The Way Back to School
Almost 8 years after getting sucked into an air conditioned environment and living admidst well-cushioned ergonomically designed chairs, gyan emitting UV displays, dumb chips demeaning human intellect and an esoteric jargon that managed to change the default interpretation of common words (a mouse is something whose tail connects to computer and moves a visual pointer) , I find myself staring today at the door-steps of one of the country's most illustrious management institutions. All these years, on hindsight I realize, I have been living in a cage with opaque walls and my back was facing the door. Not that the cage has vaporized or that I have emancipated myself from its bounds, but I am certainly trying to get to the door once a while and have a peek at the world outside. So what was the Motivation? What is the goal? Where will this road lead me to? Let me defer these discussions to another post. For now, I shall simply record the sequence of events that broght me here.
A persistent nagging feeling of proceeding to nowhere - was the first factor that provided the initial impetus to direct my thinking towards doing something extra and different. The second push came from one of my cousins who was targetting CAT 2006. That set me thinking - how about a formal management education? At this time I was really in a dilemma - on one hand management has never been my outlook towards a career, on the other hand I was not passionate enough to go a great distance as a pure technologist. Meanwhile I recalled that a few people I had known earlier were taking the PGSEM classes at IIMB. Among them were two former colleagues - one in Novell and the other in McAfee. I happened to meet one of them at his daughter's birthday and that short meeting set me up firmly on the road to taking the written examination, as the third step.
Something other than the above factors which also helped me make up my mind was to do with my new found taste for reading the Economic Times, not regularly, but at least when I get a spare hour. Not sure when I started reading this paper; in the entire life gone by, I had not had the slightest temptation to explore the world of business. However, as responsibilities were piling up on my shoulders, family, peer pressure et.al., I was increasingly feeling the pinch of the void that the lack of money management acumen had created in my life. Must have been in the mid-2006 time frame that I started at least glancing through the headlines of Economic Times and occassionally watching business news channels. I had started these activities on a trial basis - I would read the online (ePaper) version of the Economic Times (I still do this), as I was not confident that I would understand anything or continue to read the paper regularly. I still am not very regular at it and still don't understand a substantial portion of what I read. Nevertheless, I did begin to make sense out of the news and did get familiar to the most commonly used terms. I guess, this background change did work wonders in helping me make a decision.
So much for the background. Let's move to what happened after I decided to take the PGSEM test in March 2007. Ofcourse, I purchased the application form (for Rs. 1100) and completed all formalities. For the preparation, I did go through some of the old material that I had from my half-hearted CAT preparation in 1996. Then, the internet was a good resource for quite a few sample tests and old CAT papers. A special mention of the website - www.tenaday.co.in must be made in this context. Though most of the questions here were copied from other CAT sample papers in different sites, the interface provided a competitive environment giving percentile scores and sectional assessments. Well that was about it - taking a few sample CAT tests at home (luckily my family - wife, 3 monhts old daughter and parent were in Hyderabad at that time) and a little bit of brush up...mostly on weekends, as weekdays were too hectic. I had not informed my family about my plans to take the test - I was intimidated by the thought that if I don't get through, I would have to cut a sorry figure in front of everyone.
I never expected the PGSEM question paper to be half as tough as the CAT question paper. I also did not expect the competition to be a 10th as intense. It turned out that I was not wrong. I do not think I carved out an invincible performance at the examination hall, however, I was pretty relaxed post the test. In any case, I had not placed my career or life's earnings at stake; thus, I had no reasons to be worked up. I did expect a interview call though, and was excited to have got it during the last week of April, for 12th May, 2007.
The time slot was 9:30 - 11:00am, 12th April, 2007. I reached well in time and completed some formalities of filling forms etc. Here I made up for the first mistake, at least to some extent - requested the gentleman who was assisting with the initial formalities to let me have a look at the print out of my SOP. He obliged, thankfully.
The candidates were then grouped into batches of 5 each and my group was sent to the first floor. We did not waste any time in exchanging formalities and getting familiar with names, companies, work experience etc. As the professors inside the interview hall were probably engaged in scanning our SOPs and scores, we were trying to ease ourselves into conversing about the test, company, roles and projects etc. I had little less than 8 years experience while all other in that group were in 4-6 years range. I could see that everyone was a little tense in
anticipation of what lay in store, however, the maturity brought in by years of experience (probably by attending lots of software interviews) did show up in everyone's demeanor.
I was the fourth candidate to be called for the interview. The 3 people who went ahead of me came out with mixed feelings. They did not shy away from summarizing for us how their interview shaped up. Understandably though, none made any attempts to rate the chances of success.
