Style Diaries by Ankur Lohani

Picture Courtesy: Taran Bedi

Chic & Stylish: Professor Style Diaries

Tanuka Ghoshal

With the campus warming up to the placement season, we couldn't help but stop and stare at the dapper yet chic business suit adorned by our very own Marketing and Consumer Behavior Professor!

This season, the foreseeable future, is all about the supple and soft business suits- with its undeniable sensual appeal. The main attraction of this business suit is the fabric- light enough to be worn with a sheer top and simultaneously warm enough for the winter months! The peacock blue shirt seems like a classic fit with the jet- black attire, sending groovy vibes to fall in step with the fashion.

Honestly, nothing feels so right, right now!

While shooting with the Prof on a sunny Mohali afternoon, we couldn’t help but ask her about her own style statement!

“I have developed my style statement through experimentation (not all of which worked!), and have finally realized that the way to go for me is to rely on the experts! So I have picked up essential basics from brands like Ann Taylor, Zara, Banana Republic and Marks & Spencer’s that I mix and match, which works for me. I probably border on the conservative in terms of dressing, and perhaps I should experiment more!”

A much loved professor who really brought her best business style to each class - we will miss you dearly Prof!

Leather Attack: We can’t drop the leather just yet!

 

Prakriti Sachdev

No longer the purview of those wearing zip hoodies and oversized sunglasses, this dark-rinsed leather bag from FabIndia, still has a decidedly fashion flair. The neutral tone would make it compatible with nearly everything in the wardrobe. While we start narrowing our style to the next season, this style accessory would shine throughout the year. Timely, but timeless!

This must have could literally carry everything- a towel, a book or perhaps even a couple of beers! While we wonder how we lived without this must- have bag, this definitely should be the newest addition to anyone’s closet!

The Romantics

Karuna Rao

With the festive season closing in, this plain yet delectable chudidaar- kurta would be a perfect match for anyone!

In the true white and gold, this exquisitely designed chudidaar- kurta can be paired with a gauzy dupatta to give it a heavy look. The final result being refreshingly soft and pretty! The hot pink chudidaar adds the extra sparkles, complimenting the entire appeal. The beautiful embroidery makes the colours look luxe and makes us focus on maximalism!

Beauty Tip of the Month:

Getting the recommended eight hours of sleep a night will not only help you look refreshed, but it will also replenish and rehydrate skin. Not getting a good night’s sleep can result in dull skin and clogged pores. So make sure you get your eight hours to look fresh and stay fresh!

ISB Leadership Summit - Panel Discussions

Be there!

For more details, you can visit http://ils.isb.edu/

Placements Placements

Sreeram Iyer, from the Class of 2014 (and one of the most-loved alums from O week) tells us about his three biggest takeaways from the placement process. Read on!

1) Be patient and apply to profiles you like

If everyone were to get placed by Day 1, we would not have good companies and profiles coming till Day 5 and more!

2) ISB has a brand name and a good alum base

You can afford to take a risk with a profile you want to experiment (not an obvious choice) and are interested in. Lateral shifts are always an option, if it does not work out.

3) Do not stress yourself over placements

Work hard, be sincere, invest time on your resume, read up on your area of interest and interact with alumni with similar profiles. Most importantly, indulge in what keeps you upbeat (music, sports, time with friends etc) as all the hard work goes in vain if you are not in your best frame of mind during an interview.

ISB Leadership Summit 2014

The Indian School of Business Leadership Summit (ILS) is almost here, and here's a sneak preview!

A lively, engaging debate on the eternal question that keeps us on our toes: Money or Happiness? 

Watch the two very popular professors at ISB debate on this subject and watch out for more ILS updates here!

Placements - My $0.02

The Placements season is fundamentally a time for reflection. A time to do some soul-searching about what you want to do short-term and how it connects with your long-term vision. Basically, revisiting your MBA essays with the prism of your newfound wisdom/nihilism that your core courses have scarred you with. It's a time to understand your strengths and those achievements which you want to showcase in the pony race ahead. Oh, and not to forget - how to convey any weakness and what you have done about it in a polished manner.

But all this has to happen in that parallel universe that is ISB, where time flies by faster than light. You still have those case submissions, B-school competitions, club activities, leadership summits and parties to waltz with. And the corridor of uncertainty ahead, married with the scare of scarcity that CAS invariably ends up creating can lead to stressful months and at times some avoidable bad blood with your classmates.

