Career Development (Placement)

Visit to Cashkaro.com

Career Development (Placement), , ,

Hello!

Greetings

I am Ankita Agrawal, PGDM first year student from IILM institute for Business & Management, Gurgaon. I along with 20 of my fellow classmates and our mentor Prof. Ruchi Shah visited cashkaro.com office on 17th march 2017. The office is located in Gurgaon. The visit was a part of our module “career trek” which is an experiential course of IILM allowing students to network with corporate, government and non-profit companies. The main purpose was to understand the e-commerce sector and to connect directly with the employers.

The visit to cashkaro.com was one of the best experiences we ever had. It is a young start-up with many new objectives and opportunities for itself and the consumers. The office was big and sophisticated space with an essence of learning and motivation everywhere in form of quotes. It didn’t feel like we are in to a big organization with some strict code to follow. Everyone was glad to have us there and welcomed us with all smiles. The founder duo Swati and Rohan Bhargava themselves joined us for a glass of coca-cola over an informative chat session. We got to know about how CashKaro started and what was the driving force behind it.

Many of us didn’t really use CashKaro before but after the visit, we all got to know it’s the best site to earn cash back. When we shop at any online portal via Cashkaro, the retailer pays Cashkaro some commission. Cashkaro passes a certain percentage of this commission to the users as Cashback and the remaining is their revenue. For example, if we shop for ‘xyz’ amount, we can get upto 70% of the amount back into our bank account as Cashback.

Also, the employees shared their growing experience of working in Cashkaro. Unlike every other company, Cashkaro offers a friendly working environment wherein the employees communicate with their colleagues without following any hierarchy and there is complete transparency in work. One of the employees named Sanjula Miglani shared how in a span of just 1.5 years, she changed three departments as she learned about each of them and got promoted. The employees seemed to be very happy and open regarding their views about the organization and about working in a start-up. They cleared our doubts regarding cash back and detailed us about what they actually do.

The digital head of the company involved us in few activities wherein we expressed our views regarding the company’s website and its other functioning. We were also briefed about their upcoming projects and short-term goals. It was really exciting to know about what working in a start-up feels like. This motivated each one of us to pursue career in a start-up and e-commerce sector.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank our professor for giving us this opportunity to visit the company and also to the Cashkaro team for making the learning so fruitful for us. We now have a clarified goal regarding our interest areas. The students of IILM look forward to work with you in future for sure.
Thank you.

IILM Summer Internship Program 2017 – The Experiential Way

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For the whole year student shuts heavy books, and semester by semester opens heavier ones to study for the ever upcoming exams. He worries about assignments, projects and imminent mid semester reviews. Sound familiar? A student’s academic life in college reads like a bunch of old theorems- dull and unchanging. Winter semester is preceded by fall and soon the year ends with us having achieved high marks but no knowledge of how we achieved them. Summer time is  perhaps the time for our students to pursue their passion and live their future goals by networking with corporates & professionals.

Our curriculum mandates a 3 month summer internship, to provides a first hand experience of the business environment. Moving from the classroom set up to the real world space, this process makes our students more adaptive at handling real life problems hence making them effective decision makers.

Our students will be spending their summers interning at their dream companies! 

Amidst the PG academic session, classes & projects, every year from early February onward the IILM campus gets all worked up with top brands on campus to hire students for the Summer Internship Program. There’s a huge association with industries, sectors &  established line of start-ups for the on the job training with young (highly inspiring) entrepreneurs. To name a few companies who hired IILM PGDM students for SIP’17 – Mondelez International (Food Processing Industry), SMC International (Financial Services), WNS (Business Process Outsourcing), Hettich (Manufacturing sector), ITC limited (FMCG), IMRB (Consulting), JLL (Consulting) & Eazy Diner (Food and Beverage Industry).