I do not yet know the names of the profs who were in the panel - I shall call them Pr1 and Pr2. Pr1 led me politely into the room and offered me a seat -
Me - Good morning to you both, Sirs - (Taking my seat and generating unwanted sound from a sliding chair).
Pr1 - Good morning. So Piyush, you are from ISI Calcutta, what are you doing in the software Industry?
Me - I have done my MTech in Computer Science from ISI, not BStat or MStat.
Pr2 - We have lot of projects here where we need people from ISI.
Me - That never was the way in which I looked at my career. I always wanted to be in the corporate ...
Pr1 - So tell me something about the software industry, Piyush.
Me - (a little taken aback, not knowing where to start ... and then hastily kicking off from a bare minimum nowhere ...) software industry has changed everyone's life ...(the drama begins ...)
Pr1 - (cut me off... gave me no chance to recover ... ) Piyush, how many software engineers are there in our country?
Me - (not knowing what to respond ... I wasn't expecting such a question ... the immediate thought was that I committed a blunder and had no idea of how to revert the statement ...) Yeah I guess I faltered. Did not give much thought before blurting that statement out.
Pr1 - (Interrupting..) Never mind, just tell me how many software engineers are there in India?
Me - (Silent for a moment) Must be very small percentage of people.
Pr1 - What are the numbers (he insisted), just a ball-park figure.
Me- (After giving some thought to it ..) about 4-5 lakhs.
Pr1 - Ok! Its about 7-8 lakhs. But I am ok with that figure, it is of the same order... And what is the population of India?
Me - (finally an easy question, I thought) About 1.2 billion.
Pr1 - Take 1 billion. That is how many lakhs.
Me - (did some mental calculations) That would be 10,000 lakhs.
Pr1 - Ok. So that is about 0.1% of people, assuming 10lakhs in software. Even if you take off the too young and too old, still this number is miniscule.
Me - Yes. I think I erred (still not realizing, foolishly enough, that I was erring now. After all, software engineers are not the only people whose life has been affected by the industry; banking, railways, airways, ticketing, agriculture, retail....almost every body are reaping the fruits of growth in software. I wasn't entirely wrong and on hind sight, I should have been able to defend my original position pretty easily. Somehow, the direction of the interview was determined by the experienced faculty I was facing, and in this case at least, I was entrapped).
Pr1 - Piyush, don't be appologetic. And what is the percentage of people in agriculture? About 40%.
Me - No, may not be that much now....must be about 20-25%.
Pr1 - Ok. So how is the software industry changed recently?
Me - Lots of new companies are coming up.
Pr1 - That was happening a year earlier also? What has changed in say last 1 year or so?
Me - Generating lots of employment, new global orders in the services sector etc...
Pr1 - That was also happening a year earlier.
Me - Oh! so you mean what changes exactly have been seen in last one year.
Pr1 - Yes.
Me - SEZs are coming up; tax sops for the software industry are going to go shortly, they had this for a 10 year period ending in 2008; The rupee value is increasing against the dollar...this has a direct impact on the revenues of Indian services companies who depend on this conversion to report their revenues.
Pr1 - Ok. So if you were the CEO of EMC, how would you stem the revenue losses in such a scenario when dollar value is declining?
Me - Firsly, a company like EMC will not be affected as it is not a services based company in India. It is companies like Wipro, TCS etc. who will see a direct impact.
Pr1 - Assume that you are the CEO of a company which is seeing a decline in revenues because of its currency going down in value. What would you do in your capacity as the CEO?
Me - (no option....just guess buddy and go on...I said to myself) I would see to it that all processes being followed in the company are optimized. All wasteful expenditure is avoided and products are delivered on time with high quality.
Pr1 - Assume all the slack has been eliminated, still there is not much improvement. What else can you do.
Me - (Puzzlled looks - murmered something ...)
Pr1 - Fine. (Looking at Pr2) Do you want to ask something?
Pr2 - In you SOP you have mentioned that you are interested in entrepreneul oppurtunities.
Me - Yes, very much. May be not in the next 10 years, but surely that will be on top of my agenda after that.
Pr2 - Do you have anything in mind regarding what would be the domain of your company?
Me - I have been working in the storage software domain almost all through the last 8 years and believe this industry has a very bright future. Simply because the data will continue to grow exponentially and managing this data would always be a top priority for any company. So I would be looking for oppurtunities in this sector. It would also be interesting for me to look at leading a large group or organization from operations and business perpective ...e.g. Managing Director or Executive President etc., especially if this helps me in starting my own firm on a later date.
Pr1 - Why do you want to do this course ... how do you think this course will benefit you?
