Aim mba 2013 application
THe last day is approaching for submission. best of luck. check your eaaay again for coherence.
Mba experience
My MBA experience in asian institute of management.600 cases on different subjects was a great experience.
Earn Money and Earn an MBA!
With tuition going up across the board in the double digit percentages, every MBA hopeful would do well to have one (or two) jobs on the side. However, the in-depth study required by most MBA programs does not leave much room in the daytime for a job. However, with the prevalence of the Internet and virtual market, you can earn money while you are earning an MBA.
Below are some ways in which you can bolster your bank account and your future prospects by earning money while earning your MBA.
– Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a discipline that can be undertaken at any point in time of the day or night. Affiliate marketers only need to find appropriate partners and create content once, and the income rolls in residually once visitors start attending the website.
– Ghost writing
There are many websites which facilitate the use of ghost writers, giving employers a chance to connect with writers. With all of the academic writing that you are doing, your writing skills should be right up there. Take advantage of that by doing some projects for other people as a ghost writer.
– How-to articles
There are many sites which allow you to place how-to articles and do the search engine optimization for you while surrounding your articles with Google AdWords ads. Again, like affiliate marketing, his how-to sites only require that you place the content once, and it is good advice, it will draw visitors that will give you residual income.
– Online tutoring
Just like there are sites which facilitate bringing together clients and ghost writers, there are also sites which facilitate online tutoring. As an MBA candidate, you are in demand when it comes to high school and college students who need a tutor. Tutoring is one of the most lucrative freelance professions on the market right now, with the best tutors able to earn in excess of $100 an hour without leaving the comfort of their chair.
– Editor
If you have an eye for catching mistakes on paper, you can also earn good money by editing other people's papers online. Because you are in school, you will have a good idea of what teachers are looking for. You will be able then to use that expertise to make other papers more professional, which is a highly desirable trait.
– Using social media
There are many ways to use social media to make money in the current market. The secret to making money with social media is to drive traffic to your page. From there you can undertake an affiliate marketing business a how-to video business or many others. If you have traffic, you can sell, and advertisers will know this.
– Auto loans
Believe it or not, some car dealerships are looking for people can facilitate auto loans online. If you have a basic knowledge of finance, you can work online in closing auto loan deals as well as insurance and title deals when needed.
– Remote assistance
If you have time in your class schedule during the day, you can provide remote or personal assistance for businesses around the area. People are willing to pay for any number of administrative duties, from retyping letters to cold calling prospects to anything you can think of in between. This kind of work can be done on your own schedule and does not require that you leave the comfort of your own chair or keep a rigid 9-to-5 schedule.
Below are some ways in which you can bolster your bank account and your future prospects by earning money while earning your MBA.
– Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a discipline that can be undertaken at any point in time of the day or night. Affiliate marketers only need to find appropriate partners and create content once, and the income rolls in residually once visitors start attending the website.
– Ghost writing
There are many websites which facilitate the use of ghost writers, giving employers a chance to connect with writers. With all of the academic writing that you are doing, your writing skills should be right up there. Take advantage of that by doing some projects for other people as a ghost writer.
– How-to articles
There are many sites which allow you to place how-to articles and do the search engine optimization for you while surrounding your articles with Google AdWords ads. Again, like affiliate marketing, his how-to sites only require that you place the content once, and it is good advice, it will draw visitors that will give you residual income.
– Online tutoring
Just like there are sites which facilitate bringing together clients and ghost writers, there are also sites which facilitate online tutoring. As an MBA candidate, you are in demand when it comes to high school and college students who need a tutor. Tutoring is one of the most lucrative freelance professions on the market right now, with the best tutors able to earn in excess of $100 an hour without leaving the comfort of their chair.
– Editor
If you have an eye for catching mistakes on paper, you can also earn good money by editing other people's papers online. Because you are in school, you will have a good idea of what teachers are looking for. You will be able then to use that expertise to make other papers more professional, which is a highly desirable trait.
– Using social media
There are many ways to use social media to make money in the current market. The secret to making money with social media is to drive traffic to your page. From there you can undertake an affiliate marketing business a how-to video business or many others. If you have traffic, you can sell, and advertisers will know this.
– Auto loans
Believe it or not, some car dealerships are looking for people can facilitate auto loans online. If you have a basic knowledge of finance, you can work online in closing auto loan deals as well as insurance and title deals when needed.
– Remote assistance
If you have time in your class schedule during the day, you can provide remote or personal assistance for businesses around the area. People are willing to pay for any number of administrative duties, from retyping letters to cold calling prospects to anything you can think of in between. This kind of work can be done on your own schedule and does not require that you leave the comfort of your own chair or keep a rigid 9-to-5 schedule.
Guest Writer: Kathleen Hubert is a blogger who writes on a variety of different sites. Check out more of her work at http://www.autoloan.org/
IIT student intake quality Detoriating
More emphasis has to be given to research at the undergraduate level and examinations should test independent thinking of students rather than their ability to solve problems.
Murthy said in order to produce good research at IITs, the Indian government has to be persuaded to create institutions that fund research projects.
In addition, faculty members should also be evaluated annually on their research performance by an independent committee, Murthy said adding that India must shift from the tenure system for its faculty to a five year contractual
appointment system.
The Infosys mentor also lamented the poor English speaking and social skills of a majority of IIT students, saying with Indian politicians "rooting against English", the task of getting good English speaking students at IITs gets more difficult.
Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/poor-qualitystudents-entering-iits-murthy_593256.html#toptag
Read more...
Murthy said in order to produce good research at IITs, the Indian government has to be persuaded to create institutions that fund research projects.
In addition, faculty members should also be evaluated annually on their research performance by an independent committee, Murthy said adding that India must shift from the tenure system for its faculty to a five year contractual
appointment system.
The Infosys mentor also lamented the poor English speaking and social skills of a majority of IIT students, saying with Indian politicians "rooting against English", the task of getting good English speaking students at IITs gets more difficult.
Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/poor-qualitystudents-entering-iits-murthy_593256.html#toptag
Foreign Exchange Session
Some key point on Foreign Exchange session
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- Swap Notes
- Two money markets..forward
- Commodity market
- term buy spot sell forward ...arbitrage information.
- symmetry gaped up .. buy call.
Cover Letter
A good Cover Letter is very important when applying for a job. It is a platform for doing a sales pitch about yourself. Here is a good sample
http://hk.jobsdb.com/HK/EN/V6HTML/JobSeeker/Resources/jobhunting/cover_letters/finance_manager.htm
Read more...
http://hk.jobsdb.com/HK/EN/V6HTML/JobSeeker/Resources/jobhunting/cover_letters/finance_manager.htm
Business Model by Jeff Parker
Cornell University alumnus Jeffrey P. Parker was honored by Cornell as the 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year
Parker's newest successful initiative is Corporate Communications Broadcast Network (CCBN), which electronically delivers essential corporate information to shareholders. In 1983 Parker founded First Call, which set the standard for the electronic delivery of equity research and earnings estimates to professional investors. Those and other companies launched by Parker continue to thrive.
Parker's genius has been to spot opportunities long before others do -- and to act quickly on them -- sometimes stepping down from top slots in other companies to do so. "His achievements -- the founding or leadership of more than a dozen companies that deliver information electronically -- are all the more impressive because most were established well before the boom, and subsequent bust, in Internet-based companies," noted Professor Charles Lee, the academic director of the Parker Center for Investment Research at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management.
In 1980 Parker founded Technical Data Corp., which electronically supplied bond analysis and fixed-income information to professionals in that field. In 1982 he co-founded Business Research Corp., which developed InvesText, one of the world's largest databases of company information. He followed that success with First Call Corp. In 1986 Parker sold all three firms to Thomson International but stayed on as an executive for five more years .
Read more...
Parker's newest successful initiative is Corporate Communications Broadcast Network (CCBN), which electronically delivers essential corporate information to shareholders. In 1983 Parker founded First Call, which set the standard for the electronic delivery of equity research and earnings estimates to professional investors. Those and other companies launched by Parker continue to thrive.
Parker's genius has been to spot opportunities long before others do -- and to act quickly on them -- sometimes stepping down from top slots in other companies to do so. "His achievements -- the founding or leadership of more than a dozen companies that deliver information electronically -- are all the more impressive because most were established well before the boom, and subsequent bust, in Internet-based companies," noted Professor Charles Lee, the academic director of the Parker Center for Investment Research at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management.
In 1980 Parker founded Technical Data Corp., which electronically supplied bond analysis and fixed-income information to professionals in that field. In 1982 he co-founded Business Research Corp., which developed InvesText, one of the world's largest databases of company information. He followed that success with First Call Corp. In 1986 Parker sold all three firms to Thomson International but stayed on as an executive for five more years .
What is even more interesting is the business models that he seems to invent, which are absolutely brilliant.
When Parker founded First Call to provide earnings estimates data, the state of the then art for earning data was collected and distributed on magnetic tape, delivered on a weekly basis for analysts to incorporate into their models. First Call was the first to provide daily updated data, and eventually evolved to real time updating, where a marked change in estimates would move markets.
He did this all, the brilliant part – by not only selling the First Call service to consumers of earnings estimates, but he sold First Call to the brokerage side of the street, whose research departments were the originators of earning estimates. In other words, he founded a model whereby he got paid by both the suppliers of his data and the consumers of his data.
The street found a convenient way to get their estimates to their customers in the expectation that it would generate trading through their firms and they were more than willing to pay First Call as that channel. Consuming firms sought timely and consolidated data in a convenient form. First Call did both and became the industry standard for estimates data. Parker went on to sell First Call to Thomson Financial, where it continues to thrive as a part of the Thomson Reuters suite of services.
In 1997, he did it all over again when he founded (co-founded) CCBN. He put the same model to work again in parallel to the First Call model. The niche and opportunity was that the public release of corporate data and “analyst calls” where a company’s investor relations group would hold conference calls with the analysts that followed the company were often moving targets…The meeting number or time would change, and to miss the call could mean a material disadvantage to new and timely information about a company’s prospects or results.
CCBN became a consolidator of corporate announcements and conference call schedules and details, filling a huge gap in the market and providing a tremendous value add to both analysts as well as the corporate investor relations departments now having a more efficient channel to reach the street. I guess it’s obvious…once again; Parker’s model was one of being paid by the originators of his data and the consumers of his data. And where is CCBN today, same home as First Call, now a part of the Thomson Reuters company.
TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOOD PRESENTATIONS
1. Respect the audience
2. Keep slides to the minimum.
3. Not show out your nervousness, but show about your feelings
4. Keep track of time regularly
5. Learn from great speakers and presenters
6. Don't memorize a speech word forword
7.Giver credit where its due.
8. Do have a positive message
9. Tell your own story
10. Connect to the audience
Extending the AIDA funnel
The old marketing textbook has thought us that there are three 4 levels of customer acquisition Awareness Interest Decision and finally Action.
But Joseph Jaffe in hos book Flip the funnel has added another level after action it is Sustainability. We need to treat our customers well and get their help in getting more customers. We should spend wisely on areas which can give us most benefit.
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But Joseph Jaffe in hos book Flip the funnel has added another level after action it is Sustainability. We need to treat our customers well and get their help in getting more customers. We should spend wisely on areas which can give us most benefit.
Measurement Guidelines of your Customer's ROI
- These are the Measurement Guidelines of your Customer's ROI
- 1. Figure out where your business is coming from- i.e segment new, referred and exisiting/returning customers
- 2. Determine its costs
- 3. Calculate its worth
- 4. Project or extrapolate how much it could be worth if it could be formalized,scaled,evolved and activated.
- 5. Optimize and repeat.
Concepts taken from Flip the funnel by Joseph
Ramadan
Ramadan is a very special month for the Muslims, as in it Muslims around the world perform various types of worship, the most important of them being
fasting. This fasting of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, mandatory upon all adolescents and adults who have the ability. Ramadan is also the month in which the first revelation came to the Prophet Muhammad, and thus is called the "Month of the Quran". During this month, there is a noticeable change in people's lives as well as societies. This article will describe a typical day of a Muslim during this month of forgiveness.
