking “how can we be so great like you”. For all these 3 hours one can’t go out to escape the drama, has to sit through with the attentive posture and clap whenever it is required. Finally, it ended with the facilitation and PR team taking pictures of all of us.

Try watching the video three times, it can be an acid test to see if you have the capacity to bear the environment here at IIMC.

There are few occasions where the Industry conducts workshops and more often they contain things which are stereotypes and irrational practices which are outrightly criticised in the textbooks. An example to illustrate, the Power Dressing workshop conducted by ABG talked about how to impress others by dressing well and with body language. The kind of soft suggestions were to wear spectacles to show that you are intelligent, to have a staunch posture and to spend on branded clothing to look powerful etc. These are exactly the ones which are taught to us in the Managerial communication class as myths. We can’t question them and there are people who think that this is good to take leverage upon human misconceptions. Just writing this to show you the kind of academic quality these workshops have.

Case competitions and other cheesy activities: There are these case competitions organised by many companies. Most of the marketing companies like Pepsi, HUL does these things and its mandatory for every one of us to participate in them at least till the first round. If you like it or not you have to participate as low participation numbers would hurt the company and hence result in less job offers. These take considerable time as they want detailed PPTs and case analyses.

In addition to these, there will be social functions which IIM Calcutta proudly displays it on the fb page and other mediums. Like the Republic and Independence days, Distinguished Alumni awards, Yoga day, Union ministers visits and some other felicitation ceremonies for all these functions first years have to mandatorily attend and pose for the pictures and clap for the speeches. If not they will be punished monetarily.

There are a huge number of posts and fines, I am uploading some of the types of fines placement and PGP office impose. The frequency of fines is huge, every company interaction has few fines. here is the link 11

Consulting Companies: The consulting companies and the aspirants have different privileges compared to the rest in the Placement process. Mckinsey, Bain, BCG and ATKearney are the companies which are treated as big 4 and Accenture, EY following them. Most of the students don’t know about them prior to joining but during a course of two weeks, they will be made everyone’s aspiration. These are the finer things about how this process is taken: In the initial meetings of crashers, con and other club introductions when seniors are introduced they tell the name and their summer internship place. Any company from these 4 will be made to get more claps, the general perception from the seniors will be that people who get into these are damn good, the professors in classes make remarks that these are the best companies or the most sought after companies. The placement process for these companies starts well in advance; a month before the rest of the companies. The first shortlist of students from companies will come from these firms and every year strategically they come at the time of the classes, calling the students personally by phone (unique only to these 4). Professors who usually don’t encourage any mobile calls during the class make an exception and allow the students to go out and talk. These kinds of acts establish the prestige and brand of the Big 4. Each selected candidate will be given a buddy, who will guide and gauge him through the process of selection. The people who get these calls get naturally segregated as a group as they have a separate selection questionnaire of case studies. It’s a rigorous process where one will be judged on many attributes than general intelligence aptitude and communication skills. There will be a few dinner and drinks sessions where social interaction and ability to please the client will be checked. The party sessions continue in the college with usually the seniors with consultant PPOs ( the seniors who didn’t get the ppo usually are down — the rule is if you don’t get a ppo during summer intern you wouldn’t get any job from any of these 4 companies) , these PPO holders have significant influence in enabling/disabling the chances of the selection of candidates, hence a good social contact with them is helpful. There are rumours of shady deals/favours happening with the leverage of this, something called MBB (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) party is most talked about, but I don’t have much authentic information, maybe it can be ruled out as a rumour. Something which can be statistically proven and which I have experienced is that very few (almost infinitesimal) students are selected those who come from rural or semi-urban areas and almost none from scheduled tribes and castes. ( It can be systemic elimination or just natural selection).

The big 4 companies are also the only companies who get the rank list of the students, they are the first ones to know them before the students itself, the top 20 students list is known to these companies and most of these rankers got to know their cgpa from these companies for the first time. In terms of money, needless to say, they spend the most amount per student to the north of 50k and to buy the costliest and the first slots of the placement day. Most of the selection anyways happen well before the placement day, usually, the consult aspirants get more than one shortlist from the Big 4 and the selection process is a tussle between these companies to get the best students. Great detail of micromanaging will be present where the seniors of respective companies pass information about the students. For example, if a student who got shortlisted by these Big 4 is preparing for finance roles he will not be selected, a complete level of devotion is expected and the environment provides them with it.

