Websites to find Internship opportunities in India

Most of my Juniors are worried about their internship, which is required to be completed by them as per their course curriculum. The major disadvantage is often faced by the people who, opt for the specialization other than Marketing, because very less companies visit the campus, for the role of a intern, for specialization other than finance.


The reason behind is very simple....


For the people opting marketing, any company is ready to take them, as the company just want them to do sales of its products and services. But for the people of other specialization, its very difficult to get a good project during the internship.


I am writing below about some of the ways to seek internship, hope would be useful for the readers....

Below are some of the websites, which turns out to be useful for seeking the internship opportunities.

 Twenty19.com:

Twenty19  offers students and companies a platform to connect for internships and projects.This website also provides information on a plethora of opportunities that students can take part in to gain practical exposure and enhance their profile. The portal is absolutely free of cost for the students as well as colleges. Twenty19 has a range of student opportunities like internships, projects , tech-fests, scholarships, business plan contests, cultural and symposiums, conferences, volunteering opportunities, summer internships etc.

Letmeknow.in:

 If you want to know about all the scholarship you can apply too,or college and their fest or competition and contest you can take part in or fellowship or workshop, here is a portal which will help you.Let Me Know covers latest internships, scholarships, competitions, conferences and events in the fields of business, technology, entrepreneurship, arts, culture and social innovation

Indianinternship.com:

 This website provides internship details for MBA Internship, BE / BTech Internships, MCA Internship, Graduates Internships, Summer Internships, This portal offer free registration and contain thousands of internship opportunities to choose from .

Hellointern.com:

  HelloIntern ,launched by some IIT Bombay folks in year 2006, this website helps interns find the right apprenticeship opportunities with companies. The portal provides information about internships at various location in India and also shows the stipend offered. 

10internship.in :

 This is another website which has thousands of internship opportunities from various sectors like engineering,management,medicine etc.Although it is not so famous among students and designing is also not attractive but it is worth giving a shot when you are desperately looking for some internship opportunity in India because many times there are internships that you won't find anywhere else.

In my next post, I would also tell what you should seek as a project in a company and how to go for it.

Difference among CV, Resume and Bio Data

Often I had a doubt about what is a difference between CV, Resume and Biodata. On a broader note I know the difference between Biodata and Resume, but CV and Resume was difficult.

Finally I got to know the difference among three and I am sharing the same with you all.

Difference among CV, Resume and Bio Data

People use the words RESUME, C.V., and BIO-DATA interchangeably for the document highlighting skills, education, and experience that a candidate submits when applying for a job. On the surface level, all the three mean the same. However, there are intricate differences.

RESUME

Resume is a French word meaning "summary", and true to the word meaning, signifies a summary of one's employment, education, and other skills, used in applying for a new position. A resume seldom exceeds one side of an A4 sheet, and at the most two sides. They do not list out all the education and qualifications, but only highlight specific skills customized to target the job profile in question.

A resume is usually broken into bullets and written in the third person to appear objective and formal. A good resume starts with a brief Summary of Qualifications, followed by Areas of Strength or Industry Expertise in keywords, followed by Professional Experience in reverse chronological order. Focus is on the most recent experiences, and prior experiences summarized. The content aims at providing the reader a balance of responsibilities and accomplishments for each position. After Work experience come Professional Affiliations, Computer Skills, and Education.

C.V CURRICULUM VITAE

C.V is a Latin word meaning "course of life". Curriculum Vitae (C.V.) is therefore a regular or particular course of study pertaining to education and life. A CV is more detailed than a resume, usually 2 to 3 pages, but can run even longer as per the requirement. A CV generally lists out every skills, jobs, degrees, and professional affiliations the applicant has acquired, usually in chronological order. A CV displays general talent rather than specific skills for any specific positions.

BIO DATA

Bio Data the short form for Biographical Data, is the old-fashioned terminology for Resume or C.V. The emphasis in a bio data is on personal particulars like date of birth, religion, sex, race, nationality, residence, martial status, and the like. Next comes a chronological listing of education and experience. The things normally found in a resume, that is specific skills for the job in question comes last, and are seldom included. Bio-data also includes applications made in specified formats as required by the company.

A resume is ideally suited when applying for middle and senior level positions, where experience and specific skills rather than education is important. A C.V., on the other hand is the preferred option for fresh graduates, people looking for a career change, and those applying for academic positions. The term bio-data is mostly used in India while applying to government jobs, or when applying for research grants and other situations where one has to submit descriptive essays.