CAT --> IGMAT
CAT has transformed into Indian GMAT with 2 sections of 70 mins each. 2 years back CAT had become online and from next year it will be for 140 mins. The sections are quants and verbal. No more DI.
students will have an advantage they can prepare for both at the same time.
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students will have an advantage they can prepare for both at the same time.
Big Four
Big four are the four largest international accountancy and professional services firms. They are Deloitte, KPMG , PWC and E & Y. MBA's dream companies. They are also into consulting. All of them have offices in India and they recruit of India's top MBA colleges.
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New Finance Course Structure
A new article to know about the New Finance Course Structure http://fccresearchdigests.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
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Fun at MBA
These are some of fun students have at MBA. MBA's, Do share some of your fun ?
IIM-A : A Quick Round of Frisbee
XIMB: Chip of the Block
IIM-C: Treks , Games & More
NMIMS: Exploring Mumbai
MDI: Corporate Football
IIM-B : Sense of Purpose
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IIM-A : A Quick Round of Frisbee
XIMB: Chip of the Block
IIM-C: Treks , Games & More
NMIMS: Exploring Mumbai
MDI: Corporate Football
IIM-B : Sense of Purpose
Webcast by AIM's associate Dean
Prof. Lim, Ricardo A. is available for webcast Q&A on Monday, April 18, at 11am (8.30 am IST) The webcast will be at livestream channel, can be viewed at facebook.com/aimbschool<http:/
The other way is to view it straight from livestream.com/aimbschool<http
Professor Ricardo A. Lim, PhD is the Don Benigno Toda, Jr. Professor of Business Management. He is currently the Associate Dean of the W.SyCip Graduate School of Business (WSGSB) where he is a core faculty of the MBA Program. He teaches innovation, teams, knowledge management, risk management, marketing, operations, and quantitative analysis.
This is a very good way to clear all your doubts about AIM, I encourage all students who plan to come to AIM should attend this webcast.
Webcast by AIM's associate Dean
Prof. Lim, Ricardo A. is available for webcast Q&A on Monday, April 18, at 11am (8.30 am IST) The webcast will be at livestream channel, can be viewed at facebook.com/aimbschool<http:/
The other way is to view it straight from livestream.com/aimbschool<http
Professor Ricardo A. Lim, PhD is the Don Benigno Toda, Jr. Professor of Business Management. He is currently the Associate Dean of the W.SyCip Graduate School of Business (WSGSB) where he is a core faculty of the MBA Program. He teaches innovation, teams, knowledge management, risk management, marketing, operations, and quantitative analysis.
This is a very good way to clear all your doubts about AIM, I encourage all students who plan to come to AIM should attend this webcast.
Webcast by AIM's associate Dean
Prof. Lim, Ricardo A. is available for webcast Q&A on Monday, April 18, at 11am (8.30 am IST) The webcast will be at livestream channel, can be viewed at facebook.com/aimbschool<http:/
The other way is to view it straight from livestream.com/aimbschool<http
About Lim, Ricardo A.
Professor Ricardo A. Lim, PhD is the Don Benigno Toda, Jr. Professor of Business Management. He is currently the Associate Dean of the W.SyCip Graduate School of Business (WSGSB) where he is a core faculty of the MBA Program. He teaches innovation, teams, knowledge management, risk management, marketing, operations, and quantitative analysis.
This is a very good way to clear all your doubts about AIM, I encourage all students who plan to come to AIM should attend this webcast.
Webcast by AIM's associate Dean
Prof. Lim, Ricardo A. is available for webcast Q&A on Monday, April 18, at 11am (8.30 am IST) The webcast will be at livestream channel, can be viewed at facebook.com/aimbschool<http:/
The other way is to view it straight from livestream.com/aimbschool<http
About Lim, Ricardo A.
Professor Ricardo A. Lim, PhD is the Don Benigno Toda, Jr. Professor of Business Management. He is currently the Associate Dean of the W.SyCip Graduate School of Business (WSGSB) where he is a core faculty of the MBA Program. He teaches innovation, teams, knowledge management, risk management, marketing, operations, and quantitative analysis.
This is a very good way to clear all your doubts about AIM, I encourage all students who plan to come to AIM should attend this webcast.
AIM is AACSB accredited!
Last week AIM,manila got AACSB accredited . AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business - is the professional association for college and university management education and the premier accrediting agency for colleges.The AACSB accredition is an achievement for AIM, only 6 MBA colleges in ASIA are AACSB accredited.
IIMs to get autonomy
Senior officials, has decided to give up some of its powers to IIMs. This includes the power to select own directors and chairmen and pay the faculty as desired.
"We have decided that the autonomy of IIMs should be enhanced through amendments in the memorandum of articles (MoA). For instance, the process of appointment of the chairperson and the board is not very transparent and gives a lot of power to the ministry.
Now, we are saying that the institutes have a better idea of their culture and can take care of such selections. They will suggest the names and the ministry will appoint the officials.
Among the changes proposed, IIMs will be able to trim the board size from over 26 at present to 14, appoint alumni members on the board and decide the pay structure of staff and faculty independent of pay commissions.
Source:Rediff
AIM Professor Interview
Here is an interview of Professor HORACIO BORROMEO.
You recently arrived from India where you interviewed candidates for the MBA program. How were the candidates?
Well, in India one can certainly expect to find good candidates. But for the most part I was, as in previous years, disappointed that they all seemed so alike.
For one, the vast majority were in their early to mid-twenties, with 2 to 3 years of work experience in the IT domain, a software engineering background, and looking to shift to investment banking or finance. This is understandable because it seems India’s best and brightest have, over the last so many years, moved to IT where the best-paying entry level jobs are found. And now that the multinational investment banks and consulting companies are paying top dollar for the best MBA graduates, the best and brightest want to leave IT, get an MBA, and move to investment banking. All that hype about the kinds of offers that top graduates of IIMs and ISB are getting keeps fuelling this phenomenon. This sameness is disappointing because while a good MBA classroom should have a high average IQ, GMAT or CAT; it also needs students from a wide variety of backgrounds, experience and motivations.
