Dear All
Woke up today with the excellent news that IIMB EPGP has climbed six places to become the top ranked program in the FT Global MBA rankings amongst the Indian B schools. The EPGP program is currently ranked 27th followed by ISB at 28 and IIMC at 42 and IIMA at 61.
Since I graduated from the program 4 years back , I feel I am in a position to talk about the impact it has created on my career (I also did promise this to BB but he won’t remember this )- so anyway here it goes …
My profile, prior to starting my MBA, was the usual – Indian IT Male with 11 years’ work experience (9 years TCS). I had a sub 700 GMAT (took it once and was done with it) and age was in mid 30s. Not a great candidate by any stretch of imagination. Add to that, no volunteering experience , a sports career that spanned a decade but also got over a decade ago. However, there was one thing in my favor. I knew exactly what I wanted and went after it with everything I had. I was looking for a one year program with small class size, so shortlisted IMD(dream) and HEC Paris. IMD didn’t interview me, however got the admit from HEC. After I ran into funding issues (
https://gmatclub.com/forum/indian-appli ... l#p1444925 ), decided to join IIMB purely on CBA.
Today, I Head Analytics for one of the fastest growing firms in BFSI space with a significant salary increase . Don’t think this would have been possible without the program. Having said that, there are several other factors that I will discuss
EPGP Review - Class size of 72 was just perfect however we had more than 50% candidates as Indian IT Male. Almost all of them were in their mid-30s with more than a decade of work ex. We had a good % of female candidates , however, as it turns out, our batch was an exception. Truth to be told, some of the most insightful conversations I had during the program was with this bunch and some of our top candidates belonged to this category. Point being, don’t pay too much attention to % of IT candidates in your class and diversity is much overrated.
The program is very intense, as you would expect from any top IIM and you would barely get time to sleep during the first six months. Then it gets easier as the placement season kicks in. We had more than 120 companies coming to recruit the 70 odd guys and yet we had a few that were left without a job on the convocation day. The companies come with very specific requirements in mind and would gladly go back empty handed if there is no fit. Typical placements are at Senior Manager / AVP level with salaries ranging between 18-28 lakhs/annum.
Career Services are OK and the placement committee have to put in a lot of effort to bring recruiters however, there are some firms that are regular. All in all, expect significant opportunities to come your way but you have to fight for it. Trust me, you will lose sleep over this and it’s very easy to get swayed and apply to jobs you don’t want anything to do with. In short, EPGP is a great program if you are an Indian and not able to get into a top 15 global program. If , like me, you don’t mind working in India then you can’t go wrong picking the top 3 IIMs or ISB. The kind of doors it will open for you in India is simply unbelievable. Not so much about the opportunities abroad.
Career Impact – This is tricky. I always believed that an MBA really starts impacting your career once you have worked for 2-3 years post MBA but not in the ways I imagined. The flaw in my thinking was that once you are 3 years out, recruiters will look at you more favorably and you won’t have problems landing plum jobs. It doesn’t quite work out like that. If anything, it gets more and more difficult due to fitment issues and your school name only gets you a foot in the door or sometimes not even that. The trick is to actively manage your career and keep exploring , keep coming out of your comfort zone and keep pushing the boundaries of what you can do.
Now, we could argue, that above is true anyway – what does MBA have to do with this ? Speaking from experience (mine and several of my classmates), where it does make a difference is the amount of self-belief you get after coming out of a program like EPGP and a good career break which sets the tone for the rest of your career. After that, it’s just about taking roles that are stretch for you and learning on the job and picking the required skills. Each job makes your stronger, prepares you for your next level (if you are actively managing your career) and that’s where my experience differs from some of my classmates who decided to get into a comfort zone and haven’t really gone out and explored the market. I have taken up roles, where the JD was written after talking to me in an informal coffee chat and the role was created from scratch. Be comfortable with uncertainty is the biggest career advice I can give you and EPGP have had a huge role to play in me being able to handle uncertainty (Another one – if you are using MBA as a means to move abroad, pick up the top college of the country you wish to settle in – it will make it easy during the job search)
To summarize – Great career opportunities during and post the program. Very high quality of academics but you won’t remember anything. The name does open doors, post which it’s up to your performance during the day. One notable negative is that, post MBA, there is not much of job search support in terms of Alumni connect portal and you are basically on your own. Now, we have created a google group where people share job opportunities if they come across anything and they are not interested in pursuing the same. ISB, I believe has this managed very professionally. Brand wise, I still feel, IIMA enjoys the privilege at least in India
Hope this helps. Feel free to ask in case of any queries.