Internships – The Real World Training 

The experiential learning offers our students to work in their interest domains. Students are offered a range of profiles during the internship period of 3 months. These profiles range from different departments, such as – Marketing & Sales, Financial Services, Human Resources & Operations.  With recent SIP hiring on campus there are various profiles which are being offered to our students, to name a few –

  • Business Sales
  • Employee Engagement
  • Data Analyst
  • Channeling Sales
  • HR Generalist

So, how does the process of SIP really works at IILM?

The students are given a committed faculty & industry mentor. Industry mentor is the person who is an employee of the company where he/she is going to start the internship. SIP Projects play a very significant role in the internship period, all the projects are evaluated by faculty mentors before they are allocated to the students. The faculty mentors also visit companies and interact with the industry mentors on a regular basis to keep abreast of the students’ performance. There’s a regular interaction between the assigned faculty mentor & the student during non working hours on how to prepare their reports. The project is culminated with a presentation by the student before a panel of company representatives and the industry mentor at the company premises.

Indeed, an over whelming achievement is experienced by the students by the possibility of receiving the ‘Pre-Placement Offer’ on the completion of their internship period. It is earned and gained only with the immense and sincere efforts done by the interns

 

IILM Career Trek Visit 2017 – Review I

Career Development (Placement)

For many IILM students, the internship and job search extends far beyond the Delhi-NCR campus. As a part of campus placements drive, students of batch 2016-18 made use of the opportunity to visit companies, covering across 23 sectors to understand the sector specific requirements.

In particular, for The IILM Career Development Centre, the Career Trek is one of their hallmark events. So, what exactly happens during this Career Trek?

For the organizer, the trek is the result of months of planning and coordination with many companies. All students are taken for a limited spot on this trek regardless of their experience in this field, as the goal is for them to broaden their exposure and to network for potential job opportunities.

Fabio Rodriguez Santiago, President of the IESE Marketing Club stated, “We need the trek to cater to our entire student base. We have some participants with very strong marketing experience in big firms like Coca-Cola whilst others are career changers with little previous exposure to the industry. We plan the mix of companies and content of visits in such a way so that it is enriching regardless of your marketing knowledge.”

The Career Trek is primarily student driven. This means that every year, the companies that are included could change depending on students’ interest.  In the month of March students & the placements team optimised the activity of Career Visit to large corporations like – Audi , Whirlpool,  Bisleri, and Mercedes-Benz,  leading banks like ICICI & YES BANK as well as fast-growing start-ups such as Make My Trip and Cash Karo. Not only did the students learn trends from industry leaders, they were able to participate in discussions on current projects involving gender equality and sustainability.

Acquainting with industries like – Automobile, Banking, Consumer Durable, E-commerce and many more are ultimately giving a lot of exposure and career boost to  young professionals on campus. These industries have the all round reputation for the overall personality development and grooming for its employees.
The Career Development Centre also organized a panel with young entrepreneurs at the Lodhi Road campus, who shared their experiences about the marketing challenges faced by starts-ups. Of course, no trek would be complete without Happy Hour to wrap up the busy day.

Let’s see what students have experienced :-

  • “Overall the trek proved useful to me. Coming from a non-marketing background and looking into potentially moving to a marketing role, it helped me gain a 360 view of the business”   17425947_1496118200400511_2020080846988599168_n
  • “It was a unique experience to learn about a company, not from papers or pictures, but from the recruiters and employees. It was amazing to be in their work environment and to see the passion they have for their work.”   17309171_1490679790944352_2882660304084705530_n
  • “Inspiring, informative and fun for everyone.”

From the companies’ perspective, the trek gives them a chance to interact with IILM students in a more intimate setting and to hear their ideas. According to company professionals,

  • “The companies shared were that they were very impressed by the energy and inputs given by IILM students”.
  • “Presenting to the IIILM PGDM students was really exciting. For me, it wasn’t a class of MBA students, it was a community of really cool, curious and eager individuals. I am very thankful for the insights gained from such an international audience.”            17309245_1490675774278087_6029245993411904955_n

 Ultimately, every trek is only as successful as the efforts put in by the students.