But they were also alike in their answers to the interview questions. For one thing, they obviously prepare for the interviews—as well they should—but they prepare as if they were preparing for a test like the CAT or GMAT or any of the tests that any ambitious Indian must take from the time he starts his schooling. These kinds of tests consist of questions that demand “the right answers.” Preparation therefore involves getting to know what the questions and their corresponding correct answers are. This means to practice answering the sorts of questions that are likely or even known to be asked in these tests, and this requires investing time and money in GMAT or CAT reviewer books or courses. And most will make an effort to get as much advice and “tips” as possible. This includes following Pagalguy religiously, or any other source (website, blog, twitter, Facebook) where those with experience in taking these tests provide “tips” if not the actual questions and answers.
Now if they are all going to the same sources for help in passing the tests, it stands to reason that they will all have pretty much the same answers. This brings me to our interviews.
The main purpose of our interviews is not to determine how much a candidate knows, but how he thinks. We already have their GMAT or AIMAT scores and that gives us a fair idea of their intellectual or cognitive abilities. How they use their head is another matter, and this is more important to us. Therefore the questions we ask will have no right or wrong answers.
For instance, we would not ask (not seriously anyway, ha-ha) if a candidate knows the number of cricket fans in Maharashtra state. That would be testing their knowledge of facts. Since a census or survey of this sort has probably never been done, no one would have a factual number. So what we would ask is HOW our candidates might arrive at a reasonable estimate. And because there could be any number of ways to arrive at a reasonable estimate, we get our candidates to discuss, or argue if you like, which way is the best.
This group discussion allows us to see not only how they think, but also how they present and argue their position, how they interact with others, whether they can work with others, accept others’ views, manage a productive discussion, work with a team, modify and adapt their thinking, and so on. We look to see if the candidate has, or is capable of, the kinds of behaviour we feel are necessary to learn, and contribute to learning, in our kind of case method environment.
But in a group discussion where a candidate is trying to show that he or she is better than the rest, wouldn’t you get a dog-eat-dog, knock down-drag out, fight?
As a matter of fact that’s what tends to happen. And it happens because everyone wants to show that he or she has the right answer and the others are wrong. That’s fine, but you don’t have to get to the top by stepping on someone else. And you don’t want to hog air time and ignore what others are saying, or not give others a chance to be heard. This does not say anything good about your leadership potential, which is another trait that we look for in the candidate during the interview. Note that in your application you can write everything you did in school or on the job that suggests your leadership qualities, but that’s not easily verifiable. What’s evident to us is the leadership behaviour we see, or don’t see, during the group discussion and interview. Again, you want to show that you’re better than the others. The question is, better at what? Most candidates want to show they have the louder voice, are faster on the draw, or can intimidate others. That’s a turn-off.
Well, how about the candidate who adopts a low profile and lets the others do all or most of the talking?
Now while that tells us that they are not the domineering kind, it doesn’t tell us much else about them either. We try to see if they’re good listeners (always a good thing) or if they’re intimidated by the whole process (bad news, and almost sure to get them rejected). We observe how they try to get themselves heard, how they time their contribution, how they try to influence the discussion, and so on.
During the interview, we will give the candidate a chance to think and talk about his or her behaviour during the group discussion, and thereby validate or invalidate our observations. But we go beyond that to explore other things. Again we like to see how they think. We might ask a question like, “From this group discussion, which two candidates would you most want to be your classmates at AIM, and why?” Obviously there are no right or wrong answers since at that point we ourselves haven’t decided who we think should be in that classroom. But it tells us a little more about the interviewee himself.
So how does someone know if he or she has a chance to get into AIM’s MBA program, aside from the basic qualifications like intellectual ability, work experience, and so on?
Let’s agree from the outset that someone wants to get an MBA in order to get a better job than what he or she has now. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? As a management professor in a graduate school, teaching graduate students, I prefer to think that I’m educating my students for a lifetime career in management, not training them for their first job. There is a special meaning to “Master” when you say “Master in Business Administration” that anyone familiar with the academe understands.
But today’s MBA aspirant isn’t thinking about that so long as he can claim later that he’s got “an MBA.”They’re just thinking about getting the kind of job and salary that they read about in Times of India after the recruiters have descended on the IIMs and made an offer to the best graduating student. By the way, even the placement director of IIM Ahmedabad noted last year in the Times of India that those figures are over-inflated because they include everything plus the kitchen sinks. Meaning that it’s really the total amount that the company is going to pay the person in the form of a gross salary, before taxes and so on, AND everything that the company will spend for that person in the first year. This really inflates the figure that is reported in the Times of India and other media because it would include, for example, the return airfare from Mumbai to London or wherever his mandatory six months training will be, the cost of his hotel or other accommodations, the meal allowances, even his laptop, mobile phone, and calculator. The really meaningful number is the amount of take-home pay and none of the IIMs talk about this figure.
AIM’s numbers suffer badly in comparison because what we report is the actual salary offered. We don’t embellish or inflate the numbers with all the other perks and total cost to the recruiting company.
But to get back on track, If an MBA aspirant wants to know if he’s got what it takes, he should look at himself in the mirror, and I mean this quite literally, and ask himself, If I were a recruiter for HSBC, StanChart, or JP Morgan, would I hire this guy ahead of anyone else? Do you see a confident face, or a wimp? Or maybe you see someone cocky and arrogant? And let’s not kid ourselves. Those recruiters have the pick of the litter—notice that they always start with a shortlist, which means they already picked the top performers, the dean’s listers. So all things being equal (brains, experience, academic performance, etcetera), why do you think the company will choose one hotshot over another hotshot? I will not be indelicate or politically incorrect here, but keep looking at that mirror and the answer will come to you.
Recruiters will never admit this, of course, but all things being equal, they will always choose the handsome guy or the pretty girl, with the “charm,” the “right” family background, the ones who know which spoon or fork to use first at a formal dinner, the ones who feel comfortable at a cocktail, who carry their clothes well, who give the impression they just got out of the shower.
