Place to live?

For the first time in life, I’m at a point when, I don’t know where I’ll be next month on this date. I mean, literally, not figuratively! As job search goes on and on forever, my stories also have their own ups and downs. From being a super-duper people manager to a strategic thinker I have played my part to the dances and tunes of the recruiter. This week’s going to be busy – with interviews and coursework. Talking of interviews, I’m a bit all over the place in terms of location, function and industry. Well industry not so much, but the other two definitely.

So INSEAD and a 1 year MBA in general is not that great for career changers. By career changer, I mean change any two of this set :  {function, geography, industry}. It’s pretty tough to define these terms, but even after making the most drastic adjustments to your own expectations and also of the recruiters, it’s still so bloody tough to get a job!

Anyway, the scenarios and options look promising. Just the fact that I could be working anywhere from Sydney to London to the US – the geographical spread is broad and wide. But, Singapore stands out as a desirable place to live in. There are three main reasons to it: convenience, saving potential and proximity.  It’s easily the most convenient city on earth to live in.  One doesn’t need to own a car, the air, water and land are clean. Food is available cheap and plenty outside of home. It’s saving potential os great because the taxes are low and salaries though not that high, is still quite good for a decent life. Proximity to India is an attractive attribute for us – one can just land up in the airport and take a flight home. Not too many places in the world from where we can do that!

So – back to the hunting and hoping for the best!

Risk aversion

I realized that I have been so risk averse in life. An example to illustrate this - I cut my losses when I lost 2 $ in a slot machine in a Casino whose entry fees was probably 10$!!!! I wonder whether risk aversion is a genetic/upbringing thing or a huge deficiency in self confidence. Or is it lack of ambition?

My upbringing has been so conservative in terms of financial risks and thoughts, that probably the idea of taking up an MBA itself was quite a daring thing. When we were coming for the MBA, everyone thought we were taking very big risks; we always wondered where the risk was! So …. What do we want to take away from all this? Will I ever have the balls to become an entrepreneur some day?

Release ..

I want this blog to be a release point .. release all my pain and frustrations … so I can look back at it and laugh at it some time in the future. What matters and what does not today, suddenly feels very irrelevent in tomorrow’s context. Some decisions and their basis shape our journey; and those decisions finally define who you are!

Anyway, a few things happening right now in terms of interviews and career. Only time will tell where these decisions take us.

The indian team’s performance yesterday was nothing short of pathetic. Unfortunately, our Desi week at INSEAD, the theme is cricket. It’s pretty sad and too late to change!

Random rambling ...

Dale Carnegie once wrote a book called “How to stop worrying and start living” – I used to know how to do that a while back. But now, I seem a bit uncapable of doing that.  Self- doubt is the worst enemy from within in times such as this. Loads of work to do – and the mind starts worrying thinking that there’s so much to do without actually doing them! It’s an interesting way in which our mind and body work.

Outside of abstraction, I have a lineup of interviews and I hope really do well in those. I guess everyone hopes that way, but somehow the heart beat is killing. Tension le le ko nakko, a friend of mine from Bangalore always told me. But,  when you are at striking distance from a goal, and you have just stood there for a while, it’s a tough tough world to be just standing there. Add to that a very big eveil – peer pressure. Before an MBA, you always heard of those life transforming experiences. You go thhrough the whole thing in terms of effort, but not yet in terms of results. I agree there’s time and it’s only a question of time, but still that’s the way the humand mind works.

Among other things, I actually sat through classes the whole weekend doing a course called Art of communication. The less said about the class, the better. Anyway, back to real world …. Logout from the blog world for today!

Countdown to graduation

So the INSEAD story is enterng its last phase. So more and more interviews are coming – not that many actually; but just that I know what I’m going to be doing next week. Besides, I have also loaded myself with academics! I have taken 4 courses; 3 credits though. But the courses are really good ones – Industry and competitive analysis, Business planning workshop, Pricing strategy and Art of communication.

I was talking to a potential recruiter today and for the first time I felt my confidence coming back. A very interesting exercise I learnt from my Negotiations professor came in really handy. He said that he had identified 78 interests when he joined INSEAD as a prof. I did a similar exercise myself through some soul searching and found that it is an effective way of convincing yourself of an interest in a particular job or position. The way it works is like this – you manage to convince yourself of why you want the job, it’s half the work done. The other half is then convincing the interviewer why he needs you. That process can similarly be built up – I haven’t done that yet with any employer, but I’m definitely going to try it out with some of the leads I have.

Finally – b-school in general and INSEAD in particular can be such completely different experiences depending on who you are and how secure you feel. When we were coming to Singapore for the MBA, lot of people were telling us that we were taking a big risk. But we never realized why they were saying that! The point is that when you are sold to a concept especially like that of an MBA, you see only the upside. The downsides and the risks somehow get lost in the pile of examples. Of course, the risk downsides are not really that much of a downside – but risks certainly exist. And these can be extraneous. The diversity itself gets us down in many situations. There are so many Indians; software background and speak good English. How the hell will a recruiter differentiate Krishnan from Rama from Ajay. Everybody is equally talented or mediocre!

So much has happened!

The blog Gods won’t forgive me for not penning down this last month or so of my life. It’s been very exciting roller coaster! I have had so many dings in applications for jobs at various stages of the recruitment process. Firstly, the consulting companies gave me a total pass except for one mistake. Marakon called me for an interview and I got disposed off in the very first round. Reason: well, you are not structured enough! A very pleasant way of saying, “Who the hell short-listed this guy?”. Then I get some calls which were very doable. American express interview went pretty well by any standards; but again the result was the same. Reason: Not known! Google was supposed to be dream company. I interviewed with them for 2 positions. I screwed up by telling the less glamourous role’s interviewer that it was my second choice. And the more glamorous role of a product manager was anyway too good to be true! Result: Ding again!!

In the meantime, there was process that was going in parallel that always looked promising. BT – British Telecom. The call for the final interview came – I flew to London to give the interview. There were 5 interviews in 7 hours of a day. The undoing of Prashant was again in a case interview! I got the ding there also – which was the most workable scenario for us – that one of us finds a job in the UK; and the other goes there and finds a job in a short duration. Anyway, some positives from the trip – I visited my uncle, aunt and cousin in Dartford, south east of London. I had a very relaxed time and for the first time in life, I played with a dog. Their pappion is a cute fellow called Oscar. I also really enjoyed walking around London. For some strange reasons which people call Global warming, London wasn’t cold!

Back to Singapore now and back in the grind. Back to sending zillions of applications. I am going to fight it out! Come what may, I shall not get bogged down and somehow go there and fight it out at each subsequent interview. I need to increase my aggression quotient – not possible in the short run, but the business world demands of me to become aggressive. How I can achieve that in the short term, I don’t know. This is the age by when people are trying to sober down, but I’m going to be trying the opposite direction. Only time will tell where the drift takes us …  as of now it looks like the Sydney harbour bridge!