Resumes present a summary of highlights and allow the prospective employer to scan through the document visually or electronically, to see if your skills match their available positions. A good resume can do that very effectively, while a C.V. cannot. A bio-data could still perform this role, especially if the format happens to be the one recommended by the employer. Personal information such as age, sex, religion and others, and hobbies are never mentioned in a resume. Many people include such particulars in the C.V. However, this is neither required nor considered in the US market. A Bio-data, on the other hand always include such personal particulars.

Why Sales?

Last days a company visited my University Campus for the purpose of recruitment. They offered a role of Sales Manager. Being a finance graduate my friends were pretty surprised, why I was sitting for such a company. If I was interested in sales profile then I should have opted for marketing, why Finance?

Why Sales?

Its a very big question mark?

Before moving further I would like to ask all the people sitting for job interviews or placements, what actually you do or why do you sit for interview?

Most frequent answers what people give are:

"I want job."

"I want to work for the company."

"The job profile is too good." 

Okay I agree to your points, every person has a different motive but "What about actually sitting in a interview?"

Aren't you advertising yourself??

When a notification comes, about a company coming into your campus, you give your name with  your marks details, then you submit your resume.

Aren't all these factors a means of advertisement????

Aren't you advertising yourself, Where your marks are just like a features about you as in case of products and your resume is like a "brochure" giving out all the technical specifications about you.

Think for a while.

Why you buy a product/service? because you find its utility... Similarly its same from companies point of view. Until and unless they find a utility in you, they won't choose you.

Now coming back to my question? Why Sales?

Answer if pretty simple... I had a passion for studying finance so I opted it. But I have a interest in doing sales so I opted to sit for that company.

And why particularly sale the answer is here

Money
You are almost certain to make more money in sales than in technical or administrative jobs. Companies need to make sales to survive, and usually reward successful sales people highly, to ensure that they stay in the job. And it's fair: the better the sales person, the more he or she will earn.

Route into management
Most chief executives and senior managers either started their career, or at least have spent some time in their career in sales. It gives you an appreciation of what happens 'at the sharp end' - at the customer interface. Very few purely technical people get to the top rank. No matter what job you hold in business, you spend a lot of your time selling: selling ideas to your bosses, your colleagues, your juniors, your suppliers and your customers. To have spent some time in sales trains and prepares you to communicate effectively, and to 'win friends and influence people' (Dale Carnegie).

Personal control
Generally you can control your own time. You make your own appointments, and run your own day the way you think fit. As long as you're producing the results your boss requires, you can more or less do what you want.

In a commission-related job, the more you sell, the more money you earn.
The harder you work, the more you sell.
The longer you work, the more you sell.
The smarter you work, the more you sell.
The more you learn, the more you sell.

Job security
Companies are unlikely to make successful sales people redundant. At least not before most other types of staff. If you do lose your job, or choose to leave it, it's relatively easy to get a new job if you can demonstrate a 'track record' of success in sales.

A successful sales person should always be able to get a job and make a living.

Finger on the pulse
As a sales person you'll mix with a wide variety of other people in your industry. You'll be better informed about changes and opportunities occurring within your market. Being better informed will enable you to be better prepared to face sudden changes which could affect you, positively or negatively.

Fun
Sales is mainly about the relationships between business people. It's about helping other people achieve their goals, and solve their problems by introducing your company's products/services. It's not about forcing other people to buy things they don't want to. It's about working hard to discover places where your company's products/services will be useful (and valued), understanding clearly what the other party needs and wants, and then working hard to provide it.

Done properly, solving peoples' problems in this way will earn their undying gratitude (and their payments!). You get a genuine feeling of being useful to people.

Some of these factors would be common to other profiles also, but I find these in a sales profile.

Warm Regards
Apoorv Jhudeley (Appu) :)
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Hope you people would like the above article. Please do comment you suggestions.

Hungry Cows

The following post is a theory by Mr.BADARI KUMAR ALAPATI who is pursuing MBA in MARKETING from CHRIST UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT.

HUNGRY COWS
 A theory proposed by Badari Kumar Alapati, for the "analysis of franchise location".

Introduction:

When a company wishes to open a franchise, it will consider many factors like:

• Ø  The potential power at the place?
• Ø  The Source from which we get customers?
• Ø  The Competitors.
• Ø  Types of customers.

and so on.....