Which is why whether you come for a job interview or our interview, you are well advised to get a haircut, or at least comb your hair, tie that Windsor knot correctly, and dress spiffy without being stiff? You know what I mean—wear your best and most appropriate clothes for the occasion. And don’t forget to shine your shoes. If you walked through dusty roads to get to the interview, go to the restroom first, grab a tissue, and wipe the dust and grime off your shoes.
And instead of taking those GMAT reviewers or those coaching courses that guarantee admission to the best schools, go to charm school instead. Or take a Dale Carnegie program.
Then you should reflect on your experience at work and in school. Were you active or passive? Here’s a simple test of leadership. At work and in school, did you have any followers? Admirers? Fans? Did people notice you not only for your brains, but for your initiative and creativity? If you have a Facebook account, do lots of people want to be your friend? By the way, recruiters like to go through Facebook to check out people before they interview them.
Lastly, how’s your EQ? If you don’t know what that is, Google it. If you had followers at work and in school, there’s a better than even chance you’ve got a high EQ. If you don’t, it will show up in the GD and interview for sure.
How important is a GMAT or AIMAT score?
It’s a good starting benchmark because, as I said, it’s a measure of intellectual ability, which is basic if you want to get an MBA. But it’s not always a reliable benchmark because people can study for it, take it several times, and keep increasing their scores with practice, and so on. There was even a website that listed the GMAT questions for the month. The GMAT questions are held constant for one month. Some people remember the questions so after they take the test they would share these on a website. So people who took the GMAT towards the end of the month got higher scores. The folks in New Jersey who administer the GMAT and track the scores discovered this, investigated it, and caught the perpetrators and beneficiaries.
If someone takes the GMAT, it’s because he wants to go to the US or Singapore. It used to be Australia also but Indians have had problems with racism there. US and Singaporean schools require GMAT; AIM doesn’t because we have our own AIMAT as you know. So if someone gives a GMAT score to us, in all probability it’s because he had to specify several schools to send the scores to and he put in AIM as a third choice after a US or Singaporean school. If he was looking exclusively at AIM then he would have taken the AIMAT because it’s cheaper and probably Pagalguy or some other website told him it’s easier. Now, while we wish we were the preferred school, we don’t hold it against a candidate who wants to try and get into a top-tier US school. But someone whose first choice is an unrated school in the US has a lot of explaining to do. I think our AACSB accreditation and the success of our graduates speak for itself. We know we’re better than many, and I mean many, US schools. In fact, when our exchange students return from the US or Europe, invariably they tell us that the only difference, in terms of academics, was the fact that a few professors over there are well known through the books they’ve written. But the quality of teaching, the level of classroom interaction, well…you better ask them because obviously I’m biased, he he. And when I was running the exchange programs, the Deans of top schools in North America, like Wharton, Columbia, Tuck and McGill, would always comment positively about the quality of students I sent them. So our top students are as good as the top North American students also.
The surveys that rank the B-schools like to look at average GMAT scores of the schools’ cohorts. I myself am not too enthused by very high GMAT scores. And by the way, AIM’s average GMAT scores are higher than a number of schools that you’re probably familiar with, in Asia and Australia. Anyway, all that practice and coaching courses means that score in the 700s are getting commonplace. Of course it’s still impressive. But when I interview candidates like these I find they tend to be high IQ and low EQ. It’s almost as if they devoted their entire lives learning to become 700-plus GMATs, as I like to call them, and nothing else. It’s what I said at the start of this interview: it’s not about what you know but how you think and how you work with others. While I haven’t kept count, I suspect I’ve rejected more of these 700-plus GMATs than I’ve accepted.
We won’t tell you your AIMAT scores as a matter of policy, but we know your score when we do the interviews. I don’t know if you are told your CAT results. I think you will only know how well you did if you are called by the IIMs or ISB for interview. If you gave the CAT, all we know about you is that you didn’t make the 99.7 percentile. Otherwise you wouldn’t be applying for AIM, isn’t it?. Let’s face it. The typical Indian aspirant would prefer the IIMs (especially the ABCs) to AIM if he could meet the CAT hurdle. Now if you didn’t give the CAT at all, we might conclude that you didn’t think you’d do well enough. This might suggest you don’t have enough self-confidence and we don’t like that. It’s a Catch-22.
My problem with CAT is that unlike GMAT the candidate can’t seem to show some official document that indicates his score. He may tell me that he was 96 percentile but how do I verify that?
During the interview, do you try to imagine the candidate sitting in your class at AIM? In short, what kind of student do you, Professor Borromeo, like to have in your classroom?
Whether I’m teaching Human Behaviour in Organizations, which I’ve taught for many, many years, or Management Communication, which I’ve started teaching last year, and I can think of my early years at AIM when I taught Marketing, and Business Policy—which you call General Management or (Strategic Management and Ethics ) today—I always enjoy my class when my students and I can be partners in the learning process. I don’t like someone sitting in my class waiting for me to tell him things while he sits there like a sponge waiting to soak gems of wisdom from me. He’ll be disappointed, hehe.
So what does it take for a student to be a partner? First of all, they have to have sufficient brain power. After all, we’re going to be tackling complex problems of management and business. I don’t want them nerdy, I want them smart. And as I said, they also have to be emotionally smart—meaning they can work with other people as a leader and as a follower and as a team member. They must have energy and motivation because the work is hard. There’s a lot they have to do. . And even if we’ve cut the calendar from 22 months to 16, it is a long haul. It’s not enough to read and analyze the cases we give them. They have to exhaust the resources available to them (their teachers, classmates, Internet, library, and so on). Then they come to the class really prepared to contribute to an intelligent and stimulating discussion.
