A Business School is not an Employment Exchange

With the onset of the placement season the anxiety levels of the students in Business Schools begin to rise to volcanic levels. Their anger is directed against almost against anyone and everyone associated with helping them find a job. The Placement Cells in particular become the focus of their ire. They feel the 'Placement' people not only do not get better companies with better jobs and better pay packages to the Campuses they also do not treat students with the respect they deserve. "They treat us like commodities," is the common strain.
My issue is not whether the Placement Cells are inefficient and that they don't treat people with courtesy and respect or that they treat future managers like onions and tomatoes because that will depend on the quality of people manning them and their training and if you allow people to treat to you like commodities; they will. No one can treat you bad without your permission. My issue is more fundamental.

Should a Business School that prides itself on providing quality education even have a Placement Cell? Many people believe that the focus of Business School is all wrong when they try to rope students in by advertising their ability to find students a job at the end of the course. The media and the pseudo rating agencies also play their part in ranking business schools where a major criterion is the institute's placement record. Placements become big news and Business schools vie with each other in buying space in newspapers and magazines to report how well they have done and how quickly the batch was 'placed'. Big budgetary allocation are made to wine and dine people in Companies responsible for visiting campuses for placements. Placement people are assured a hefty commission for every candidate landing a job. The whole thing smacks of a malady that afflicts most Business Schools and is eating into their innards and converting them into employment exchanges.

The problem with organised placement assistance is that that it make the students dependent and the faculty lazy. It is a double whammy when Students join a management course attracted by the promise of placement. One the students overwhelmingly begin to believe that it is the responsibility of the Business School to get them a job. And two it attracts a lot of students who otherwise have no acumen or interest in the discipline making a bee line for getting admission in a Business school. It is no wonder then, that despite tremendous encouragement, pleading, plodding, requests and threats many students in most Business Schools do not begin to read the business newspapers let alone get genuinely interested in reading the journals, even towards the end of the third or final semester. Somewhere deep inside they believe that, because they have paid the money they will get the degree and because the Business school has a Placement Cell it will get them jobs. Most students, especially from non business families come believing that ethics and business can never go hand in hand and that all businesses are built by deceit go out confirmed in their view that you just have to while away two years in a Business School and their Placement Cell will work hard to get them decent employment. What kind of managers would such people make? If they do not make good managers and the society begins to feel, at some stage, especially during a major financial crisis, that business school products are rude, crude, arrogant and greedy should they be alone in taking the blame? Aren't Business Schools as responsible because of their focus on placements and not on education and training?

As far as the Faculty at Business Schools is concerned it makes them lazy and casual in their approach. They begin to think their job is to go to the class and deliver a lecture and go home. They forget it is their job is to help students acquire a holistic approach to business problems. They have to create and disseminate relevant knowledge. The message that seems to go across is "pay money (through your nose) and get admission in a school that guarantees employment and that will help you make a lot of money. You see it is becoming some kind of a vicious circle. It is possible the faculty's laziness stems from students apathy or unconcern. But that is no excuse. It is possible that the student's apathy is the result of faculty's laziness. But that has to be set right. You see the faulty vicious circle taking stranglehold of business education. It is time to stem the rot. To begin with all self respecting Business schools should scrap their Placement Cells and focus on providing theoretical base and practical experience to its students to become future managers that the business world needs. It is then that the Industry and business houses will come looking for genuine talent and future managers will not be treated like commodities.

Tell me about yourself

Most interviews open with this innocuous sounding request, “Tell me about yourself.” We talk a lot about Pareto’s principle or the 80: 20 rule. It certainly applies to the interview openers. Eighty percent of all interviews open with this request. If you are smart and have prepared well you should welcome the opportunity as we understand by now an interview is all about the interviewer getting to know the interviewee. The trouble is that most candidates are unprepared to talk about themselves. Some begin to babble, quite incoherently at times about their ‘times and life', others go blank. Some even go on to talk about their personal life and problems they are facing as if they are not appearing for a job interview but are on a psycho analyst's couch. You have to learn to avoid falling in this trap. Don't get me wrong, the interviewer is not trying to trap you in any way. It is your lack of understanding of the question and what it implies that you get all tangled in a web of your own making. There is no need to narrate the story of your life and what your parents and siblings do and where you hail from.

Remember the purpose of the job interview? It is to find out whether the candidate is suitable for the job or not. Period. Your best answer for such a question can only be directed in that direction. You could start with the present and why you feel you are best suited for the job on offer. Once again remember the maxim ‘you can only sell what the buyer is buying’. This is the most important thing to be understood by the candidates. if you can truly understand this one little marketing principle you have understood the secret of job hunting. You would have understood the intrinsic psychology of acing every interview.

