| B-school students play to land jobs | |
| Kalpana Pathak & Vinay Umarji / Mumbai July 06, 2009, 0:06 IST | |
Social gatherings, tours and adventure sports are not only fun but also help B-school students get jobs and internships.
In a prevailing dim job market, B-school students are trying all possible means to find work and internship opportunities for themselves — it could be as far-fetched as participating in adventure sports.
And the ploy is paying dividends. Consider these examples. Ashish Sujoy, a second-year student of post-graduate diploma of management at one of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), went water-rafting this summer and came back with three job offers in hand. His classmate Ravi Patnaik, too, landed up with two job offers.
Says Rohan Desai a student of IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A): "Networking does not need planning and the biggest breakthroughs take place in serendipity. People not only have fun but may even club it with a social visit and in the end benefit professionally.”
At IIM-A, such trips are part of the curriculum, which tend to give students a platform for networking, adds Desai.
Internationally, the trend’s a hit among European B-schools. At Paris-based HEC International, for instance, students from the 2008 and 2009 batch who had attended treks to various destinations in the West Asia (Maire Apiou), Dubai, landed jobs with companies like Louis Vuitton, Pfizer and real estate companies like Bain, Sama Dubai and Nakheel.
Seven students are working with Schneider and many interns are also under going training with the company.
This year, students are keeping an eye on a big Asia trek that’s coming up mid-July where they would be travelling to cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“This will be a 12-day trek where MBA participants will be meeting a mix of companies in strategy, marketing, luxury and banking. Earlier students from HEC have participated in treks to Asia, London and Dubai which have been very successful,” says Kuldeep Kaushik, president — MBA Council, HEC Paris, Class of 2010.
Events like these not only help students with job opportunities but also give participants the opportunity to test their organising skills and also build their network.
One of the most important objective of such events is to reach out to companies, build network and understand the operations of the company in a particular geography and overall. This helps MBA participants prepare better for the company and interview that potentially follows.
However, the students pay for their travel. Many times student clubs also sponsor some of the events the students hold as part of the trek. The institutes also organise camps many times wherein alumni members play a key role. There are dedicated teams, which take up organising of such events.
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