XLRI Leadership Expedition

Leadership qualities always have two dimensional characters; XLRI Leadership Expedition upholds this motto. First of its kind in India, XLRI Leadership Expedition aims at developing leadership traits among its participants both at the individual as well as at the societal level. Individual dimension of leadership traits appear in the following ways:

• Strength of character (In XLRI Expedition, participants are exposed to extreme hardships so as to enhance their strength of character)
• Ability of an individual to show leadership qualities even in stressful conditions, taking effective decisions which motivate the team etc.
• Motivate other members in the team at during crisis (the individual has to integrate individual success to the team’s success)

The societal dimension of leadership traits is reflected when a person takes initiative in matters affecting the society as a whole. In order to address this aspect of leadership, all XLRI Leadership Expedition members will take up a cause where they all can fruitfully contribute towards a relevant social/ environmental issue.

Partnering with CARE, XLRI Leadership Expedition effectively takes up awareness generation programmes among youth and trucker community in Jamshedpur. The Expedition will also visit Mount Everest Base Camp this year as part of its leadership development activities.

Online Quiz on AIDS organized by the Expedition also has gained widespread appreciation among youth. When anyone tries to find out answer for a question s/he learns more: so goes the success mantra of AIDS online quiz. Quiz will be open from 28th February. 21.00 hrs to 1st March 12.00 hrs.

Management solutions from animal kingdom

The interactive session organised by IIM, Lucknow on 28th of January with Mr.Gopalakrishnan captured much attention for the speaker's novel approach towards the issues in management. Mr.Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons, spoke with verve and passion often taking examples from animal kingdom to substantiate his points. This refreshingly different perspective in management was welcomed by the overfull audienece. According to him, intuition is an inevitable quality for the CEOs of tomorrow.

Mr.Gopalakrishnan has served HLL as Vice Chairperson before joining Tata Sons. He is also the author of a book titled, "Management Lessons from the Animal Kingdom" that is coming out in print by the end of the year.

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Tips for Oxford interview

Here are some tips for those who await interview call for Oxford MBA

1) You will receive an interview call just a couple of days prior to the deadline mentioned on Oxford web site.
2) The interview is telephonic and you will be interviewd by a single person.
3) It's less of an interview and more of a discussion. In the interview the interviewer will try to compare your pattern of thinking in the interview with the pattern you followed in writing the essays. And it all depends how far you can prove that you have your goals clear and justify your admission to Oxford.

4) Oxford interview is more or less structured. Questions like, your future goals, why mba, why now, why oxford, some issue in the industry you're working now, some current issue (you can talk about anything), some book you have read recently, how others describe you etc. in addition to anything interesting that the Admission Committee finds in your CV can be expected.

5)Your GMAT and extra curricular experiences are not usually discussed much. Interview is all about testing your maturity and confidence.

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DoMS, IIT(M) in international recruiters' map

For the first time in its history, DoMS, IITians (Madras) received offers from international recruiters for their Summer Placements this year. However, in their debut venture, many foreign recruiters like Bloomberg, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, JonesLangLasalle and Indigo Futures and RTL Hedge Funds had to compete with many Indian recruiters even as the students witnessed a substantial increase in the average salaries offered to them. Wheareas Rs.5.1 Lakh was the average salary offered last year this year it increased to Rs.6.5 Lakh. The highest salary offered was Rs.8 Lakhs.

Among the total recruitements this year, the lion's share goes to IT/ITES sector which has also emerged as the most represented area. IBM, US Technologies Ltd, Calsoft, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant Technology Solutions and Covansys were the key players in this sector. Sector wise representation is given below:

Banking and insurance: CitiGroup and ICICI

Consulting: McKinsey KC, Avalon Consulting and GENPACT

FMCG and Automobile sectors: Henkel, CavinKare and Bajaj

FMCG and Marketing sectors: Shell, Provogue, ITC, Henkel India and Godrej Telecom and Software sectors: Bharti Tele Ventures, CTS, Genpact, US Technologies, Honeywell, Siemens etc.

Advertising: JWT and O&M

Others: Avalon Consulting, KSA Technopak, Living Media, Saint Gobain, MTV, TVS Group, Murugappa Group and McDowell etc.

This year students received 1.47 job offers on an average.

Substantial cut in Hult International MBA fees

Hult International Business School, Boston cuts down its tution fees from $40000 to $22500. Whoever joins the one-year MBA program here in August needs only to pay the revised amount which is less than the fee for MBA program in ISB. Sumit Sood, a student in Hult International, shares his experiences with forum participants in Pagalguy. Including pre-MBA expenses and living expenses in Boston, one needs to forsee a total expenditure of $36000 for the completion of this course, he says. Students may avail loan from MEFA if authorised by an US-based co-signer or they can avail a loan from Erika Finance by themselves.

Average GMAT score required is 590-600. Though Hult has a true international character in its selection process, the placement cell is virtually inactive in the campus, says Sumit. Hult is also a very old school with graduates from Harvard and other reputed B-Schools as its faculty members.

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Your CAT percentile is counted the most in IIM C admissions

IIM C is not really concerned about your performance for undergraduation. On the other hand, the admissions here gives weightage to your CAT performance, says Prof Anup K. Sinha of IIM Calcutta. Narrating the admission process in IIM C, he says: "We do give a little weightage for work-experience. For taking CAT, which is the first round of admission, the undergraduate subject of study doesn't matter. Then at the group discussion and personal interview level we check what we cannot check at the CAT level, that is a student's demeanour, confidence levels, general awareness, communication ability, intellectual ability and reflexes to an extent."

IIM Calcutta gives a lot of emphasis on extra co-curricular activities and insists on imparting in-depth knowledge to students, says Prof. Sinha. In short, IIM Calcutta is a "mix of academic depth with extra co-curricular activities," says he.

At a time when professional business ethics has become farcical, Prof. Sinha has very practical and insightful suggestions to offer. According to him sensitizing a person and making the person aware of the implications of a decision is the best way to make him ethical in his approaches. "If you make him think even once that an ethical choice is an important issue, and that it can have implications which you cannot think of when you take the decision, you end up sensitizing that person," opinons Prof. Sinha.

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15% Growth in Average Salary Offered: DMS, IIT(Delhi)

It seems the IITs are giving their IIM counterparts a tough competition on placement and salary expectation levels. As per pagalguy reports, the average domestic salary offered this year to various intakes from Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi underwent a marked rise of 15% compared to the figures of 2005. While the average salary has touched Rs.7.44 Lakhs per annum, the average foreign compensation offered stood at $70,000 per annum which is also a remarkable achievement.

And guess, which is the most preferred area for MBA's today. If you say Finance or Marketing, you have not updated your GK. Companies like TSMG, Ernst & Young, Accenture, Avalon, IBM Global Services, ITpreneurs saw a big queue for seekers of 'Consulting' sector from DSM. BFSI- Banking Financial Services and Insurance sector also emerged as an MBA crowd puller with 25% of the 2006 batch joining any one of the big-wigs like, CapitalOne, Citibank, SBI, Kotak Bank, ICICI Prudential, Genpact, E-Funds International, India Bulls and Futures First.

There were also impressive placements for IT and ITES sectors and recruitment of students from first year for two months internship program. Hearty congrats from 'The Best of Pagalguy' to all IIT(D) achievers.

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