What do you wanna become?
What do you wanna become?
As a school kid, everyone asks you, “What
do you want to become when you grow up, son?” And my personal opinion states
that no more than 10 % of all people know the answer and even a lower
proportion of people, who know the answer, actually end up doing what they have
in mind. If you ask me, this has more to do with an inherent malleable/ductile
nature of human beings. We can easily bend into doing most things irrespective
of our educational background. Another factor is the fact that aspirations keep
changing owing to the fickle mind, ground realities and various influences.
Going back to class 5, I probably
announced my first ever aspiration in life. I wanted to be Harsha Bhogle. I
didn’t even know what he exactly was or what he did, but the fact that he was
always around cricketers, his outstanding oratory skills, that boyish charm and
inconspicuous naughty prodding during shows was what influenced my decision. As
I grew, I realised that speaking is not my cup of tea. So, slowly I weaned
myself from Harsha.
By class 10, I had firmly decided
that I won’t be travelling the esteemed path towards medical profession. I
wasn’t sure which bus I wanted to board, but that bus wasn’t going to be the
one towards M.B.B.S. In between, my flashes of brilliance in drawing and
creativity evoked thoughts of turning towards architecture, fine-arts or
commercial art/design etc. With these thoughts, I went ahead to junior college
with science as the stream, temporarily resting any further ideas.
Come class 12 and I was surrounded
by people talking only about engineering. All talks centred on various
institutes, the prep required to get into the best ones and future career
paths. Also, being a topper throughout life, my natural tendency was to go for
the best. As always, engineering has been placed on a pedestal compared to
other disciplines, owing to its high mathematical exposure. (I don’t want to
comment on the falling standards of engineering or the various ways undeserving
candidates can enter a tech institute). So driven by this, I did engineering
because everyone does. I wanted to get into College of Engineering, Pune (COEP)
settling for nothing less. Fortunately or unfortunately, I did.
Again, I entered engineering with a
plan to take the best stream. But with my marks, I had to settle for the third
best stream at that time. So, I ended up in Mechanical engineering. As you
would have seen, till this stage, in no way have my personal likes, aptitude or
interest in a subject contributed towards my graduation field. In fact, people
knowing me would have seen that I have a natural inclination towards softer
skills and abstract subjects, and not for the technical complexities of
engineering. Yet, the human being had once again manifested its amazing ability
to bend as required, and I passed engineering with a good score.
Meanwhile, peer pressure had already
worked its way to influence my decision to join a CAT coaching class to prepare
for a post-graduation in management. My apparent lack of liking for technical
subjects meant that a Masters in an engineering discipline was out of question.
Also, at no point did I want to go abroad, so all those fancy avenues were
ruled out too. At the same time, I had gone through the placement process and
had offers from TAL(a Tata Company), IBM and BPCL. With preparation for CAT
going on, I preferred IBM since that gave me an option to stay in Pune. So,
from mechanical engineering, I was now a software programmer with all links to
my education rendered redundant in one stroke. 7
months into this, I got a confirmation from one of the top B-schools in the
country, S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research. Here, I had the option of choosing
either Finance or Marketing as my specialization. Rather than the love for a
subject (I hardly knew any), the fact that I had a public-speaking phobia and
that I am not much of an extrovert, I decided that finance should be my choice.
To be honest, I felt out of place in
SPJIMR. I was traumatized by the presence of so many talented people around me,
all over-achievers in their lives. Hitherto, I was used to be the pinnacle of
my group, and here I was pushed to the bottom by toppers from all around the
country. Peer pressure had left me devastated. I barely struggled to keep
afloat in academics and my presence in co-curricular as well as extra-curricular
activities was non-existent. As it is, I was very sensitive to criticism. And
though I wasn’t subjected to any direct criticism, the fact that I was a no-body
took its toll. I avoided people, kept to myself, shunned anything not directly
related to marks and in general, was a name anyone would struggle to name in
their list of batch mates. The placement season worsened this. We were just
recovering from a horrible year (2009) and the scene had barely picked up. Add
to that were the usual gossips, threats, hype surrounding campus recruitments
and salaries and career progressions. My resume had nothing special other to
offer and I failed to make any shortlist in the initial 3-4 weeks of the
staggered placement season.
Speaking of placements let me
digress a little. Campus placements are an integral part of any college, more
so if it happens to be a top 10 B-School. There is a lot of hype,
rumour-mongering, false alarms, pressure, depression, ecstasy and hullabaloo
surrounding placement season. Let me run you through a typical one.