                                          Whenever, I visit any franchise; I used to do a thorough study of the factors that affect the business due to the location of the franchise, and this thorough study was made as a project. Any business firm before starting a franchise or to improve business (if a franchise is already existed) can use this theory to do an analysis of their franchise location.

Theory:

Assumption:

1.     .  The Hungry Cows Theory consider customers as cows, that are hungry (hungry refers to the need of the customer).
2.        Cows go in various paths on their own, when there is no cowherd to tend them.

Terminology:

S Strength:  Shed of Cows

The source from which, the franchise get customer called shed of cows

Eg. Bus stops, colleges, offices etc., are the sources from which, we get customers.

Figure 1: shed of cows

W  Weakness: Other Gardens

Each competitor is called a garden,  that attracts cows (customers) that are hungry. When cows move in random paths, the gardens along their paths will attract them, hence these are called competitors.

Figure 2: cows grazing gardens

O Opportunity: Path

The path in which, cows move out from the source. This helps any company to know how customers are distributed from the source(shed of cows.) and can consider as an opportunity for the company to focus, on the path through advertisements, offers, decoration etc, to change the cows path to our garden.

Figure 3: Path in which cows move:

T Threats: Circle of Competitor
The strength of the competitor is always a threat to your franchise. Also, the strength of the competitor will be identified by circles(the concept of circles will be explained in coming lines).Hence, the competitor circles are named as threat.
Description of Theory:

Whenever a franchise wants to study about the benefits and its affects on the location, they can use this theory and can go with a few changes required to improve the business. Also this theory helps in measuring the potentiality of a location. The theory is more relevant in analyzing the location of food and coffee outlets.

In general, whenever cows are on roads, without any cowherd to tend to them they will move in random paths and go towards gardens in such way that, few cows will go to the gardens nearby, a few cows will go to the gardens which are fresh, and a few cows will go towards a bigger garden etc. The customer also considers same many factors.like franchise near by, franchise of big brands, franchise with offers etc. before customer into a franchise.
so as a franchise manager, need to possess few competitive advantage features, to make customers to step-in.  




 Advantages of this theory:

1. 1.       To know themselves.
2. 2.       To know/ locate competitors.
3. 3.       To identify customer source.
4. 4.       To know, how customers are distributed from source.
5. 5.       To know the potential of your franchise location.
6. 6.       The strength of your competitor.

How this theory works:

Gardens attract cows that are hungry, in the same way franchises attract customers who are in need. Cows are attracted towards gardens, because of its greenery, because of no fencing around the  garden and even because of garden in the vicinity. So every garden attracts cows in its own way. These attraction around every garden are simply represented as circles around it.

So, every franchise/Store has circles around it. circles are simply a kind of vibrations responsible to bring customers in to your store. 

These invisible circles have strength that makes customers to step in to your store. The strength of the circle depends on  many factors like, highly established brand in the market, less pricing than competitors , franchise located on correct side of lane, huge space for customers to hang around, huge offers, and decoration of franchise.

So, it’s up-to the franchise to know the strength of its franchise to consider the circles of your competitor, to know the paths in which source is distributed, to know where the sources are located. And can improve the strength of the circle, to attract cows by building brand image, adding more offers, improving quality, promotions more at sources of customers, Shifting the location of franchise etc. It’s important to know the problem of your franchise by this theorem and to choose the correct solution for it. 

Copyright ©2011 Badari Kumar Alapati.

Images are not my  own, used under copyrights.

Thanks to my friends Guru, Gaurav, Naveen, Zubin and my mentor :vedha balaji, for helping me to convert idea to theory.

http://www.ultimatemoneyindia.in/2011/06/hungry-cows.html#links

The pros & cons of the Common Admission Test

The Ivy League of the Indian MBA – the Indian Institutes of Managementand the Indian School of Business – have for long stood the test of time, and with great success, as shown by the number of Indians as the chief executives of several big firms. Also, a chain of close tie-ups & student exchange programs between various Indian and foreign universities and the breakthrough of big Indian MBA players such as SP Jain Institute of Management & Research and Institute of Management Technology into regions such as Singapore and Dubai, providing  evidence of the emerging global footprint that India offers in terms of higher education & its wide acceptability.

 

Admission to these coveted colleges has been based on the Common Admission Test, the CAT. This is an all-India test conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) as an entrance exam for the management programs of its seven business schools. According to Wikipedia, bout 250,000 students took CAT in 2008 for about 1,500 seats in the IIMs. 

With more than a thousand affiliated & privately funded colleges accepting the scores of the CAT alone, the pressure is bound to be immense on the proper and fair conduct of the exam.