So here are my $0.02 for grinning and bearing all this. As with any piece of unsolicited advice, these are personal views, so you must pick and choose what works for you. More importantly do remember that almost everyone gets placed by the end of the process. And, there are many who shift companies within a year of joining. So placements are just a means and definitely not the end. Play hard, and have fun.

Resumes

By now, I presume that you have a good final versions of your resume ready, with multiple iterations carried out to please the whims of alums across classes. The only tip on top of that I have to offer is to keep a copy of the latest versions of your resume (customized by the industries/functions you are applying to - e.g. Consulting, Marketing, Leadership Roles) in a Dropbox folder. Have the discipline of always keeping the folder up-to-date and only uploading the relevant resume from this Dropbox folder. 

This ensures that you: 

• Are not confused with multiple iterations floating around in your computer,

• Always have the latest version on-the-go, stored in the cloud

• Avoid HCC violations on account of not representing the latest CGPA 

EoIs / Cover Letters

These may seem to be unnecessary burden on your already crunched time., but trust me, these documents offer you two benefits.

1. Let's face  it, all the resumes of your classmates showcase spikes. A good Cover letter is a differentiator. If you do your research on the KMPortal of resumes and EoIs of students who ultimately got placed in the companies you want to apply to, you will get a fair sense of the kind of people the companies look for and the kind of relevant achievements you can highlight in your EoI to catch some attention. In many cases, the interview discussions will hover a lot around cover letters, as these act as a good starting point of conversations for the interviewer.

2. The Cover Letters, like resumes, become more polished as you write for more and more companies, until the point you know exactly what to convey. This is, in turn, an interview prep for knowing what are the right notes to hit during the D-day.

Case Prep

A common prevailing misconception is that Case Preps are only for aspirants to consulting jobs. While Case Preps are indeed absolutely necessary for the consulting aspirants, they are very useful for others as well. Many of us are non-linear thinkers, and this poses a problem in time-constrained interviews as we can easily veer away the discussion to many directions, leaving the interviewer with the impression that our thought process is muddled. Cases teach you to focus only on the problem at hand, structure your thoughts and use the tools of guesstimations, back-of-the-envelope calculations and  frameworks to solve business problems. Needless to say, they are good skills to pick up and use, even in a real job.

As for the Case Preps themselves, choose a style which suits you. In my time, there were the zealots who formed teams early on to tackle cases and religiously met up for months. There were also the floaters, who invariably started the prep late and flirted around with different groups.

Watch the videos of Victor Cheng in the beginning of your prep, if you have the time. "Case-in-point" is a good starting point to learn and apply frameworks. I found the "ISB Consulting Club Casebook" to be particularly effective in two aspects. I liked the frameworks given in the beginning of the book, and I found them to be decently comprehensive. More importantly, the ISB Consulting Club casebook  has the questions that alums who ultimately got through faced. And my own interview experience was remarkably similar to the ones that the alums had faced.  (Of course, this is valid only for Consulting companies. It would be great if the other Pro Clubs bring out similar books) 

Interview Prep

Make sure you have cloud-accessible notes on these four aspects:

1. Know your Past (Previous employer/Industry) - Facts and Figures, Trends of the industry, what you learnt from the job etc.

2. Know your Present - Current Affairs, Global Macroeconomic and Geopolitical issues - at least the major ones pertinent to your industry

3. Know your future (Prospective employer) - Facts and figures, Leadership, the role offered per se, what differentiates them from their competitors, the culture of the firm, how you fit etc.

4. Know about yourself - Be thorough with your resume, have crisp summaries for each sub-section of it, your achievements etc. 

The most important question one needs to have a crisp and confident answer is "Tell me about yourself". This sets the stage for the interview and if played right, you can veer the interview to highlight what you want to. Have a crisp summary of your education and work ex, and 

highlight either hobbies/interests or what kind of person you are.

Group preps among peers targeting similar companies are useful to get everyone up to speed with trends etc. efficiently.  Be open to sharing and learning. With the limited time at your disposal, and the general awesomeness of your peers, this is the most effective way to prep for interviews.