Me - I currently have very limited, almost nil, understanding of business and markets. I would not want to jump into an unknown territory without being armed with the necessary amunition and arsenal. When I make a presentation to a VC or a group of VC's, I have to be able to justify the viability of the business and explain how the business model would generate revenues. I believe this course would give me all I would need in terms of the basics and then it would be incumbent on me to build upon it.
Pr1 - Why do you want to go to VC's? Narayan Murthy started Infosys with his wife's jewellery.
Me- Yeah. But he is an Icon. It would be unfair to compete him with me. Also note that when Narayan Murthy started, he had little competition in the segment. Not that there was no competition, but there certainly weren't any other Narayan Murthies or Azim Premji's around. Growing organically in today's scenario with so many established and experienced firms is not going to be easy. These people, in the next 10 years, will only add to their experience and expertise. So I would have to compete with these Mega players along with emerging ones. It would make sense to gain some head start.
Pr1 - Are you married?
Me - Yes.
Pr1 - Kids?
Me - Yes.
Pr1 - How do you plan to manage responsibilities at home?
Me - (Explained some stuff, including the fact that my house and current office are not very far from IIM).
Pr1 - And how would you manage work at office? Work on Sundays?
Me - Nope - not on Sundays. Friday evenings probably.
Pr1 - Common Piyush, you are going to do management and you tell me that you will work in the evening to complete your work.
Me - (Realized that this is poor time management - I should have hinted at delegating or rescheduling, estimating required time for any task keeping in mind my new committment etc. By this time it was too late...already we were on the next question.)
Pr1 - What do you do in free time? Reading etc.
Me - Mostly spending time with family. Reading Economic Times has been a recent activity, started about 6-8 months back...but I do not understand a significant portion of its contents.
Pr1- So you realize that when doing this course your family and hobby time would have cut down hugely.
Me - Yes. I realize what kind of pressures one would go through during this course, especially if there is a family back home. In fact I spoke to one Mr. Verugunti in EMC and got some serious feedback. In fact most of what he said were discouraging, however, he said that the advantage of the course would be that you will be a better person at the end of it. I bought into that idea. I am pretty clear now.
Pr1 - Ok Piyush. Get prepared for spending 18hrs a week, apart from the time spent inside the institute. Thank you.
Me - Thanks you sirs (leaving the room and thinking - is that a hint?).
I got the offer letter by email few weeks later. That was the success story. I did get a strong feeling that the interview was not that gruelling and I believe that experienced candidates do get an easier ride during the interview. One thing is surely somethinge that I could conclude - IIMs do prefer a lot of variance in their classes and to balance the class they wouldn't mind offering a more experienced candidate when the number of applicants have a large number of less experienced folks among contenders.
A persistent nagging feeling of proceeding to nowhere - was the first factor that provided the initial impetus to direct my thinking towards doing something extra and different. The second push came from one of my cousins who was targetting CAT 2006. That set me thinking - how about a formal management education? At this time I was really in a dilemma - on one hand management has never been my outlook towards a career, on the other hand I was not passionate enough to go a great distance as a pure technologist. Meanwhile I recalled that a few people I had known earlier were taking the PGSEM classes at IIMB. Among them were two former colleagues - one in Novell and the other in McAfee. I happened to meet one of them at his daughter's birthday and that short meeting set me up firmly on the road to taking the written examination, as the third step.
Something other than the above factors which also helped me make up my mind was to do with my new found taste for reading the Economic Times, not regularly, but at least when I get a spare hour. Not sure when I started reading this paper; in the entire life gone by, I had not had the slightest temptation to explore the world of business. However, as responsibilities were piling up on my shoulders, family, peer pressure et.al., I was increasingly feeling the pinch of the void that the lack of money management acumen had created in my life. Must have been in the mid-2006 time frame that I started at least glancing through the headlines of Economic Times and occassionally watching business news channels. I had started these activities on a trial basis - I would read the online (ePaper) version of the Economic Times (I still do this), as I was not confident that I would understand anything or continue to read the paper regularly. I still am not very regular at it and still don't understand a substantial portion of what I read. Nevertheless, I did begin to make sense out of the news and did get familiar to the most commonly used terms. I guess, this background change did work wonders in helping me make a decision.
So much for the background. Let's move to what happened after I decided to take the PGSEM test in March 2007. Ofcourse, I purchased the application form (for Rs. 1100) and completed all formalities. For the preparation, I did go through some of the old material that I had from my half-hearted CAT preparation in 1996. Then, the internet was a good resource for quite a few sample tests and old CAT papers. A special mention of the website - www.tenaday.co.in must be made in this context. Though most of the questions here were copied from other CAT sample papers in different sites, the interface provided a competitive environment giving percentile scores and sectional assessments. Well that was about it - taking a few sample CAT tests at home (luckily my family - wife, 3 monhts old daughter and parent were in Hyderabad at that time) and a little bit of brush up...mostly on weekends, as weekdays were too hectic. I had not informed my family about my plans to take the test - I was intimidated by the thought that if I don't get through, I would have to cut a sorry figure in front of everyone.