Of late, with the recent proliferation of business schools, students are often left in a fix to apply to the school of their choice. With the skyscraping rates of applications to individual institutions and their corresponding exams, often in the price band of Rs.1000 to Rs.1600 each, I seriously doubt the capability of a typical aspirant in the developing Indian subcontinent, with a per capita income of a meager Rs.38,084 to be able to fill the forms and successfully attempt a shot at his choice of school amongst a cut-throat competition. What I would suggest is a centralized system of testing at the Master’s level on the example of the GMAT, relieving the candidate of the monetary limitations imposed by individual application and thus providing a wider pool of colleges to choose from.

Another pressure is to keep up with the paperwork involved in testing the aptitude of an increasingly greater number of students every year. To tackle this, the CAT governing body decided to twist things a bit from this year. The plan to conduct the CAT in its online format was justified enough to deal with such progressive hiccups and also ensure a swift & fair testing procedure. Things seemed all set for a metamorphosis when IIM authorities tied up with Prometric (of GRE fame) in a $40m deal for 5 years, starting from November 28th 2009.

But, things started to go wrong right from day one of the testing procedure. With a series of reports of server crashes, unidentified virus attacks on the server, confusion over slot bookings, the testing stations behaving erratically, answers not being submitted at all for a few candidates on almost every testing day, the most awaited test in the country suddenly became the most dreaded exam to deal with. With the authorities failing to take immediate control of the situation and even the Ministry of Human Resource and Development leaving the onus on the CAT organizers’ to take charge of things, it seems hard to be able to call this year’s CAT a success.

But as they say in cricket, you never lose till you face the last ball. The same is the case here. The CAT can still have the scope of getting the same respect it used to have until this downturn happened. I would suggest the following three-point approach for immediate reprise.

1.    Scrap this year’s CAT, whatever the implication may be, for the good of both the students and the legacy of the famous institutions to admit only the best brains in the country. Support in this regard is quite widespread both amongst students and their teachers alike. Charters of signed petitions for a ‘fair’ and ‘hassle-free’ test are already making news on almost every big web portal. So making the students agree for the same will not be a problem.

2.    With the data that has been accumulated, setup an inquiry to probe into concrete causes of failure for this year’s CAT along with supporting proof of inadequacies in the system setup by Prometric.

3.    Conduct CAT online from next year again, but this time with ample number of dry runs and load testing over a substantial period of time. Also, extending the window of testing will do a bit of good.

With these steps, and a robust administration, resurrecting the golden image of CAT, and thereby of the distinguished colleges of the Indian MBA sphere, should not seem a distant dream. Till then, it’s in the hands of the governing bodies to decide the fate of whether a compromise on the talent pool seems justified enough or not.

Source:http://www.topmba.com/articles/student-voices/pros-cons-common-admission-test

Is my age right for an MBA?

There is no right or wrong age for education and the same applies to an MBA as well.

What matters more is what your objective is? 

What are you seeking from an MBA?

Should you be pursuing a PhD instead?

These are often questions that crop up in the minds of students who have seen their batch-mates from bachelor’s degree programs undertake an MBA program in Asia or abroad right after finishing their undergraduate degree. The applicant on the other hand has spent the same time working in the corporate world and may feel over-aged for an MBA program.

Firstly, unlike in Indian business schools where the average age of students is close to 22-23 and almost zero work experience, the average age in US B-Schools ranges from 25 to 30 with 3-4 years of work experience on an average. Most MBA students overseas already possess a masters’ degree in some discipline before they embark on an MBA.

Secondly, you will just not be able to contribute to an MBA class in overseas B-schools, if you have not spent a sufficient amount of time understanding the nuances of corporate life by spending some years working in an organized environment.

But one needs to also keep in mind that there is no point being in a class of students where the average age is 28 while you are 35 years old already. As you move up the age scale, you can consider various alternatives-a part-time MBA, an executive development program or even an intensive specialized program in your chosen field. Of course the selection criteria and the profile of students changes drastically.

It is therefore important to identify what you are seeking from an MBA and then weigh what kind of program you should chose at a particular age.

The ROI of an MBA

In the last couple of weeks I've met with students at ISB, Great Lakes, ICFAI Business School Hyderabad and IIM Indore. And the one concern which unites students across one year and two year programs is the burden of the EMI.