Get mock-interviews done with peers (whose feedback you value) and alums. For specialized roles such as Product Managers or startups, find out the right peers with relevant experience. During mock-interviews with peers, have couple of observers to give feedback to both parties - the interviewer and interviewee. Seek feedback on clarity of thought, body language, confidence and energy levels sustained through the interviews.

Good luck, God Bless and Enjoy the Ride! :)

Currently working at Accenture Strategy, Ajay Srinath is an alum from the Class of 2014.  In his free time, he likes to quiz, be quizzed and travel around the world. He was popularly known as 'The Quiz Club guy' doing the 'O' week at ISB.

Diwali @ ISB

Home away from home at the ISB, Mohali campus. The Student Life Council organized a great party that brought us together as a family. Here are a couple of pictures from our Diwali celebrations.

Picture Courtesy: Shitij Gupta, Karthik Marripoodi, Deepak Soman and Ayush Goyal

Happy Diwali from the Class of 2015!

EVC Campus Tycoon

The Entrepreneurship Club at ISB recently organized 'EVC Campus Tycoon' - an entrepreneurship competition open to all students here.

We saw a different side to our classmates during the week of EVC campus tycoon. Some of them turned into masterchefs giving us decadent dishes (some of the best we've tasted on campus so far), some of them showed us their entrepreneurial drive being able to weave business magic from scratch, and yet others showed us their creative side; shot glasses, mugs and sweatshirts etched with ISB memorabilia, and picked up like hot cakes by the students here.

It was a week that brought our batch closer, as we gathered every evening at the Bachelor Housing lawns for some fun, frolic and food!

The last night ended with a Pub quiz organized by the Quiz club and a 'walk down memory lane' video by the Media & Entertainment Club.

Special thanks to the EVC team - Adriel, Abhay, Pallavi, Lester and Sujith.

Photo credits: Jayant Singh, Class of 2015

Desh Chale

This poem is dedicated to our army men who are always ready to serve the country in adverse situations while experiencing emotions similar to what each of us face every day.

Jab kabhi desh jale 

Yeh chale..... 

Tum ro dete ho bichadne par 

Apno se chand lamho ke liye 

Haste hue apno se 

Aakhiri baar mil kar gale 

Yeh chale.. 

Sochte hoge tum bahut 

Apne har kadam se pehle 

Befikar iss baat se 

Ki agle kadam pe kya mile 

Yeh chale.. 

Bade bade shauk hoge tumhare 

Aalishan hogi tumhaari daawatei 

Dushmano aur goliyo ke beech 

Lagane ko apni mehfile 

Yeh chale..... 

Rooh kaamp uthti hai tumhaari 

Ek choti si chot lagne pe 

Maut ke muh mei hone pe bhi 

Rehne dushman ke liye khade 

Yeh chale......... 

Yeh jale toh desh chale 

Yeh jale toh desh chale.....

Harshit Nayyar, Class of 2015

Style Diaries by Ankur Lohani

Summer tete-a-tete! 

Photo Credits: Ankit Gupta, Class of 2015

Rishabh Daga

 We love the colour and drama each season brings! Caught on campus today, quite literally- lime green shorts with a casually fitted shirt. Reaching summer’s almost dragging months and touching autumn, we are quite partial to these bright ones lighting up the campus! Perfect for Sunday brunch or the beach, these shorts define both fantastical fashion and beachy fun! Well, nothing goes better than a pair of shorts and a shirt- just missing a glass of bourbon! A perfect way to bid adieu to summer!

That 70’s look!

Sonia Sinha

Who would say a disco look tee shirt would look great at the gym? Well, this hot pink, distressed tee shirt had us go gaga! After a dull day of classes, who doesn't love a tad bit of color! Looks great with track pants at the gym; the look could even be polished to a pair of cut offs with a flannel shirt and sneakers! This loose comfortable cotton tee shirt, embraces every trend of the season, a safe keep for the wardrobe! After spotting this color on campus, we surely did agree in ‘Popping it up’!

Glitter Dust

Tara Anthony

Oh, those fickle fashion gods! The deliciously molten hues of green kajal spotted on campus have completely changed the metallic game. If you thought you would be exhausted with every possible variation of kajal pencil colors, here is the color which will inspire you to go on your next shopping spree! Going strong for the next season now, we don’t think the trend can be upped anytime soon. This metallic green would perfectly complement both rugged jeans and even an LBD!

