Snapshots From Hell - 1

16 companies… 33 interviews…3 second rounds… 1 offer. That in essence was my MBA internship hunt – nerve-wracking in real time, fulfilling in retrospect. But as I look back, there was much more to it than just the interviews. It was also my excuse for not writing in for so long. But the whole experience was so enthralling, that I can’t help sharing it with anyone interested in pursuing a ‘Global MBA’. Long story, but interesting, nevertheless!

It all began way before January 16^th, 2007 – the date of my first internship interview. Actually, it began the day I stepped into the hallowed corridors of my business school. This stage I call ‘BEWILDERMENT’. The fall semester (August 26^th – December 19^th): Orientation, lectures, club meetings, corporate presentations – all had a 3-point agenda: “Network”, “Network” and “Network some more”. A million resume review sessions, case practice sessions, case competitions, 20-hour work days and networking events with aggregate consumption of over a gazillion pizzas and cans of soda were still not enough to prepare us for the monster called “internship interviews” that was supposed to “hit us even before we realized”.

What I loved about this stage was the utter state of commotion that surrounded us all. We were told to have a focus, and yet all of us wanted to work in consulting, i-banking, corporate finance and technology. We were told not to ask stupid questions of recruiters and yet we had that inquisitive classmate asking whether the company sponsored H1 visas or not! But the absolute winners were the resume review sessions – that’s when I realized what a genius one year of MBA can turn you into. No matter how many times I had got my resume reviewed, whenever I went to a second year student for a review, it was a bloodbath – remove headers, add numbers, change font, increase spacing – no wonder the pen is mightier than the sword!

The carnage ensued for four months and culminated before the Winter Break in December. The first part of the break was Stage 2 (December 20^th – January 5^th) – I’ll call it ‘CALM BEFORE THE STORM’. This, for me, was to be catch-up time. Time to practice the remaining 96 out of the 100 cases I had targeted for practice before my interviews. Time to write down stories for all 64 behavioral questions I had compiled from various sources. Time to research the companies recruiting on campus. To quantify, I think I achieved almost 20-25% of these targets, which is testimony to the overoptimistic planning that went into setting them in the first place!

Most importantly, this was time to submit resumes and cover letters – and boy, was it fun! I sat down every Sunday evening till midnight and let the creative juices flow as I copied, pasted and redrafted cover letters that I knew no one would ever care to read. But I learnt a lot from it – I suddenly realized that I had such a wealth of experience and ability that I couldn’t help asking myself – ‘Why the hell did I ever need to do an MBA?’

At this point, things were about to start getting serious. Stage 3 was slowly creeping in. But, coming back to the present, I just remembered that we were told not to write very long cover letters – the readers lose interest, they said. My question was whether they ever had anything to lose! Anyhow, I’ll apply the same principle to my posts and cut this one short. And if you have reached this far, I’m sure you’d like to know how I survived Stages 3 to 6. So, catch you at the next one….