Written by Sameer Kamat

“What kind of a question is that? And what’s that got to do with my career plans? Don’t try to get all spiritual now. That space is already overcrowded with Swamis & Babas. Just stick to your regular career guidance fundas and tell me how I can get a better job, better salaries, international placements.”

If that was your initial reaction, you are justified in thinking that way. Everyone and their dog knows that unwavering focus and keeping your eye on the target is very important. The same is true for career planning too.

But it’s equally important to take a step back once in a while to evaluate if you’ve chosen the target well and all that furious running you’ve been doing so far is in the right direction.

Don’t worry. There’s no spiritual angle to this, if that’s what you were suspecting. But there sure is an introspective flavour.

Written by Sameer Kamat

INSEAD MBA salary numbers are among the best in the business school world when it comes to post MBA jobs. A key reason for that is the huge number of INSEAD MBA graduates who manage to get high-paying management consulting jobs. This trend continues year after year, which means there’s a story in there that goes beyond just being a mere coincidence.
Gaurav Gokhale, from the INSEAD MBA class of 2007 has managed a career transition from Information Technology to Management Consulting. From being a Business Analyst in TCS to being a Strategy Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, it’s a career path that many software professionals can only dream of.
In this post for MBA Crystal Ball, Gaurav generously shares the ideas and tips that helped him bag a management consulting job after completing his INSEAD MBA

Written by Sameer Kamat

Technology entrepreneurship in India is common. Serial entrepreneurship is less common. Women entrepreneurs in technology are a rare breed. So what’s the rarest of rare breed? Combine industry, role, gender and nationality to get the answer.
Answer: Women entrepreneurs in India who have managed the fine art of serial entrepreneurship in the technology space.
We love to hear stories about folks who break the stereotypical moulds. Speaking of women entrepreneurs in India, Sonia Soman from Pune is one such role model who sets an example for many aspiring technology entrepreneurs who dream of launching not just one, but multiple technology start-ups.

Several Indian technology professionals with brilliant tech skills & amazing startup ideas put their plans on the backburner and head off to the best bschools to learn about technology, entrepreneurship & business plans. Sonia decided to take the shorter route and jump in without any formal management education.

Written by Sameer Kamat

You already know about the top consulting recruiters in the industry. If not, read these posts on the best strategy consulting firms and the top technology, HR, finance consulting firms first.

You also know that the best consulting jobs on the campus go to MBA graduates from the top ranked bschools. But if you haven’t worked in the consulting industry before your MBA, a career change can be a big challenge.

But there’s good news. There are a few bschools that can increase your chances of becoming a consultant, even if you weren’t already one before the MBA. These are the hot-spots for getting consulting jobs that pay high post MBA salaries to compensate for the monies you pumped into the bschool coffers. McKinsey, Bain, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Deloitte Consulting and several others from the industry come over each year to recruit the best MBA talent.

Written by Sameer Kamat

It’s only a matter of time before working men and women will start facing the heat of a mid-life career crisis in their job. It’s seldom an overnight development that you can quickly put your finger on. Instead it starts creeping up slowly but surely. Office politics, burnout, ego clashes, loss of management trust, self defeating feelings of self-doubt.

Listening to the frustration release song (can you guess who’s the singer?) can offer a few moments of solace, but no real solution. For many, a job change or an international MBA seems like a good escape route to reset the clock and start off afresh. But it’s an expensive & risky option and there’s no guarantee that the mid-life career problems you were facing will disappear. What if they resurface in the new company in a different form?

Written by Sameer Kamat

Management consultant Amit (aka MBA Dropout) covered the best strategy consulting firms in another post. This time he talks about management consulting firms that focus on a niche – like technology consulting, financial consulting, HR consulting and others.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Here’s an intriguing phenomenon. We have seen the same trend in applicants who work with us on the MBA Mock Application Process (MBA MAP). A significant number of MBA applicants explicitly list entrepreneurship as a post MBA goal in their admission essays.

They do a fantastic job in explaining the brilliant entrepreneurial idea they have in mind, the skills & resources need to execute that plan and how an MBA will provide them with the perfect platform to launch their startup in technology, healthcare, education or any of the other ‘sunrise’ sectors. So far, so good.

But something changes the minute they step into the bschool campus and the mindset change continues as they move into the job hunting phase.

Written by Sameer Kamat

The best management consulting firms in the world (and in India) have more or less remained the same for several years. In this post, Management consultant Amit (aka MBA Dropout) lists down the top 10 strategy consulting firms.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Job interviews provide the most fertile ground to discover you are human…by making mistakes (or ‘unforced errors’ as Sania Mirza would describe them). A job interview is also the best place to discover a highly evolved species called Bosses, who use it as an opportunity to demonstrate how lowly and insignificant the rest of us are.

If you’ve been preparing for an important job interview, here are a few do’s and don’ts so that the discovery process doesn’t push you on the road to extinction.

Written by Sameer Kamat

The NYU Stern MBA program at New York University might be known as one of the best Finance programs in the world. And being located in the commercial capital gives it a huge advantage – career opportunities in the financial services industry with investment banks doling out the best salaries and bonuses in the business.
But NYU Stern has other strengths too, that generally get overshadowed by the ‘Finance MBA‘ label.

Anubhav Jain completed his MBA from NYU Stern. But the New York glitter and glamour didn’t hold him back. He returned back to start his own company in India. Read how NYU turned him into an entrepreneur.