The hype surrounding placements
starts with the onset of second year of a typical full time post graduate
programme in a top B-School. The so called experts also advocate using the
break between the first and last year. Every single activity is linked only to
placements. People will choose electives to impress recruiters, participate in
events & competitions to boost resumes. Suddenly, everything that you did
long ago “counts” again- competing in school cricket, running the cultural group,
and starring in a school play. It can also be a great reason to
jump-start your involvement with a non-profit or even start one of your own. A
small industry visit you did some years ago is now worth its weight in gold!
Placements are an excuse to “read”
again. People think they are expected to know everything. So novels and comics
are replaced with “the Economist, Businessworld and Economic Times. Every news
channel is like the gospel and analysis, articles on current affairs occupy
major bandwidth. ‘Counter Strike’ teams are disbanded to form new teams debating
about the stock market. Suddenly, GDP of Timbuktu and the sovereign bonds of
Shangri-La gain importance! Hanging out, going for movies and eating out take a
backseat. All kinds of travel is minimised and if unavoidable, a small
booklet/notepad with key interview questions is tagged along. Some people go to
the extent of skipping meals and baths to ‘optimize time’ and start
multi-tasking to ‘improve efficiencies’.
Placements are a great reason to know yourself. People end up with
various versions of ‘Tell me about yourself’, each version adding a layer of an
ideal human being to the previous one. You can dig deep into your memories to
come up with petty incidents that can showcase your strengths. Everyone always
exhibits leadership qualities and ability to work in a team. Soft skills are
suddenly in vogue and so are communication/ speaking techniques, body language
and postures/gestures.
Another facet is the abundance of rumours surrounding various questions
asked in interviews, tips to crack GDPIs, the reality behind fancy roles
offered. And the pressure of all people getting placed daily while you don’t
even get shortlisted can crack even the most thick-skinned of all candidates.
But after the trauma I faced, I came out with flying colours. I made the
most out of the opportunity I received and ended up with a good role and a
package higher than batch average. True, I would have to move to Delhi for
joining and had no idea where this was going to take me. But for the time
being, I was in a better situation than many colleagues.
Thus, I began my proper career in Delhi. I had an ambiguous role as an
Executive Management Trainee in NIIT. This is an 18 month rotational fast track
leadership development program that aims at creating a pipeline of future
leaders for NIIT. This Leadership program consists of 3 six month rotations
across NIIT IBUs/Service Units to ensure exposure to the different businesses
of NIIT. Here, I have handled marketing, sales, product management and branding
roles. So, the story that started with Mechanical engineering had
travelled through software programming, finance and now into Business
development.
In retrospect, NIIT was a wonderful thing that happened to me. The
intangible benefits I derived are precious. Other than the aspects of staying far
away from home and managing things, I learnt a lot about career specific stuff.
Despite not taking any courses in marketing, I was pitchforked in a pure sales/
BD and marketing role. I learnt a lot of marketing terminology on the job. And
to my surprise, I enjoyed it. It gave me an immense satisfaction to be a part
of the dynamic workforce that is responsible for driving the revenues and
bringing business. I was no longer a part of backend function doing a desk-job.
I had new product conceptions, product designing, launching them, sales training,
planning & executing marketing campaigns (both corporate and product
marketing), being a product head responsible for all sales and marketing of my
product in a particular zone and working with various agencies like creative,
advertising, media and online marketing. The hitherto hesitant speaker would
now pick up a phone and easily convey requirements to agencies. The shy fellow
was now travelling to various cities for a new product launch and actually
training sales teams much experienced than him. A public-speaking phobic person
was now delivering presentations to an audience of 150+ students/teachers in
various corners of the country. I was analysing trends, coming up with
innovative strategies in discussion with the CEOs and VPs. Work-Life was
getting to be fun.
And now, after gaining what I could, I am back in my hometown, doing
really well in life at the moment. I am happy though I am not at all sure where
life is going to take me. I have realised that results are the by-product of
your learnings. Management is not an exact science like maths. Your people
skills matter and as you climb up the ladder, you are going to need your people
skills more than the ones you learnt in college. I have understood that I
should try to be myself. I am unique and need not ape anyone else.
So, does knowing the answer to the question-‘what do you wanna become’ count?
Guess not. I think one of my most distinguishing characteristics is the
diversity of experiences I possess. I am a science student with a flair for the
arts. I am a person with technical aptitude and an interest in management. I
have done my project in a manufacturing company, worked in an IT company and
interned in a financial company. Yet I have worked in marketing, business
development in a B2C company and now even begun grasping the nuances of sales
in a B2B outfit. And I am still discovering new avenues that I could be a part
of…
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