The Myth of Finance campus:

You might have been told that IIM C is a hub for Finance companies and the best place to learn Finance. The actual finance course in the curriculum only starts in Term 3, after the summer placements. The initial two terms only have courses which are pertaining to accounting and optimisation. For that too we didn't have faculty and were taught by visiting faculty whose experience can be least said to be forgettable. The only way to learn some finance concepts before the summer internship is by joining the Finance club or with the help of prep com. Though it's not a compulsory thing to have finance knowledge to join the Fin Club, there will be competition from other students who have prior knowledge and come from the CA background. Only very few students who have zero knowledge of finance make into it. The Prep com gives material and some classes but they essentially don't cover the core of finance but only the major questions which are asked by the recruiters so the knowledge gained is very superficial which can be easily debunked by a professional in the interview. In between the classes, assignments, crashers, PPTs, resume building and CV verifications one hardly gets time to devote to learn meaningfully. The much-publicized Bloomberg terminal and the other resources, one hardly gets to see them let alone use them. It’s true that there will be a handful of Finance companies which come exclusively to IIM C but these are very lean Investment/VC firms which hardly take more than one student and the competition for it will be from the students who have deep knowledge in the particular field. Usually with CFA level 2 and above or prior work experience in these sectors. These are the jobs which make it to the newspapers quoting a seven-figure salary, they do exist but in single digits. With all other firms with Finance roles, there is not much of a difference to other MBA colleges.

Interview and GD preparation:

The usual sentence which IIM C says is that we treat our students like adults, I think by now you would have understood how real it is, if not this will clarify.

Irrespective of your knowledge and experience, you have to go through certain mandatory exams, Mock Interviews and Group discussions, without completing these you won’t be allowed to sit for the placements. Everyone except consulting shortlist has to go through these. The tragedy is the quality of these, a senior (possibly much younger, just high in attitude and nothing else) oversees or takes the mock interviews. The kind of feedback they give is absolutely worthless and in fact harmful. Most of the fresher students actually practice it and they are the ones who pass it on to future batches. The entire interview is seen as a do or die situation and with the other party hierarchically way-way up above you. Its something analogous to how a girl goes to conservative arranged marriage scene 50 years back in India, with a dire need and pressure to impress others and be prepared to do anything for it.

The Group discussions are absolute fish markets where no one has any clue about the contents of the topics, the feedback also stresses on all things other than the content. Some etiquette that they teach is helpful like don’t cut others especially girls but it is seldom followed. The mock GD’s happen in the last week before the placement week and one can see the desperateness of the students in the way they shout in these. There are also other mocks which recreate the actual placement days where one needs to rush between interviews, and also the mocks of different types of GDs specific to different companies (For example, ABG has a group activity GD, Mahindra has a role play GD etc).

THE PLACEMENT DAYS:

Contrary to the public perception and the marketing of the Institute the placements doesn't happen in a day or two. They actually happen for a week but intelligently named in such a way that they can say in two days Day -2, Day -1, Day 0, Daybreak 1, Daybreak 2, Day 1 and Day 2

The frenzy comes to the peak at the start of the week, the first time the masks of pretention from the placereps will be revealed and they wish the best for everyone. The last crasher ends in a highly spirited note, just like a sports dressing room in the halfway break. Students all are pumped up to get their rightful jobs from A and B.

Day -1: It has interactions of finance companies, The fin companies know the CVs of the students and will be looking for other attributes. Something called Desperate Participation happens here where students show their utmost interest and passion to the companies. Some interviews in the form of company interaction take place and the job offers will be known by the end of the day. This day is exclusive to people who have shortlists from the Finance companies, others are not mandated to come.

Day 0: The companies are arranged slot wise, they have specific times .. the Big 4 companies open at 9 am at the start and the other companies and continue till afternoon. Day 1 Afternoon slots are sold for other companies in the domain of finance and consulting, all the 450 students have to report at 8 am in the morning to two rooms, Food will be provided there itself. There are a set of volunteers from seniors helping the students and companies. Each company has a volunteer who calls the names of the students whom the company are interested in. The message travels to the IFCO group, this is a secret group selected by the placereps from the senior batch students they operate in a room taking the calls from the company volunteers to the front desk. ( This is the IFCO group where there seems to have been unfair practices where personal favours to selected students are said to happen and have been proved which led to the impeachment process at my time, currently they have automated this by software but there is no surety that it’s not manually overridden, the ifco team still exists). At the front desk, there will be a bunch of seniors with mikes who announce the Roll numbers of the students who are being called and the same will be projected on the screens. The day starts with the Consult companies, as their process is almost complete the initial time is just a ritual, the students go there sign the documents and come back they are called hotlisted candidates, after that, the companies try to interview the other candidates. It’s very critical that one needs to check their time, as all the same sector companies happen at the same time if one spends more time and doesn’t get the call, all of his/her chances with other companies will also be drained out. If he/she spends more than an hour and comes out without an offer, most probably he/she will see the other companies have shut their shops by then. ( This is due to the slot wise selling of the time to companies, it fetches more price for the placement office but has little use to students, not all the iim’s follow it).

