Update..

Thought I will update the readers on my progress.. I got an internship in consulting. Unbelievable isn't it? But it's true.. There is an interesting story behind it. We won a case competition (me and 2 other students from Kelley) sponsored by one of the big consulting firms beating 3 other schools. The first prize is a summer internship in the management consulting practice of the firm..

May be whatever the alchemist said is true: "When You Know What You Want, The Whole World Conspires With You To Achieve It."..Be crazy..Be foolish..

I hate to answer in words when people doubt my ability. Many times my actions spoke..I am not proud, but just confident.

Love,
The Indian Alchemist.

Stopped..

Friends,

I am killing this character called Indian Alchemist. I hope it served the purpose for what I created it. Through the past 3 weeks, I pondered and decided that it's the time for me to move on and not just write about my usual chores. I will write another blog with another character as the center.

Good luck with everything ad e-mail me if you have any queries and I will try to answer them.

Love,
The Indian Alchemist.

Concerns and Queries..My response

Friends,

I have received some questions about life at Kelley and various career prospects. Here is my take on this.

Kelley is best for Marketing. No more questions about it. NO one can question it. Companies ranging from P&G to Air Products hire at Kelley for Marketing and Kelley ranks in Top-10 for marketing.

Finance, though they say is second best to Marketing, I would rank it to be the best, in terms of curriculum.
Here goes an example, I was asked a Finance question in my last interview and the professor was discussing the exact question two days after the interview. I thought, man! I would have cracked that question if we had this class just two days earlier.

Consulting. For many students especially, Indians, this is the dream career.
Coming to how Kelley fares in Consulting, every year there are around 7 people going for summer internships and around 20 people going for full time job. So, if you are very interested in consulting, though you don't intern at a consulting firm (as many of the students), you will definitely get a job in consulting at one of the good firms. At present, I know many second years, who interned at various going for a full time job in E&Y, Diamond, Huron, PwC, Deloite.

But, guys,Consulting is not as rosy as it looks to be. You get to travel a lot. Around 80% of your job. Get up Monday morning, fly to Client's office. Work hard (like a donkey?) for 4 days and be back to office on Friday. Someone mentioned in a forum that consulting is not that good at Kelley as I did not get any interviews. Frankly, Though I like the problem solving aspect of Consulting, I don't like the travel part as I would like to get married 1 year after my MBA and travel is not my cup of tea. I am looking more towards internal consulting at Big companies where you do M&A analysis and strategic growth analysis. I will keep you posted about this.

Investment Banking. Again, Kelley gets firms like Bank of America, Piper Jeffrey and some other. But, the internships are less compared to full time. Again, there are many guys, who put in effort and get what they want. At the end of the day, MBA in U.S is not like an MBA in India, where you will get the companies on campus and get the things done. Here people travel to NY to meet the employers and discuss interest and push their application. Yes, it is painful. But, at the end of the day, you get to learn many things from dealing with people to getting the thing done.

Finally, the choice of school depends on the preference. I would definitely recommend Kelley to anyone who is interested in Marketing, Finance and Consulting if not IB. Guys, MBA is not just for career shift. It is a lot of learning and I guarantee that you will find that at Kelley.

Internship opportunities for International students are less compared to full time not only at Kelley but at many schools. We struggle for internships, but, everyone will have one at the end. It is a matter of time and people express their anguish if things dont workout for sometime. I understand the insecure feeling. For Full time, everyone (including internationals) will have an offer by January except for few exceptions.

