I spoke to an ISB alum today to get a better picture of what folks like me can expect after graduating from ISB. My background is in IT (Indian IT firm 5 yrs exp), plan to continue in IT either in business development role or in Business Tech Consulting in firms like McK/Bain/BCG etc. My questions were therefore centered around these goals.
It turned out to be a fruitful conversation as I got a sense of where folks from IT background in his class ended up.
Disclaimers :
- All figures he mentioned were his own guesstimates and may not reflect actual figures.
- I am writing all this based on what I recall out of the phone conversation. Some facts may have been misinterpreted.
(In other words, confirm with current students if you find something odd!)
Q. Where do IT background guys land post-ISB ?
A. Varies a lot (expected answer!). But most move into these buckets :
Business Dev Mgr/ Pre-Sales / Engagement Manager in large Indian IT firms :
For US positions, they initially work for a year in India as a program manager and are groomed for BDM positions. You go overseas after getting H1 Visa, which takes time.
For UK positions, you may find an immediate posting.
BDM positions in US location - EDS
BDM position was offered to somebody for around $100K. No further details available.
So if you are from Insurance domain, they may find it relevant to place you as a Consultant in that vertical.
Domain specialist in Consulting Division of IT firm (e.g. Infosys Consulting):
For instance, Supply Chain Management Practice where you can leverage your past expertise (e.g. If you had prior tech exp in semi-conductor industry....you might develop SC for a semiconductor client where you combine your prior semi-conductor tech knowledge with business skills learnt in MBA to develop a supply-chain roadmap for the client.)
Product Manager / Account Manager (Very few..like Microsoft):
Very selective .... 7-8 rounds of interview to decide.
You manage the product life cycle out of MS, Hyderabad. No more details available.
Management Consulting Firms (very few) (McK,Bain,A.T.Kearney):
Generic consulting practice...move from one vertical to another.
Extensive travel involved (obviously!)...but flexibility in work varies widely not only from one firm to another but also within engagements in the same firm. Irrespective of your experience in any domain, you start out as an associate and move on to principal/partner. When you become a partner, you are usually identified as an expert in a particular vertical.
He quoted an instance of an ISB grad with 14 yrs exp landing in McK as an associate. There are limited possibilities to have the firm allow you to work in the same domain you worked before MBA as these firms practice in General MC and want their associates to be well-rounded in different industry practices.
Apart from these career paths, there are those who are so fed up with IT that they would rather do anything else.
He noted that owing to the experienced student group, ISB does not allow companies to come and recruit grads for Business Analyst positions.
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Q. What is the kind of salary one can expect with my kind of profile ?
A. Broader answer: For folks with lesser exp (2-3 yrs IT), salary is around 6lakhs. Folks with 5+ get around 10-11lakhs p.a. from big Indian IT companies. Smaller companies like Covansys, Convergys give higher salaries (14+lakhs p.a.).
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Q. Do students really go on international exchange programmes ?
A. Few of them do. In his batch, about a dozen out of 340 managed to. Problem is that an exchange is a 2 way process. That is, the exchange school should have a student who is interested in coming to ISB for someone in ISB to go to that school. Very few students in US B-Schools are keen to come to ISB which limits your chances. But he mentioned a couple of his classmates who went to China.
Q.(extn to prev question) Can I do an exchange program in ISB's partner schools - W/K/LSB ?
A. Same issue as above.
First, a student from that school should be willing to come.
Two. Are the courses that you want to learn available there.
Three. Will this interfere with placement related activities in ISB.
Four. Logistical issues - Visa, stay, expenses etc.
But if all the above can be overcome, folks study for between 1-4 terms.(varies depending on school). A term is 6 weeks long.
Q. Then what is that ISB leverages out of W/K/LSB partnership ?
A. ISB has been recognised as an education partner by these schools. This allows faculty from these schools to come and teach in ISB. ISB also works with the partner schools to develop the course content. He mentioned that the partnership has really helped ISB is getting world-class faculty to teach here.
Two faculty he found really impressive were Nirmal Gupta and Krishna Kumar (Macroeconomics prof.....IIT+UChicago Ph.D...really top-class).
Q. How is the course structured ?
A. 8 terms of 6 weeks each. First 4 terms are common to all (Core courses). Rest of the terms are electives. ISB allows you to major in up to two areas (e.g. He majored in Operations and Marketing). You need to take 6 courses in each specialization to major in it.
Q. How is the class divided ?
A. His class of 340 was divided roughly into 4 sections (approx 80 students). His study group consisted of 5 people. They ensure that the group is diverse. His group consisted of him (tech background), one army guy, one HLL person, one Fashion designer and one BPO person. He found that initially the diversity of views meant that they were taking up a lot of time to finish case discussions. But over time ( By the third term), they figured out how to quickly build consensus within the group.
Q. How are the class discussions ?
A. Like in every B-School, the class has its share of bright chaps (mostly) and nonsensical talkatives (a few). The latter category was not just from folks with lower experience but also from very experienced guys. But overall, the class was very well-represented in every industry and in fact had a class representative in almost every company discussed in a case. This helped in bringing rich perspectives into the discussion.
Q. Your opinion of your class-mates ? Is the typical Indian competitive atmosphere evident in ISB as well ?
A. Yes and No. Some would refuse to come out of the room for fear of getting a less than A+ grade. Some others didn't care about the grades as much and involved extensively on case discussions to enrich their understanding of business.
This depends to an extent on one's career goals. For instance, folks with an interest in getting recruited in McK or Bain had to make sure they were in the top 10% as it is a (unofficial) requirement for such firms to hire folks with a distinguished academic background. Their belief is that your past academic career is an accurate prediction of how you will succeed in the firm.
IT companies don't care a bit about what you did and the interviews tend to be more of a formality rather than a rigorous introspection into your academic experiences.
(Emphasize again : his opinion and talk to the firms themselves once you are in to find out the details).
Q. Do companies look upon what electives you chose ? In other words, are there certain elective paths one must take to be eligible for interviewing with certain companies ?
A. Depends again. IT comps don't even care to know what you did in ISB. They are more interested in your background before ISB and try to see where they can fit you in the firm.
But if you are a career-switcher (e.g. IT to Finance), a Finance/Inv.Banking firm might want to dig deeper into what you have done in ISB to strengthen your finance skills.
Q. School facilities (library, research material) .
A. Best in Asia supposedly. Students enjoy access to a huge database of research publications. He suggested anyone joining the program to utilize this apart from focussing on course content alone.
Q. Entrepreneurial resources. (I am keen on involving in this as it is my long-term ambition).
A. In order to major in this, you need to submit a proper business plan during your elective.
WCED is an excellent resource for learning more on Etrp. Experienced VCs come and interact with interested students. Its the only dedicated Entrp. centre among Indian B-Schools supposedly. Three students in his class went ahead to start their own companies after graduation.
That's it for now. Fingers crossed until R1 results are declared on 15th Dec.
4 comments:
Thank you for sharing this, it was very informative. Did the alum say where he was working and what his pre-MBA background was?
Vijay
Hi Vijay,
He was (predictably) in the tech sector before ISB.
Thanks.
Hey,
I was just wondering that 6 lacs is too less a salary for 2-3 years exp person. I have an experience of 3.5 years in the IT industry and I have been getting a salary of 6lacs.
I was interested in ISB, as along with other reasons, an average sal of 15 lacs(as advertised on their website) looked attractive. I am having second thoughts now, taking the opportunity cost into account.
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