Day 0 afternoon goes with companies searching for quality students, there is a sharp decline in the quality of companies which come by the end of the day. For example, African companies come by evening, some people refrain from joining them and prefer to wait for day 1. Companies like Uber, HUL, PNG etc all come in the next day. But if called by the company the student has to attend the interview, something called tanking ( willfully pretending to be dumb in the interview) happens with these students. Slowly the professionalism in the process drops down by afternoon, the friends/seniors/hostel mates of the students who are volunteers starts pushing their candidates. Usually, this happens mostly on Hostel loyalty and Language. The company volunteers give the CVs of preferred members to the companies asking them to consider, the companies also ask the volunteers, the previous interns to show them good candidates. The process starts to derail and it depends on the network and luck of the student to get an interview chance. By around midnight the process comes to a hold. People who got selected will be oopsed out of the process after signing the required documents. Some people start partying while the others start filling the preference lists. By early morning the shortlisted candidates of different companies in Day break 1 will be let out.

Day Break 1: Daybreak 1, there are few but prominent companies which take Group discussions and secret Interviews. Companies like HUL and PNG always take these interviews named on company one to one interactions. On an average, a student gives 3–5 Group discussions this day. Students who don’t get shortlisted need not come to the reporting venue on this day. By the end of the day, the companies call the students and tell them that they are willing to take them. Only companies of reputation and those that have the inside information have this privilege.

Day Break 2: This is where most of the Group discussions happen, on an average a student gives 12+ GD’s on this day from morning to evening. Each GD takes around 30–45 mins, and they happen at different parts of the campus, there will be cabs moving around to take you, without support from friend/groupmates it’s very difficult to know where you were called and where you need to get the redirects. Some companies take personal interactions and phone calls at night if they like you. At the end of the day, everyone will be exhausted but it’s important to be awake for the next big day of interviews.

Day 1: Similar to Day 0, after the initial shortlisted candidates sign their offers, the rest will continue with the interview. This is the time around 60+ companies come and it soon turns into a fish market again by the evening. Now the support group sizes are also high, mainly by region wise like Tams, Mallus and Gults each vouching for their candidates. The system completely breaks down, no one has a clue even the ifco team doesn’t know what goes on the ground. Individual CV pushing, bargaining for jobs ( professor coming down to bargain for jobs when the company is not hiring anyone) from professors and previously interned students happen. The speed and frenzy of the situation are such that some times the student doesn’t even know which company and role he is interviewing for. After the day if some people are left out the process will go to the next day.

Day 2: this is a low key affair, around 10+ students were left at my time and they will be placed in an hour or so. There will be a steep decline in the jobs (quality and pay wise), in terms of pay it will be at least be reduced by a factor of 10 from the top percentile. This also holds for the final placements.

Icebreaking: After everyone in the batch gets placed, there will be a victory meeting where the professor gives a speech of how we won the battle. Followed by that will be the ritual of put lake, where the placement representatives will be thrown into a lake. The lakes overflow that night with booze, weed and dance.

This marks the end of placements and a new found freedom and time.

By this time the academic interests will be completely dried down , students find solace in sports ( all the sports tournaments will be scheduled from now on — Vasrchatsva, Sangarsh and CXL), relationships and weed.

Some of these practices have been changed last year after a huge outcry from the batch and an impeachment process. For example, now the crashers are held in Auditorium than L3 and are headed by the chairperson. Defaults and penalties have been increased. The dress code is stricter, essentially the practices which can be directly shown to be outright barbarian have been remodelled in a different way. The intent still remains the same.

In short, the priority of the campus is to sell you to a company by hook or crook and then comes the learning and development which is mostly dependent on an individual motive in an unacademic learning environment. It takes a significant let down of your self-respect just to survive through the system and the only skills which take you higher are subservience.

Something about me :

I am Srikanth, a recent graduate from IIM C with the MBA program. I am also a member of CEMS and have spent a semester in Bocconi Italy. Prior to that, I did my Engineering at IIT Madras from the batch of 2013. Last year too I tried telling the same to the juniors but by then most of them had already resigned their jobs and made the decision to come to Joka. I am happy that they are doing good. But this place is not for everyone's appetite and I believe other places can help you make yourself a better individual than Joka.

PS: You can always write to me if you need more information.