In all this, they need to push themselves way out of their comfort zones. A partner in learning can’t drag others down. If they like to think one way and are uncomfortable thinking another way, they have to try that other way and then some more. If they are used to sleeping 8 hours a day, they have to get used to 3 because their initiative and motivation should drive them to exhaust themselves. This they do because they want to take advantage of all the opportunities for learning and personal development that each assignment offers. If they prefer to talk one-on-one or in small groups, they better be ready to face much larger audiences, and on a more regular basis. In fact if they prefer to keep quiet, they will have to learn to speak up and be heard, meaning they have to get used to people looking at them and listening to them and get over the self-consciousness quickly. And as we love to say amongst the faculty, “No talk, no pass.” And they have to be good listeners as well.
The students must always contribute to the learning process; that’s what’s expected of them as partners. It is this act of contributing that discombobulates a student who is used to taking tests. He expects that “learning” is about preparing for the next test. So he’s on the lookout for picking up the answers to the questions the test might ask. But learning is less about absorbing facts and knowledge as it is about changing one’s behaviour towards what he hopes to become. Managers are not test takers. They’re problem solvers and decision makers. And since we’re developing managers, we want our students to behave, to act, think and feel like managers. And because managers deal with uncertainty and constant change, there are no right or wrong answers that will work for all the problems they have to solve and all the decisions they have to make. There is only the ability to think through the problems and opportunities that uncertainty and change present, and then decide and act on them. That ability is what we learn in my class, indeed in all AIM classes. And that ability is acquired and honed through active involvement—partnership—in a very participative learning process.
So if you have what it takes to be an active partner in learning, if you have the smarts, the experience, the motivation and energy, and you’re not afraid to stick your neck out and have it chopped off, figuratively of course, then I want you in my class.
Are you still recruiting for this year’s intake?
Yes we are. I hope to return to India in mid-May so if any of you think they’re the kind of student I want in my class, I hope they’ll give me the privilege of interviewing them. Or they can email me (junbo@aim.edu) and tell me why they think they would want to be in my class at AIM.
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You recently arrived from India where you interviewed candidates for the MBA program. How were the candidates?
Well, in India one can certainly expect to find good candidates. But for the most part I was, as in previous years, disappointed that they all seemed so alike.
For one, the vast majority were in their early to mid-twenties, with 2 to 3 years of work experience in the IT domain, a software engineering background, and looking to shift to investment banking or finance. This is understandable because it seems India’s best and brightest have, over the last so many years, moved to IT where the best-paying entry level jobs are found. And now that the multinational investment banks and consulting companies are paying top dollar for the best MBA graduates, the best and brightest want to leave IT, get an MBA, and move to investment banking. All that hype about the kinds of offers that top graduates of IIMs and ISB are getting keeps fuelling this phenomenon. This sameness is disappointing because while a good MBA classroom should have a high average IQ, GMAT or CAT; it also needs students from a wide variety of backgrounds, experience and motivations.
But they were also alike in their answers to the interview questions. For one thing, they obviously prepare for the interviews—as well they should—but they prepare as if they were preparing for a test like the CAT or GMAT or any of the tests that any ambitious Indian must take from the time he starts his schooling. These kinds of tests consist of questions that demand “the right answers.” Preparation therefore involves getting to know what the questions and their corresponding correct answers are. This means to practice answering the sorts of questions that are likely or even known to be asked in these tests, and this requires investing time and money in GMAT or CAT reviewer books or courses. And most will make an effort to get as much advice and “tips” as possible. This includes following Pagalguy religiously, or any other source (website, blog, twitter, Facebook) where those with experience in taking these tests provide “tips” if not the actual questions and answers.
Now if they are all going to the same sources for help in passing the tests, it stands to reason that they will all have pretty much the same answers. This brings me to our interviews.
The main purpose of our interviews is not to determine how much a candidate knows, but how he thinks. We already have their GMAT or AIMAT scores and that gives us a fair idea of their intellectual or cognitive abilities. How they use their head is another matter, and this is more important to us. Therefore the questions we ask will have no right or wrong answers.
For instance, we would not ask (not seriously anyway, ha-ha) if a candidate knows the number of cricket fans in Maharashtra state. That would be testing their knowledge of facts. Since a census or survey of this sort has probably never been done, no one would have a factual number. So what we would ask is HOW our candidates might arrive at a reasonable estimate. And because there could be any number of ways to arrive at a reasonable estimate, we get our candidates to discuss, or argue if you like, which way is the best.
This group discussion allows us to see not only how they think, but also how they present and argue their position, how they interact with others, whether they can work with others, accept others’ views, manage a productive discussion, work with a team, modify and adapt their thinking, and so on. We look to see if the candidate has, or is capable of, the kinds of behaviour we feel are necessary to learn, and contribute to learning, in our kind of case method environment.
But in a group discussion where a candidate is trying to show that he or she is better than the rest, wouldn’t you get a dog-eat-dog, knock down-drag out, fight?
As a matter of fact that’s what tends to happen. And it happens because everyone wants to show that he or she has the right answer and the others are wrong. That’s fine, but you don’t have to get to the top by stepping on someone else. And you don’t want to hog air time and ignore what others are saying, or not give others a chance to be heard. This does not say anything good about your leadership potential, which is another trait that we look for in the candidate during the interview. Note that in your application you can write everything you did in school or on the job that suggests your leadership qualities, but that’s not easily verifiable. What’s evident to us is the leadership behaviour we see, or don’t see, during the group discussion and interview. Again, you want to show that you’re better than the others. The question is, better at what? Most candidates want to show they have the louder voice, are faster on the draw, or can intimidate others. That’s a turn-off.
Well, how about the candidate who adopts a low profile and lets the others do all or most of the talking?
Now while that tells us that they are not the domineering kind, it doesn’t tell us much else about them either. We try to see if they’re good listeners (always a good thing) or if they’re intimidated by the whole process (bad news, and almost sure to get them rejected). We observe how they try to get themselves heard, how they time their contribution, how they try to influence the discussion, and so on.
During the interview, we will give the candidate a chance to think and talk about his or her behaviour during the group discussion, and thereby validate or invalidate our observations. But we go beyond that to explore other things. Again we like to see how they think. We might ask a question like, “From this group discussion, which two candidates would you most want to be your classmates at AIM, and why?” Obviously there are no right or wrong answers since at that point we ourselves haven’t decided who we think should be in that classroom. But it tells us a little more about the interviewee himself.