The average ISB student will be paying an EMI of 25k over 7 years, an IIM student 25k over 5 years (going for the exchange program could jack that up by another 4-5k per month). So the concern students have is: "What will be my ROI?"

The way in which a bschooler calculates ROI is very direct: compare what I spent on the course, with the placement salary at the time of exit. In case you have significant work experience, also factor in one year of 'lost income'.

OK. By this method of calculation, the ROI - for a majority of students - will be negative. 

The published figure for average domestic salary at ISB last year is Rs 16.47 lakhs p.a. (CTC).

The fees for this batch were approximately Rs 19 lakhs, while the average incoming salary was Rs 8 lakhs p.a.

Do the math and you can see that there is much heartburn. Especially for the 50% of the batch which must - necessarily - bag a job lower than the 'average'. 

The same holds true for an ICFAI Business School graduates, where fees + living expenses for the course would works out to Rs 9-10 lakhs.

The average placement salary would be in the range of Rs 5-6 lakhs. A large % of candidates are freshers or with 1-2 years of work ex so we can discount the income loss component.

Now let us examine the case at IIM Indore. The average salary for the class of 2010 was Rs 10.29 lakhs. 

The cost of the 2 year course for this batch was approximately Rs 8 lakhs.

Of course, 50% of the batch would have bagged jobs in the Rs 6-10 lakhs range but prima facie IIM seems to provide maximum chances of a high ROI.

However. As they say with mutual fund investments, past performance may not be indicative of future returns. So students who are considering the MBA today - be warned.

The class of 2010 at IIM Indore consisted of 175 students. That number went up to 235for the batch of 2011. The class of 2012 is a record 450 students.

No doubt this will affect the average salary figure. (In fact the larger the batch, the more focus the institute puts on 'quantity' over quality). 

Moreover from this year, the cost of attending IIM Indore has also gone up to Rs 10 lakhs. Making the 'equation' far less favourable.

I can bore you with several more examples but you get the drift. 

The origin of this entire mess go back to 2008, when the market was booming. It appeared that the MBA was a Golden Degree which, like the yellow metal, could only go up, up and up.

Record placement salaries, record number of jobs - and a relatively low fee structure - made the MBA a most exciting qualification. The better the bschool brand, the more excitement, of course.

At this stage two things happened:

1) In April 2008, IIM Ahmedabad more than doubled its fees (from Rs 4.3 lakhs to Rs 11.5 lakhs). Other IIMs followed.

2) At the same time, year on year, IIMs began admitting more students (seats increased btw 40-100%)

Let me be honest, when IIMA first hiked its fee, I thought it was a good thing. The course was highly subsidised, there seemed to be no reason for taxpayers to underwrite the careers of bright students bagging excellent jobs. 

What's more, IIMs promised that no one would be denied a seat due to lack of funds. Education loans were made available to all and also merit scholarships, based on family income. 

But. The consequences of these actions were not limited to IIM students.

In the world of finance the Reserve Bank of India signals changes in rates. Similarly, IIMs hiking their fees sent a clear signal to the entire bschool industry. Practically every bschool in India increased its fees by 50-100%.

In a strange and convoluted way, the low fees charged by IIMs kept fees of all bschools low. Because no one - apart from ISB, with its own unique brand - dared to charge more than the market leader.

To compound the problem, the market crashed. Jobs disappeared. The class of 2009 saw the worst of it - higher fees and lower placement salaries. The number of students appearing for CAT in 2009 also declined - for the first time in years. 

So, what does this all boil down to? MBA karna chahiye - ya nahin??

Well, I think the 'Gold Rush' era is over. If you are looking for quick and safe returns, you will be disappointed.

I do think an MBA will add a lot of value to your career over the long term. By long term I mean a 10-15 year horizon. But you will begin to see the difference in as little as 3-5 years.

Certain avenues in the corporate world do open up for you, if you have the right 'branding'.

And if you are not from the best known schools you still have the chance to work your way up the ladder through performance and personality.

40 years of working life lie ahead of most of us, a one or two year program is an investment whose returns cannot and should not be calculated merely at the end of the course.

And yes, demand and supply is the inexorable law of Nature. Bschools may well have to go back to smaller batches and lower fees - to make themselves more attractive.

The other - and tougher way - is to provide such value addition that recruiters are happy to shell out more to snap up students. A scenario so implausible... the more practical method would be to hire Leonardo di Caprio. 

And let the 'Inception' team loose at one of those CXO Summits where delegates struggle to stay awake :)


from http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2010/07/roi-of-mba.html#links