Beauty Tip of the Month

Caffeine is the major culprit when it comes to dry skin and the magnification of wrinkles. Quench your skin by drinking lots of water. Try adding fruit slices like orange or lemon to enhance the flavor! 

Ankur Lohani, Class of 2015

SFA's Dandiya Night

A night of fun and dance till our feet hurt. Organized by members of the Spouse and Family Association (SFA), this was definitely a night to remember.

Deepak Soman, Class of 2015 has managed to catch the colors, the happiness and the festivities in his clicks!

Deck the halls

Talented dancers!

So many smiles!

Color me happy!

The association that made it happen!

We learnt to rock and roll, Garba style!

Thank you SFA! 

The ISBian Study Jam

So, what do ISBians listen to??

Abhinav Banta, Class of 2015             Listening to music is the fuel to me while I am studying (read as: trying to study). I am not sure if it has a positive effect on academic performance, but it sure does stabilize me mentally especially during the pressure cooker situations that we usually find ourselves at ISB.  I prefer ghazals over any other forms of music (Jagjit Singh/Ghulam Ali). The general expression of pain or loss, which is the subject of most ghazals, appeals to me and the lyrics are heavenly. Here are my picks: 

1. Chupke Chupke Raat Din - Ustad Ghulam Ali 

2. Aahista Aahista- Jagjit Singh 

3. Classics of Madan Mohan and Lata Mangeshkar

These are again mostly sad songs but i like them. They are musically very rich.

4. Coke Studio

This wonderful initiative all about beautiful musical collaboration needs no introduction!

Anjan, Class of 2015                                               











1. God is an astronaut - All is Violent All is Bright. This song has been on my playlist since its release almost a decade ago. With a perfect blend of clean sounds and heavy distortion and no vocals to distract the listener, it is indeed worth a listen when you are toiling to crack a 25 page case.

2. Indus creed - Fireflies.

This feel good song by one of India's oldest rock bands is simple yet powerful. A must listen!

3. Until We Last - Rain. 

As much as this would seem like a publicity gimmick (considering that it is my band!), at least a couple of people on campus have come back to tell me that this song helped them get through some boring subjects. Check it out!

Arpit Gupta, Class of 2015

1. It's My Life - Bon Jovi

It talks abt how your life is like an open highway, which gives u the freedom to shape it your way.

2. Turn The page - Bob Seger 

It talks about the ups and down of life and how u shoud get on road again and turn the page from the past to the future.

3. Desert rose - Sting 

The way the song has been shot gels with the theme pretty well. Its has a very romantic, philosophical longing to it which talks about dreams, despair and hope.

Siddharth Bajpai, Class of 2015

1. Shofukan - Snarky Puppy

Jazz is very unstructured, improvisational music, and this track really has that sense of fun to it. It's incredible that it was recorded with barely a day of writing and prior rehearsal. I like to listen to it when reading cases and studying subjects that need tangential, creative thinking. 

Ideal for: MKDM, CSTR, SIMT.

2. La Catedral - Agustin Barrios (as played by Gabriel Bianco)

A wonderfully absorbing piece from the great Paraguayan guitarist Barrios, one of the earliest classical composers to have his work recorded. Here it is interpreted by French guitarist Gabriel Bianco. I like listening to it while I study analytical, dry subjects because it distracts me from monotony and reminds me of traveling in Europe. 

Good fit for: DMOP, CFIN, SMMD.

3. Telegraph Road - Dire Straits (Alchemy live version)

Telegraph Road tells the story of a city almost like it's a living being, and Knopfler (who used to be an English teacher before, thankfully, becoming a full time musician) paints the imagery both with lyrics and prose-like electric guitar lines. This is a classic concert recording, lively and dramatic, and works well when doing work that is simple but exposed to a high potential for faff. 

Good for: MGTO, RLDP, CMGT

ISB Mohali Campus

Here at ISB, you get to meet a talented bunch of people. And we have gifted photographers who not only capture these moments but take great shots of the campus as well!

Charan Mohan and Taran Bedi, from the Class of 2015 are passionate about photography. Here are a couple of clicks taken by them, of the sprawling Mohali campus in all its grandeur.