The good news is that it is not entirely about you when you are asked to talk about yourself. This may come as a surprise but it is true. It is first about knowing whether you understand what the job requirement is and then it is about whether you are the perfect match for it. It is about knowing what qualities the interviewer is looking for in you. It is about knowing what are the goals, targets and aspirations of the company. An effective response to this question will be different in different interviews. You need to do a thorough research on the Company, the industry in which it operates and profile of the job you will be interviewed for.

If you are satisfied with your information about the company and the job profile and are confident you know what strengths and qualities will be required to do the job you are on a strong wicket to talk about ‘you’. If in a rare case you feel you are still not sure about what the job requirements are; do yourself a favour and ask the interviewer, as early during the interview as possible, for more elaborate description of what the post entails. When you are asked to talk about yourself and you are still unsure about the the abilities required to perform in that position you might respond by asking something like, “I have quite a few accomplishments I could tell you about but it would be best if I could address directly to your needs. It will be great help if you tell me about the priorities of this position. if you feel the need follow it up with a couple of more questions so that you know exactly what the interviewers are looking for. Your second question could be, “Is there any thing else that you is essential for success in the position?”

There are a few things which emerge from what you have just read. First of all a job interview is not an interrogation session where the interviewer shoots questions an the interviewee either answers or ducks them. it is a conversation. The objective is to find out whether the candidate is suitable for the position on offer or not. The success of an interview is as much a responsibility of the interviewer as it is of the interviewee. If the interviewer fails to select the right candidate for the job it is his failure. Second of all there is no ban on the interviewee asking questions to clarify things and finding more about the requirements of the position. So get fear out of the way and practice asking these key questions. It will also showcase your confidence. Of course do not ask questions just for the sake of asking questions. Don't ask unnecessary and illegal questions either.

Once you know what are the main requirements of the job you can 'tell them about yourself'. Talk about your skills,strengths and abilities in the light of what you know the job requires for you to be successful in it. Talk about how you have performed strikingly similar tasks and undertaken similar duties with success. Do not forget to give actual examples from your SIP, your past job experience and academic life. Tell the interviewers about achievements and responsibilities which will present you as the most suitable candidate for the job based on the needs of the job. At no time should you lie about your talent and claim to have abilities you do not have. Be absolutely honest at all times.

When they ask you to tell them about yourself they are actually asking what do you know about the job on offer and what are the qualities you have which make you feel you can do it competently.

Interview: You can only sell what the buyer wants

Let us face it. Everyone is nervous before an interview and it is a rare person who is not anxious during one. Just like a little bit of tension is actually good for health; a little nervousness is not necessarily harmful for your chances of success in an interview. Nervousness is normal. So just go with the flow and know that it is not easy for the interviewer either. Like any other form of communication, every type of interview is a two way street though here we will restrict ourselves to job interviews. Failure to identify the right candidate for the right job is as much a failure of the interviewer as it is of the interviewee.
So, you as an interviewee just need to remain generally upbeat and positive. The whole idea of the interview is for the organization to pick the right person for the right job. You have to just help the interviewee to get to know the real you as well as it is possible in the short duration of the interview – a task which is not easy by any means. It is not such a stupid idea when you are sometimes asked to spend some time to know yourself and practice articulating what you know about yourself. How, for example, will you describe your strengths and weaknesses; what are your likes and dislikes; what are your goals and dreams or what strategy do you have to achieve them? Is your strategy in sync with the goals and dreams? Do you have a strategy at all? Preparing yourself for a job interview is a lot about getting to know your own self and being able to communicate it to the interviewer on the day of the interview.
Sometimes candidates memorize answers to questions and rattle them off like a parrot would. In preparation for an interview there is nothing worse you can do. If a person cannot talk about himself what else can he really talk about? An interview, unless it is designed for some specific objective where a different approach is required, is a conversation and not an interrogation. The onus of keeping an interview conversational lies with both the interviewer and the interviewee. If the interviewer fails to keep it at that level, you as the interviewee should try and bring it to that level by being absolutely honest and disarming. So do not memorize answers to questions but certainly know what points you would like to cover in answer to a question. You could rehearse answering questions with your friends or even alone. Make sure you keep the tone conversational. Make sure you never memorize the exact language. Be natural. Be your self. It is ‘the you’ that the interviewer is looking for in you - the real you.
It may be common knowledge for marketing people but is perhaps the most well kept secret when it comes to cracking job interviews. It goes like this: find out what people need and help them satisfy that need. For getting a job find out what an organization or a Company wants and help them get what they want. In other words you must have the qualities that the employer is looking for in the candidate for a particular position. You can only sell what the buyer wants. So it is not just about you it is about the position. You must match your abilities with the needs of the employer. To be able to do that you must first know what is the employer looking for or what does he want. You have to find out what is the buyer buying. And the best way to do that is research the job being offered; research the company and the industry. If required ask a few questions in the interview itself. Yes you read it right. You can ask a few questions in the interview.
To crack an interview find out what the employer wants and give to him.