Interview..I am glad

After many days, I felt good about my skills and my confidence. I handled todays interview very well. I was composed, answered the questions to maximum extent and confident.
At one point of time he was so impressed that, we got into a discussion about the intellectual property protection and how it is really difficult in emerging markets. He appreciated that and told that very few candidates think about that in interviews.
There were some pitfalls too. I did not think about the competition in one of the questions and he was waiting for me to bring that up but I did not. I cursed myself for my ignorance of so basic stuff.
The interviewer is a Harvard MBA and simply superb. He is with this company for about 20 years and handles Finance.
There was an interesting tale behind this interview. Around three months ago, I discussed my interest in the company with a second year student, who interned at this company last summer. He was very helpful and told that he had a great experience there and guided me on what should I do. Also, I spoke to a couple of Alums in key positions. But, this company does not recruit international students. It is their policy. So, I did not get into the preference list(interview short list). I contacted the second year student again and told about this. He asked me to write an e-mail to one of the alums I spoke to. I did that and the alum told that she is yet to get the list and will let me know if there are any free slots. After a couple of days, there was a mail: Attend the informational event on Sunday and interview with Finance. I met them for an informational chat on Sunday. Man, They are so down to earth. I can feel their feel for IU and I felt the warmth. It should be great team to be associated with, I thought.

I felt glad that my networking helped me. There are people who get a job without networking. I have a couple of close friends here who got into Deloitte consulting. One for Strategy and the other for Technology. They did not do any networking. But, I strongly suggest students to network with various companies. It helps you to understand various companies, their cultures and finally, you will know how to talk to people. I learned a lot of these through my networking. Now I can strike a conversation with anyone about Weather to the WTO issues.
My on campus interviewing ended today. I had 3 interviews till date in total and don't know if any one of them will convert to an offer. Now, I have to reach out to people outside.

Finally, I felt glad today. I may or may not make it. But, this feeling is good to feel and share. Congrats to all the round-1 admits and goo luck to all round-2 applicants.

Interview fever..

Ya.life goes on.. I have attended one more interview last Thursday and it went quite well. Though, I am not sure when will they get back for the second round. It is a procurement intern position in a large retail firm. I would love to work in that as the scale is around $50 billion. I can learn so many things from that experience. I had a very cordial discussion with the interviewer. I sent an e-mail to him a couple of months ago asking for an informational interview. I did not know that he would be the person to interview.
He got back to me a week ago and told that he can interview me if I am interested in. I was already on the interview list and told him the same. We had a nice discussion and he asked me to give him a call if I have any questions. I took that as a positive sign.
I have an interview on Monday with a big Chemical company. It is for Finance position. It would be a nice position to work on as they have huge international operations.
As you can see, all of my discussion goes around internship interviews and not the courses. I am not reading anything for classes these days. I feel sad that the courses are o good ad I am not doing much. If I can finish this internship early, I will jump on to that.

BTW: What do you guys feel about the MSFT, YAHO deal? I feel that there are not any synergies to be realized as both of them are lagging. And, see the cultural differences. Yahoo is a cowboy and MS is a old king. Can they ever agree on anything. Many acquisitions fail as the key people in the target company leave after the acquisition and it will happen with Yahoo too.
There is a nice article: Microsoft and Yahoo!: Happily Ever After?

Update..

I did my interview today. It was a tough one as I expected. The first question was what you want to talk about? He was pushing me all the times and I was attacking again and again. I am not sure how did it go. I have to wait one week to know whether I will make it to second round. I will take some rest before getting on to the path. Sorry that I have to delay my post as I have been having a crazy life these days..

Feeling the pressure..

How do you feel when you have one arrow at hand and have to hit a target? What if hitting the target can get you to where you want to? What if you are one of the seven selected to try to hit the target though there were 69 people, who want to hit the target?

That is the position I am in now. I have been shortlisted by one company for internship. I did network with a lot of companies but, got only one at hand. The position is definitely a good one to work, in Corporate Strategy. Whether having one in hand is better than having none? May be? May be not.

But, just having one at hand is draining me out. I need to get this internship or I need to work hard and send emails to people and alumni in the industry. It is always easy to get a job on campus. I am not concentrating on any classes. Not just me, many people. Have assignments to do and cases to discuss. I am trying hard to pull myself and hoping that I will be the one that they are looking for. I will prepare to the level best and would shoot my one and only arrow. Let us see if I will hit the target.