For those first year students who missed out on this year, there is always next year. Get an insight on IILM PGDM Campus Placements & Summer Internships at www.iilm.edu/placements.

Read More:

Book Review of Dan Ariely’s “Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations”

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payoff-9781501120046_hr

ISBN: 1501120042 (ISBN13: 9781501120046)

Motivation is a topic of great interest to behaviour and organizational scientists who are generally looking for ways to improve performance and productivity. The subtitle of the book “Payoff” attracted my attention, whetting my curiosity with the promise of the hidden logic behind motivations. ‘Payoff’ is an engaging melange of research findings with personal stories and experiences, blended into an interesting read as much for a lay person as for a researcher. Catchy chapter headers also added to the appeal.

Dan begins with a dictionary definition of motivation and how it is a significant part of all aspects of our lives – personal and professional. In the author’s own words “This book explores the jungle of motivation’s true nature, as well as our blindness to its strangeness and complexity”. His introduction talks about an interesting theory that motivation is a sum of a number of factors suggesting the equation:

Motivation = Money + Achievement + Happiness + Purpose + A Sense of Progress + Retirement Security + Caring About Others + Your Legacy + Status + Number of Young Kids at Home2 + Pride + E + P + X + [All kinds of other elements]. He presents the complexity of the concept of motivation and how we tend to attribute it to different factors before a project and during the project. He also points out that often we become aware of the various factors affecting our motivation levels only after the negative effects are evident.

He then goes on to describe an experience that made him realise that what pushed him to come out of a tragic incident was the strong need to conquer a feeling of helplessness. The need to “reclaim even a tiny modicum of control over his life” was the motivation to endure the pain and to get better. With these words the author brings out the significance of experiencing meaning in life as against living an easy life.

Dan cites several interesting studies that he and his colleagues have conducted where performance of research participants as well as actual factory employees went up much more significantly when they were able to find meaning in their work than when their work was simply rewarded with monetary returns. In fact his research points to the fact that monetary rewards actually hampered rather than helped productivity whereas a simple word of acknowledgement from the superior worked wonders.

Through four easy to read chapters, Dan enlightens the readers on what kills motivation, how joy and finding meaning in work are significant, that money is a wrongly over-rated motivator and how often the need for finding meaning unconsciously extends to encompass even the afterlife. Dan concludes with the answer to the ultimate question alluding to the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Expressed in a light and humorous language, while the book reiterates what several other researchers have found in recent years, it also encourages the reader to ponder some of the simple yet often ignored aspects of leadership and motivation. It is a small book, quick to read and packed with wisdom.

Placement week organized by IILM

Career Development (Placement),
As part of the placement week organized by IILM, Mr. Rupesh Kumar Chaturvedi (batch 2010 – 12) who is currently working with SAAVAN as Senior Executive – Ad Operations took the first session. Mr. Rupesh, prior to working with SAAVAN has a work experience of more than two years with Exponential.

The session started with a detailed discussion.

He had a detailed discussion with the students on Digital Media Marketing and gave them insights from the industry perspective. The objective of the session was to give guidance to the students on how to crack an SIP interview and what mistakes they should avoid.

Company Visit – An Integral part of the IILM UBS Curriculum

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The Company Visit module is an integral part of the IILM Undergraduate curriculum incorporated and designed for the SBS students keeping in mind their need to see and learn things practically from an industry perspective. An Industry visit helps to link theoretical knowledge with practical know how. For Stages 1 & 2 the visits were primarily linked to their subjects Information Systems, Project Management, Marketing & Finance.

 

The first visit for this semester took place on 9th September, when the students of Stage- 1 went for a company visit to Country Inn and Suites (A Carlson Property). They were addressed by the HR Manager, Sales Manager, Front Office Manager of the Property. The visit was linked to Information Systems. Students learnt about the Information Systems and the processes followed at the hotel. They were also briefed about the various departments of the hotel, their competitors and the positioning of the brand.