I never expected the PGSEM question paper to be half as tough as the CAT question paper. I also did not expect the competition to be a 10th as intense. It turned out that I was not wrong. I do not think I carved out an invincible performance at the examination hall, however, I was pretty relaxed post the test. In any case, I had not placed my career or life's earnings at stake; thus, I had no reasons to be worked up. I did expect a interview call though, and was excited to have got it during the last week of April, for 12th May, 2007.
The time slot was 9:30 - 11:00am, 12th April, 2007. I reached well in time and completed some formalities of filling forms etc. Here I made up for the first mistake, at least to some extent - requested the gentleman who was assisting with the initial formalities to let me have a look at the print out of my SOP. He obliged, thankfully.
The candidates were then grouped into batches of 5 each and my group was sent to the first floor. We did not waste any time in exchanging formalities and getting familiar with names, companies, work experience etc. As the professors inside the interview hall were probably engaged in scanning our SOPs and scores, we were trying to ease ourselves into conversing about the test, company, roles and projects etc. I had little less than 8 years experience while all other in that group were in 4-6 years range. I could see that everyone was a little tense in
anticipation of what lay in store, however, the maturity brought in by years of experience (probably by attending lots of software interviews) did show up in everyone's demeanor.
I was the fourth candidate to be called for the interview. The 3 people who went ahead of me came out with mixed feelings. They did not shy away from summarizing for us how their interview shaped up. Understandably though, none made any attempts to rate the chances of success.
I do not yet know the names of the profs who were in the panel - I shall call them Pr1 and Pr2. Pr1 led me politely into the room and offered me a seat -
Me - Good morning to you both, Sirs - (Taking my seat and generating unwanted sound from a sliding chair).
Pr1 - Good morning. So Piyush, you are from ISI Calcutta, what are you doing in the software Industry?
Me - I have done my MTech in Computer Science from ISI, not BStat or MStat.
Pr2 - We have lot of projects here where we need people from ISI.
Me - That never was the way in which I looked at my career. I always wanted to be in the corporate ...
Pr1 - So tell me something about the software industry, Piyush.
Me - (a little taken aback, not knowing where to start ... and then hastily kicking off from a bare minimum nowhere ...) software industry has changed everyone's life ...(the drama begins ...)
Pr1 - (cut me off... gave me no chance to recover ... ) Piyush, how many software engineers are there in our country?
Me - (not knowing what to respond ... I wasn't expecting such a question ... the immediate thought was that I committed a blunder and had no idea of how to revert the statement ...) Yeah I guess I faltered. Did not give much thought before blurting that statement out.
Pr1 - (Interrupting..) Never mind, just tell me how many software engineers are there in India?
Me - (Silent for a moment) Must be very small percentage of people.
Pr1 - What are the numbers (he insisted), just a ball-park figure.
Me- (After giving some thought to it ..) about 4-5 lakhs.
Pr1 - Ok! Its about 7-8 lakhs. But I am ok with that figure, it is of the same order... And what is the population of India?
Me - (finally an easy question, I thought) About 1.2 billion.
Pr1 - Take 1 billion. That is how many lakhs.
Me - (did some mental calculations) That would be 10,000 lakhs.
Pr1 - Ok. So that is about 0.1% of people, assuming 10lakhs in software. Even if you take off the too young and too old, still this number is miniscule.
Me - Yes. I think I erred (still not realizing, foolishly enough, that I was erring now. After all, software engineers are not the only people whose life has been affected by the industry; banking, railways, airways, ticketing, agriculture, retail....almost every body are reaping the fruits of growth in software. I wasn't entirely wrong and on hind sight, I should have been able to defend my original position pretty easily. Somehow, the direction of the interview was determined by the experienced faculty I was facing, and in this case at least, I was entrapped).
Pr1 - Piyush, don't be appologetic. And what is the percentage of people in agriculture? About 40%.
Me - No, may not be that much now....must be about 20-25%.
Pr1 - Ok. So how is the software industry changed recently?
Me - Lots of new companies are coming up.
Pr1 - That was happening a year earlier also? What has changed in say last 1 year or so?
Me - Generating lots of employment, new global orders in the services sector etc...
Pr1 - That was also happening a year earlier.
