About the Author:
Professionally, Amit has an overall 9+ years of work-ex, 2.5 yrs. with OYO Mexico as Regional Partner & OYO India as P&L head. Before that Amit worked with Philip Morris International (Marlboro Brand) for 4.5 years in Sales and Trade Marketing Profile. Also, he is a certified sales trainer & a professional Anchor, a coach & mentor to students with Klarity.in & Career Launcher. Lately, he has started personal branding with akchand.com as well. He loves to be engaged with LinkedIn, read on leadership & play lawn tennis.
When I got my call for an interview process with SIBM Pune in 2013, I was coding on core banking (Online Banking) for a US client with Infosys. My father was a banker and that helped me translate the functional details into technical, as he made me understand how exactly a bank functions. Hence, Finance was becoming a natural choice.
In SIBM, unlike few other colleges, one has to pick up the specialization within the first 2 months of joining, and hence, the time is very limited. When I went for an interview, I had mentioned my willingness to be an entrepreneur and wrote Operations as a major and Finance as a minor in my SOP.
Finally, when I joined college and interacted with a lot of people within those 2 months, I realized I was a people person. So I selected HR on the letter which was to be submitted to the university!
I still remember that day, our HR visiting faculty Mr. Vivek Kaul, told me one simple thing,
“A people person doesn’t mean HR, & a good presenter doesn’t necessarily mean sales & marketing.” He brainstormed me for a good 10 mins. on ‘Why HR?’ That’s when I rushed back to the admin office, asked them to return my letter. Cross the HR part, and wrote something which I hated literally – Sales! Hated, because I had done door to door selling of donations with corporates and societies in Delhi and I never liked to do that again! In fact, to such an extent that I along with my friend left the job around the 25th of the month, without bothering the salary! That’s life! You end up doing, what you never wanted. But after 9+ yrs of corporate work-ex, when I look back to see if I made the right decision, “I think, absolutely YES!”
And one more thing, I told you my story because it’s OKAY to be confused. We all were but ended up doing what we all wanted to. One of my friends from IMI Delhi, Ashwani, picked up Sales and marketing and is now in HR because he realized later that he could be better in that! So stop worrying too much. Decide what you can at the moment and let it the career take its shape!
However, let me tell you some of the ground realities of what a lot of you guys will end up doing in each of the streams. Maybe that will help you decide on making that choice:
Marketing: The bottom line is that not every MNC will give you work to create those TV ads, that the truth! And even if they do, you will slog till late 3-4 am sitting at the agency’s office working along with the creative guy to make those videos only to realize that your manager didn’t like ‘Something’ about it, when you’ll go back and do the same exercise numerous times! Or you will be following up with the agency and printing vendors on your brand posters to be put up in the market. A lot of you would end up executing or copy-pasting the Global brand guidelines. So your creativity has to take a back seat and execution has to be the driving force. But ya, if you are lucky you would get the desired role of creating something new, with an impact but only after a certain experience.
Operations: This guy typically is the mechanical Engg of MBA! Works on process streamlining primarily and thus 6 sigma becomes a key differentiator here. This stream is the backbone of the company. While these are the guys who make sure they take care of the production, logistics & supply of the product to get shipped to the distributors of the company. They would be the ones who would work on improving the processes & their efficiency every single day!
Finance: Need not necessary that a person loving numbers has to be in Finance, he can be in sales as well. But these guys are like the doctors of the world. Able to study as much as possible and do a detailed numerical analysis of it. As a lot of these guys start working on Mergers & Acquisitions, Financial Analysis, and most importantly helping the company give the direction towards targeted profitability. This is the core of the company. These guys might each one of the best especially in M&As, Consulting & investment banking, but also slog the hardest as they don’t have any fixed time returning home. 10-11 pm is usual for them!
Sales: The feet on the street! These guys aren’t shy of going to the ground with the salesman, identifying the gaps in the market, and help them fill with increased distribution. Ultimately the people who bring money to the company and do all the dirty work for the company. These guys have to be a hard taskmaster and be able to absorb the sales pressure month on month as numbers keep increasing with delivery. A new benchmark, every single month, tirelessly! Also, a successful sales guy has to be smart enough to listen to all the complaints of consumers to the salesman to distributor to his team, “Sir, maal nahi bik raha”. That’s where the creativity and slogging is required to go even to the remotest corners and find the pockets where you can sell, as there are always a few and no matter for how long people have been saying, “Sir, Dukane nahi bachi. Kahan beche”. They are always there irrespective of your distribution penetration. You just have to find those!
HR: A typical perception being, “They only do parties”, These guys are the lungs of any living being. They are making sure that the blood gets pumped day in and day out. They are the ones who make sure that:
- We remain motivated to work in the organization
- Our job role fits our interest
- Plan our career
- Promotions, Grade jumps, Appraisals, have their inputs to keep it objective and remove bias
if any from the reporting manager
- Right from onboarding to exit, they help with us smoothen our experience with the
company
At the end of the day, irrespective of what you pick you, take the best call that you could and leave life to take the rest!
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