 

Subsequent two company visits were arranged separately for Stage 2 students in the month of October at HDFC Bank & Sheraton Hotel Saket. Here the students learnt about the front end and back end operations at a bank and at a hotel from the respective operational heads.

 

In December, a company visit was organized at Parle Biscuits at Bahadurgarh which was open for both the stages, where the students were exposed to the process of making biscuits and confectionary. They were taken inside the premises and shown the operations. A presentation on the inception of the Parle group and the various products manufactured by them made the visit interesting.

 

The students also visited Pepsi Bottling Plant at Greater Noida on 7th December which the students attended across both the stages which was linked with their Marketing & Project Management. At the Pepsi plant, a plant tour was conducted for the students where it was explained how the bottling and canning processes are done along with their assembling procedure.

 

The final visit for this semester was held at Ambience Mall Gurgaon on 19th December which provided information on the retail sector. The students really liked this visit as they were briefed by the mall management starting with a brief on the history of the Ambience Mall, Leela Ambience Hotel and then went on to explain regarding the positioning of the brands on each floor.

 

Overall the company visits conducted through the course of Semester 1 across both the stages considered a wide gamut of sectors keeping in mind the various modules being taught in class and linked to their entrepreneurship course. These visits make the acquisition of knowledge more practical and interesting for the students of BBA, in addition to the wide exposure they provide to the different sectors widening the scope for budding entrepreneurs.

 

By Ms. Anindita Chatterjee, Assistant Prof. HRM

Mentoring at IILM

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The word ‘mentor’ may be described in simple terms as a person who gives a younger or less experienced person help and advice over a period of time, especially at work or school. In this context, ‘mentor’ is understood as a person who provides assistance and guidance to his or her ‘mentee’- the person who is being guided, and the objective of ‘mentoring’ is to bring out and nurture the best possible abilities in the ‘mentee’.

It may sound clichéd, but the fact is that in current times we do not want our leaders to be a knowledge bank. Instead, we want them to manifest themselves as dynamic individuals who are capable of handling various situations and people at work. IILM has the tradition of implementing a robust mentoring program for each and every student in order to ensure that its graduate and post-graduate students are prepared to handle the world outside.

The various aspects of the mentoring program at IILM are:

  • Academic and Career Counselling: When a student is selected to pursue studies at IILM, s/he is also allocated a dedicated mentor, considering the fact that young and fresh undergraduates and graduates have numerous expectations related to their academics, career and future plans. The mentor remains in regular contact with the student providing guidance and insights to the mentee. The focus is on academic and professional planning, in addition to personal development.
  • Direction and Guidance: At IILM, the objective is to not only to focus on the core job of guaranteeing academic learning to the students, but also ensuring that within the framework of the mentoring program, mentees share their aspirations and areas of interest with their mentor. The mentor then extends to them all the necessary direction and guidance, which may shape them as effective and successful leaders of tomorrow.
  • Identification of Strengths and Opportunities: The mentor helps the mentee identify his or her strengths and areas of opportunities and development in order to create a nurturing environment. This allows the mentee to achieve his or her academic and career goals through regular interactions between the two.

To quote a few examples:

  • There are students who need help in expanding their family business. In such a situation, the mentor usually connects them to the faculty who has specialized in family business studies or the Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) that caters to nurturing young entrepreneurs.
  • Similarly, there are students who wish to work with leading organizations. With the rich pool of faculty at IILM, who come from industry as well academic backgrounds, the mentor helps provide an understanding of the industry operations to the mentee. The Career Development Cell (CDC) works closely with the mentor to make the students employable.

Thus, the process functions on the basis of regular interactions, expressing and meeting expectations and sharing experiences and follow ups with the mentees. The outcome of mentoring program is, hence, transformation of undergraduates into responsible business professionals.

