A great day in the sports world

Australia witnessed two great matches today - 4th day of the third 5-day cricket match between Indian and Australia and a third round 5-set match between Federer and Janco Tipsarevic.

India has again played spoilsport for Australian cricket team's winning streak. While managed to equal the Steve's record of winning 16 matches in a row, he could stop India from winning the third match comfortably.

But I enjoyed most watching the tennis match and what Federer said after the match would explain something about this match. After winning the fantastic match he said he wished there are draws in tennis. This speaks so much about the opponent. This is the first time Federer faced such a level of competition from someone other than Nadal in the last three or four years. It was an amazing match. Tipsarevic is definitely a player to watch in future.

After a long-time I lazed out today and enjoyed watching both these matches. We are almost half-way through term 7 and it appears to be consolidation phase. PPT's, Case preps, cv reviews, EOI's are in full swing. Yesterday two C0 09 admits visited the campus and I think this is the beginning the gyan giving to the next batch.

Term 7 begins

Term 7 begins today and this is the term who would be maximum non-academic action. Yes I am referring to the Placement season that is hotting up. Everyone I know has been asking whether I am placed yet or not; there is still a month-and-half to go for the placement week. More than the students, it is the outsiders who are more keen about placements. It's a full circle - every year it starts with media reporting that so many students got salaries of a crore or above and then the school tries to grapple with too much media attention as it inflates all the expectation while secretly enjoying the coverage. All the prospective students get excited about it and the students who already got admits show the media coverage to their kith and kin and boast that next it would be much better as the next batch is better than the previous one. They go in with lots of expectations, slog hard and start dreaming. Now the companies have to do the catching up business - it's not just a matter of talent, it's a matter of branding, pride and all other non-HR reasons. The key issue for the HR folks would be to figure out what roles do they want to hire for and how much should they be paying. Should they reveal the figure in the ppt or should they keep it a open-secret or avoid the question altogether. Whatever they do, they will be hit by adverse selection in one form or the other. HR folks go back to the HR consultants to understand what the current compensation levels and what they can offer but find them so distant from the figures reported in the media earlier that they have the most difficult situation in the world. If they don't offer good packages, they will not get Day 1 or even Day 2 and there will be a great chances of declining offers, which is the most dreaded thing after one puts in so much effort into the campus recruitment. It's not that if the B-school grad's entry is going to drastically change the fortunes of the company - half of them don't stick with the first company anyway, but it is about all those non-HR goals and they are more important.

I know that I lost my way while writing this post but nevertheless I want to put down all the random thoughts I have been having about placements since last 20 odd days.

I have decided to keep Term 7 a little light by taking only 3 courses but we still have to finish our project, which should be done in this week.

For all the R1 admits, you have 3 more months to live the normal life, so enjoy it and R2 applicants - don't be in a rush, things will happen at their pace, you have only so much in control, but be ready to run on the word "go."

Good luck to you all.