Me - Oh! so you mean what changes exactly have been seen in last one year.
Pr1 - Yes.
Me - SEZs are coming up; tax sops for the software industry are going to go shortly, they had this for a 10 year period ending in 2008; The rupee value is increasing against the dollar...this has a direct impact on the revenues of Indian services companies who depend on this conversion to report their revenues.
Pr1 - Ok. So if you were the CEO of EMC, how would you stem the revenue losses in such a scenario when dollar value is declining?
Me - Firsly, a company like EMC will not be affected as it is not a services based company in India. It is companies like Wipro, TCS etc. who will see a direct impact.
Pr1 - Assume that you are the CEO of a company which is seeing a decline in revenues because of its currency going down in value. What would you do in your capacity as the CEO?
Me - (no option....just guess buddy and go on...I said to myself) I would see to it that all processes being followed in the company are optimized. All wasteful expenditure is avoided and products are delivered on time with high quality.
Pr1 - Assume all the slack has been eliminated, still there is not much improvement. What else can you do.
Me - (Puzzlled looks - murmered something ...)
Pr1 - Fine. (Looking at Pr2) Do you want to ask something?
Pr2 - In you SOP you have mentioned that you are interested in entrepreneul oppurtunities.
Me - Yes, very much. May be not in the next 10 years, but surely that will be on top of my agenda after that.
Pr2 - Do you have anything in mind regarding what would be the domain of your company?
Me - I have been working in the storage software domain almost all through the last 8 years and believe this industry has a very bright future. Simply because the data will continue to grow exponentially and managing this data would always be a top priority for any company. So I would be looking for oppurtunities in this sector. It would also be interesting for me to look at leading a large group or organization from operations and business perpective ...e.g. Managing Director or Executive President etc., especially if this helps me in starting my own firm on a later date.
Pr1 - Why do you want to do this course ... how do you think this course will benefit you?
Me - I currently have very limited, almost nil, understanding of business and markets. I would not want to jump into an unknown territory without being armed with the necessary amunition and arsenal. When I make a presentation to a VC or a group of VC's, I have to be able to justify the viability of the business and explain how the business model would generate revenues. I believe this course would give me all I would need in terms of the basics and then it would be incumbent on me to build upon it.
Pr1 - Why do you want to go to VC's? Narayan Murthy started Infosys with his wife's jewellery.
Me- Yeah. But he is an Icon. It would be unfair to compete him with me. Also note that when Narayan Murthy started, he had little competition in the segment. Not that there was no competition, but there certainly weren't any other Narayan Murthies or Azim Premji's around. Growing organically in today's scenario with so many established and experienced firms is not going to be easy. These people, in the next 10 years, will only add to their experience and expertise. So I would have to compete with these Mega players along with emerging ones. It would make sense to gain some head start.
Pr1 - Are you married?
Me - Yes.
Pr1 - Kids?
Me - Yes.
Pr1 - How do you plan to manage responsibilities at home?
Me - (Explained some stuff, including the fact that my house and current office are not very far from IIM).
Pr1 - And how would you manage work at office? Work on Sundays?
Me - Nope - not on Sundays. Friday evenings probably.
Pr1 - Common Piyush, you are going to do management and you tell me that you will work in the evening to complete your work.
Me - (Realized that this is poor time management - I should have hinted at delegating or rescheduling, estimating required time for any task keeping in mind my new committment etc. By this time it was too late...already we were on the next question.)
Pr1 - What do you do in free time? Reading etc.
Me - Mostly spending time with family. Reading Economic Times has been a recent activity, started about 6-8 months back...but I do not understand a significant portion of its contents.
Pr1- So you realize that when doing this course your family and hobby time would have cut down hugely.
Me - Yes. I realize what kind of pressures one would go through during this course, especially if there is a family back home. In fact I spoke to one Mr. Verugunti in EMC and got some serious feedback. In fact most of what he said were discouraging, however, he said that the advantage of the course would be that you will be a better person at the end of it. I bought into that idea. I am pretty clear now.
Pr1 - Ok Piyush. Get prepared for spending 18hrs a week, apart from the time spent inside the institute. Thank you.
Me - Thanks you sirs (leaving the room and thinking - is that a hint?).
I got the offer letter by email few weeks later. That was the success story. I did get a strong feeling that the interview was not that gruelling and I believe that experienced candidates do get an easier ride during the interview. One thing is surely somethinge that I could conclude - IIMs do prefer a lot of variance in their classes and to balance the class they wouldn't mind offering a more experienced candidate when the number of applicants have a large number of less experienced folks among contenders.
posted by Piyush Srivastava at
9:54 AM
1 Comments