Mentoring Plan for Staff and Faculty Members

It is noteworthy to mention that the mentoring program is structured not only for the students but also for the all the faculty and staff members. When a new joinee becomes a part of the IILM family, the senior faculty and staff members, including the Deans and the Directors mentor them to understand the modus operandi of the system. During this process, which may be defined as the learning curve, the new joinees understand the dynamics of the system, the process flow of their job profile and are provided continuous inputs and feedback to handle their roles independently.

In a nutshell, the mentoring program is an integral part of the IILM system, which enables each and every individual to define their goals and expectations, draft a plan and then work on the accomplishment of those goals.

Career Development Journey of IILM Students

Career Development (Placement)

Students pursuing MBA by every mean believes to have an inspiring career journey from the start of academic period and till the very end of final placements. Business students pursue management for many reasons, and it is the responsibility of college to provide best of available resources & support to make career development journey of each and every student a remarkable one, perhaps that is the only way ROI can be justified thoroughly.

Dr. Shivani Khurana, IILM Placement Head (Lodhi Road Campus) says, “IILM is able to deliver something that many other schools are not able to deliver. The vert fact that it’s a two-year programme in the heart of the city attracts a certain personality to the programme. People who are anxious and fast-paced for change, and spending as short as possible time, before they embark on a new career.”

Let’s witness the Career Development Journey of IILM students through a face to face interaction with some of our significant team members explaining the journey in three steps, that is – Know yourself, Know the market & Have a strategy.

At IILM the team of Career Development Centre (CDC) enables every student with necessary skills & insights, to continue the journey and embark upon every student’s dreams. Fundamentally it is very important to not only inspire career journey but also academic period a countable one.

Career journey is primarily molded in the running academic period on the outcome of companies visiting IILM campus for Final Placements. IILM has been making considerable efforts in getting some top major brands every year. This year the CDC team brought in association with Cadbury’s, Deloitte, HDFC, Protiviti, Tata Communications, Genpact, IMRB & NDTV.

The companies visited us with a unique blend of positions and offers for students. This is truly the time for students when they can portray their best efforts, capabilities, and personality to some of the most potential recruiters.

As one of the leading institutes for Business learning, IILM is setting up a new trend of much refine standards in terms of placements of the PG students. In this present market of a great competition, creativity and monetary benefits, preparing the students for an uncertain future is what it takes to claim the much desired holistic learning experience in this college.

 

Get-Your-Resume-Noticed-In-6-Seconds

Get Your Resume Noticed In 6 Seconds

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Dear applicants, the recruiters have finally confessed the secret. The time span of a recruiter checking your resume stays between 5-7 seconds, says online job search site The Ladders as per the research done by them. This equals to about 30-40 words on resume in total.

There’s always this anxiety in us to know what happens next when we apply for a job. How long are recruiters reading our resume? What are the major areas of concern on a resume for recruiters?  What interests them to not toss the resume in recycle bin?

Let’s glance through a few facts below unleashing the figures and facts related to recruiters’ activity. (A study was done by Undercover Recruiter on the analytics of CV through a recruiter’s point of view.)

► 200 applications are received when a job is posted
► Average time spent looking at the CV lasts for about 7 seconds
► 15% chance is the attached cover letter will be read too
► 1 spelling or grammar mistake your CV will be thrown out
► 80% of CVs are rejected with photos attached on it
► 60% of recruiters will search for your other social media profiles
► 80% of CVs are rejected if you have unprofessional email address

After the careful analysis of survey done by The Ladders on job recruiters to figure out what matters the most on your resume – firstly, they found out the areas of content that is largely ignored, secondly – the top six aspects on which recruiters pay maximum of their attention, such as –

► Name
► Current Title / Company
► Previous Title / Company
► Current position start end dates
► Previous position start and end dates
► Education

So, what do you do to make your CV gain worth a second glance? We would say, the best solution is to summarize your CV at the earliest.  Try applying following smart tricks to keep your CV visible in that span of 6 seconds precisely –

► Tailor your resume summary as per each job application you apply for – Try to highlight your areas of expertise most relevant to the particular position you are applying for and use them in the summary. This will help a recruiter focus his/her attention on the areas that are expected out of you to perform, hence it improves the interview process.