So how does someone know if he or she has a chance to get into AIM’s MBA program, aside from the basic qualifications like intellectual ability, work experience, and so on?
Let’s agree from the outset that someone wants to get an MBA in order to get a better job than what he or she has now. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? As a management professor in a graduate school, teaching graduate students, I prefer to think that I’m educating my students for a lifetime career in management, not training them for their first job. There is a special meaning to “Master” when you say “Master in Business Administration” that anyone familiar with the academe understands.
But today’s MBA aspirant isn’t thinking about that so long as he can claim later that he’s got “an MBA.”They’re just thinking about getting the kind of job and salary that they read about in Times of India after the recruiters have descended on the IIMs and made an offer to the best graduating student. By the way, even the placement director of IIM Ahmedabad noted last year in the Times of India that those figures are over-inflated because they include everything plus the kitchen sinks. Meaning that it’s really the total amount that the company is going to pay the person in the form of a gross salary, before taxes and so on, AND everything that the company will spend for that person in the first year. This really inflates the figure that is reported in the Times of India and other media because it would include, for example, the return airfare from Mumbai to London or wherever his mandatory six months training will be, the cost of his hotel or other accommodations, the meal allowances, even his laptop, mobile phone, and calculator. The really meaningful number is the amount of take-home pay and none of the IIMs talk about this figure.
AIM’s numbers suffer badly in comparison because what we report is the actual salary offered. We don’t embellish or inflate the numbers with all the other perks and total cost to the recruiting company.
But to get back on track, If an MBA aspirant wants to know if he’s got what it takes, he should look at himself in the mirror, and I mean this quite literally, and ask himself, If I were a recruiter for HSBC, StanChart, or JP Morgan, would I hire this guy ahead of anyone else? Do you see a confident face, or a wimp? Or maybe you see someone cocky and arrogant? And let’s not kid ourselves. Those recruiters have the pick of the litter—notice that they always start with a shortlist, which means they already picked the top performers, the dean’s listers. So all things being equal (brains, experience, academic performance, etcetera), why do you think the company will choose one hotshot over another hotshot? I will not be indelicate or politically incorrect here, but keep looking at that mirror and the answer will come to you.
Recruiters will never admit this, of course, but all things being equal, they will always choose the handsome guy or the pretty girl, with the “charm,” the “right” family background, the ones who know which spoon or fork to use first at a formal dinner, the ones who feel comfortable at a cocktail, who carry their clothes well, who give the impression they just got out of the shower.
Which is why whether you come for a job interview or our interview, you are well advised to get a haircut, or at least comb your hair, tie that Windsor knot correctly, and dress spiffy without being stiff? You know what I mean—wear your best and most appropriate clothes for the occasion. And don’t forget to shine your shoes. If you walked through dusty roads to get to the interview, go to the restroom first, grab a tissue, and wipe the dust and grime off your shoes.
And instead of taking those GMAT reviewers or those coaching courses that guarantee admission to the best schools, go to charm school instead. Or take a Dale Carnegie program.
Then you should reflect on your experience at work and in school. Were you active or passive? Here’s a simple test of leadership. At work and in school, did you have any followers? Admirers? Fans? Did people notice you not only for your brains, but for your initiative and creativity? If you have a Facebook account, do lots of people want to be your friend? By the way, recruiters like to go through Facebook to check out people before they interview them.
Lastly, how’s your EQ? If you don’t know what that is, Google it. If you had followers at work and in school, there’s a better than even chance you’ve got a high EQ. If you don’t, it will show up in the GD and interview for sure.
How important is a GMAT or AIMAT score?
It’s a good starting benchmark because, as I said, it’s a measure of intellectual ability, which is basic if you want to get an MBA. But it’s not always a reliable benchmark because people can study for it, take it several times, and keep increasing their scores with practice, and so on. There was even a website that listed the GMAT questions for the month. The GMAT questions are held constant for one month. Some people remember the questions so after they take the test they would share these on a website. So people who took the GMAT towards the end of the month got higher scores. The folks in New Jersey who administer the GMAT and track the scores discovered this, investigated it, and caught the perpetrators and beneficiaries.
If someone takes the GMAT, it’s because he wants to go to the US or Singapore. It used to be Australia also but Indians have had problems with racism there. US and Singaporean schools require GMAT; AIM doesn’t because we have our own AIMAT as you know. So if someone gives a GMAT score to us, in all probability it’s because he had to specify several schools to send the scores to and he put in AIM as a third choice after a US or Singaporean school. If he was looking exclusively at AIM then he would have taken the AIMAT because it’s cheaper and probably Pagalguy or some other website told him it’s easier. Now, while we wish we were the preferred school, we don’t hold it against a candidate who wants to try and get into a top-tier US school. But someone whose first choice is an unrated school in the US has a lot of explaining to do. I think our AACSB accreditation and the success of our graduates speak for itself. We know we’re better than many, and I mean many, US schools. In fact, when our exchange students return from the US or Europe, invariably they tell us that the only difference, in terms of academics, was the fact that a few professors over there are well known through the books they’ve written. But the quality of teaching, the level of classroom interaction, well…you better ask them because obviously I’m biased, he he. And when I was running the exchange programs, the Deans of top schools in North America, like Wharton, Columbia, Tuck and McGill, would always comment positively about the quality of students I sent them. So our top students are as good as the top North American students also.
The surveys that rank the B-schools like to look at average GMAT scores of the schools’ cohorts. I myself am not too enthused by very high GMAT scores. And by the way, AIM’s average GMAT scores are higher than a number of schools that you’re probably familiar with, in Asia and Australia. Anyway, all that practice and coaching courses means that score in the 700s are getting commonplace. Of course it’s still impressive. But when I interview candidates like these I find they tend to be high IQ and low EQ. It’s almost as if they devoted their entire lives learning to become 700-plus GMATs, as I like to call them, and nothing else. It’s what I said at the start of this interview: it’s not about what you know but how you think and how you work with others. While I haven’t kept count, I suspect I’ve rejected more of these 700-plus GMATs than I’ve accepted.