► Mention the result outcomes you’ve achieved in those areas of expertise – Focus on how you have helped organizations achieve their goals. Simply focus on specific results that have benefited other organizations. And most importantly, how well your accomplishments distinguish you from other candidates.

► Highlight the major industries you’ve been associated along with years of experience – This space gives you an opportunity to explain the industries you’ve been associated with through out your career span. Try to talk about the areas which are most vital in terms of its relevancy and application.

► Make use of important key words that describes you as a best fit – Avoid using generic words. Keywords are essential to make your resume strong in terms of right filtration of the most concerned set of words.

► It is equally important to work on LinkedIn profile alongside – Unlike just having about a few lines on your resumes summaries; you have up to 2000 characters in the summary section of your LinkedIn profile to highlight accomplishments and connect them to what you want to do next.

It is true that other parts of resume are also important. But a summary can captivate a recruiter’s mind at the right spot. Try to distinguish yourself from other candidates and create that need of your profile in recruiter’s eyes. In the end, all you can wait for is a call back on your phone.

References:
The Ladders
Undercover Recruiter

OffBeat-Professions-After-MBA

OffBeat Professions After MBA!

Career Development (Placement), Exam Watch, Guest Blog, , , , ,

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it” 
– Buddha 

It is a fact that a degree in Business Administration gives you a holistic learning; it has certainly become a pre-requisite quality to handle the complexities of any management set up, or a profession. In this attainment of completing higher studies, and earning an MBA Degree students often let go off their passion.

Do you ever find yourself longing for something to happen while you do a long term planning keeping the rights and wrongs inside your head. In this age and time of creativity one cannot afford to lose his or her passion for conventional lifestyle to live for the rest of their life.

Major change that has emerged in this market is the rise of unconventional professions that a lot of youngsters choose to practice, and surprisingly earn fancy amount of money.  Youngsters today are flexible to take up ‘thrilling jobs’, reasons could be because traditional careers have become competitive and lack creativity. It is amazing to even release that WHY one should take up an off-beat profession after MBA. Foremost reason could that an offbeat career path will be less competitive and there’s a greater chance of getting recognized and being able to make a difference. These careers may give you great satisfaction, and most importantly at the same time it will pay you every worth back.

So, what are some of the off-beat yet rewarding career choices out there? We look at top 5 off-beat profession that one can opt after MBA –

Blogger

Blogger – From traveling to food, or fashion or social issues, it is today’s every writer’s dream to go a full time blogger and share their wonders online with every reader. In this age of social networking, blogging has become one the most popular medium to connect with the audience and followers online, connecting people globally over anything and everything.

photographer

Photographer – In this digital age, visual selling is the key to go forward. There are many versions in the profession of Photography. One can easily learn the technique of right p-photography and associate oneself with corporates and startups to sell the services as per requirements.

youtuber

YouTuber – YouTubers are people who believe in the power of creating something unique and spontaneous.  They create their own YouTube channels, vlog (video blog) regularly and build subscribers over time. The more traffic their channel gets, the more opportunities they have for percentage-based advertising revenue, freebies for review purposes, promotions and partnerships.

wedding planner

Wedding Planner – If you are good at networking, negotiating and managing events, or parties you could become a Wedding Planner. They are called as Bridal Consultants, they primarily help couples plan their wedding. They are either self employed or associate themselves with with companies, brands and firms on projects.

Theater

Theater Management – A theater manager is required to take up the sole responsibility of managing the administrative components of any theater set up, and also keep the networking as needed . It is an extensive job to manage the the entire system of shows and events. The management majorly depends on the size of show, or play. One is expected to be passionate about theater.

You should do more what you love, one cannot ignore these words if you are planning to make your passion as your a career path.
Share some of your inner passions with us that you wish to take up after your MBA.