We won’t tell you your AIMAT scores as a matter of policy, but we know your score when we do the interviews. I don’t know if you are told your CAT results. I think you will only know how well you did if you are called by the IIMs or ISB for interview. If you gave the CAT, all we know about you is that you didn’t make the 99.7 percentile. Otherwise you wouldn’t be applying for AIM, isn’t it?. Let’s face it. The typical Indian aspirant would prefer the IIMs (especially the ABCs) to AIM if he could meet the CAT hurdle. Now if you didn’t give the CAT at all, we might conclude that you didn’t think you’d do well enough. This might suggest you don’t have enough self-confidence and we don’t like that. It’s a Catch-22.
My problem with CAT is that unlike GMAT the candidate can’t seem to show some official document that indicates his score. He may tell me that he was 96 percentile but how do I verify that?
During the interview, do you try to imagine the candidate sitting in your class at AIM? In short, what kind of student do you, Professor Borromeo, like to have in your classroom?
Whether I’m teaching Human Behaviour in Organizations, which I’ve taught for many, many years, or Management Communication, which I’ve started teaching last year, and I can think of my early years at AIM when I taught Marketing, and Business Policy—which you call General Management or (Strategic Management and Ethics ) today—I always enjoy my class when my students and I can be partners in the learning process. I don’t like someone sitting in my class waiting for me to tell him things while he sits there like a sponge waiting to soak gems of wisdom from me. He’ll be disappointed, hehe.
So what does it take for a student to be a partner? First of all, they have to have sufficient brain power. After all, we’re going to be tackling complex problems of management and business. I don’t want them nerdy, I want them smart. And as I said, they also have to be emotionally smart—meaning they can work with other people as a leader and as a follower and as a team member. They must have energy and motivation because the work is hard. There’s a lot they have to do. . And even if we’ve cut the calendar from 22 months to 16, it is a long haul. It’s not enough to read and analyze the cases we give them. They have to exhaust the resources available to them (their teachers, classmates, Internet, library, and so on). Then they come to the class really prepared to contribute to an intelligent and stimulating discussion.
In all this, they need to push themselves way out of their comfort zones. A partner in learning can’t drag others down. If they like to think one way and are uncomfortable thinking another way, they have to try that other way and then some more. If they are used to sleeping 8 hours a day, they have to get used to 3 because their initiative and motivation should drive them to exhaust themselves. This they do because they want to take advantage of all the opportunities for learning and personal development that each assignment offers. If they prefer to talk one-on-one or in small groups, they better be ready to face much larger audiences, and on a more regular basis. In fact if they prefer to keep quiet, they will have to learn to speak up and be heard, meaning they have to get used to people looking at them and listening to them and get over the self-consciousness quickly. And as we love to say amongst the faculty, “No talk, no pass.” And they have to be good listeners as well.
The students must always contribute to the learning process; that’s what’s expected of them as partners. It is this act of contributing that discombobulates a student who is used to taking tests. He expects that “learning” is about preparing for the next test. So he’s on the lookout for picking up the answers to the questions the test might ask. But learning is less about absorbing facts and knowledge as it is about changing one’s behaviour towards what he hopes to become. Managers are not test takers. They’re problem solvers and decision makers. And since we’re developing managers, we want our students to behave, to act, think and feel like managers. And because managers deal with uncertainty and constant change, there are no right or wrong answers that will work for all the problems they have to solve and all the decisions they have to make. There is only the ability to think through the problems and opportunities that uncertainty and change present, and then decide and act on them. That ability is what we learn in my class, indeed in all AIM classes. And that ability is acquired and honed through active involvement—partnership—in a very participative learning process.
So if you have what it takes to be an active partner in learning, if you have the smarts, the experience, the motivation and energy, and you’re not afraid to stick your neck out and have it chopped off, figuratively of course, then I want you in my class.
Are you still recruiting for this year’s intake?
Yes we are. I hope to return to India in mid-May so if any of you think they’re the kind of student I want in my class, I hope they’ll give me the privilege of interviewing them. Or they can email me (junbo@aim.edu) and tell me why they think they would want to be in my class at AIM.
Exchange Colleges for AIM
Asian Institute of Management, manila gives option for students to do 4th and 5th semester in other colleges. These are the colleges AIM is offering for exchange
- IIMB (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore)
- Indian Institute of Management -Ahmedabad
- Indian Institute of Management -Indore
- India XLRI (Xavier Labour Relations Institute)
- Japan Keio University
- Singapore NUS (National University of Singapore)
- Thailand Asian Institute of Technology
- WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
- Austria Management Center Innsbruck
- Belgium Louvain School of Management
- Denmark Copenhagen Business School
- Audencia Nantes Ecole de Management
- France EDHEC Business School
- France Burgundy School of Business
- WHU (Otto Beisheim School of Management)
- Germany University of Cologne
- Germany EBS Universitat
- University of Mannheim (Baden-Wuerttemberg Scholarship Programm)
- Italy Universitá Bocconi
- Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University)
- Poland Warsaw School of Economics
- Switzerland University of St. Gallen
- Pepperdine University (Graziadio School of Business and Management)
- IESA (Instituto de Estudios Superiores De Administracion)
- Canada McGill University
- Canada Schulich School of Business
- The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
- Australia Melbourne Business School
- Casc Western
Mai Bangkok Business Challenge.
66 teams from world's top MBA colleges presented their business plan at Bangkok. 16 teams entered the semifinals and Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University emerges as the winner of the H.M. the King of Thailand's Award.They had made a project on Siam organics.The event just got over this week.
For more info on this event, Please visit http://www.bbc.in.th/index.php
Burgundy School of Business
Burgundy School of Business is coming to AIM tomorrow for presentation at SGV, AIM 2-3 pm.
Founded in 1899, Burgundy School of Business is a leading teaching and research school belonging to the network of top French academic institutions in management.
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Founded in 1899, Burgundy School of Business is a leading teaching and research school belonging to the network of top French academic institutions in management.
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