COVID-19: Testing times for B-School students

Prof Ranjay Gulati, a Harvard Professor (who is considered an authority in Customer Centricity) shared in his book that there are four levels of Customer Centricity, and in Level-IV, the company doesn’t have the product or service to offer. It asks the customers what they want and it develops its products accordingly. I start with my acknowledgement that People Labs right now is trying to a level-IV company, and is seeking inputs from all stake-holders.

This post is divided into two different sections for sake of clarity and understanding:

·        Mental Map of 1st year B-School students

·        People Labs’ Work in Progress

Mental Map of 1st year B-School students:

It is important to understand some facts before we proceed. Over the last 5-6 years, companies across the sectors have started offering more and more PPIs and PPOs. It started initially with Consulting firms and Investment Banks, then moved on to FMCG, and further to all sectors. From B-School perspective, it is no more the niche of only top B-Schools, even lower ranked ones had a lot of PPOs this year (primarily from BFSI sector). In present times, many B-School students stand with their Summer Internship offer rescinded while others never got the expected opportunities in first place.

This helps us divide the B-School students into two categories: One who were looking at Summer Internships not only as a 2-month engagement, but as a stepping stone for their final placements. Two, who were looking forward to only 2-months engagement.

It is worthwhile to commend AICTE for its timely circular that the B-School students can pursue their internships on assignments given by colleges themselves.

This takes care for almost 30-40% of second category students, as they are mentally relaxed that the mandatory tick-box of Summer Internship has been ticked. However, even this category (70-80% of this category, I mean) are worried about future prospects. They may celebrate briefly about two months of Work from Home (WFH) fun, but are aware of the fact that a bleak economic scenario awaits them.

The first category and the remainder of second category ( who looked at Internship as stepping stone for Coveted job) are more distraught, and are pulling all strings possible (College, Professors, Social contacts, Alumni, LinkedIn etc.). They are acutely aware of how much the job means to them (financially, socially, emotionally) and are on verge of being panicky. They are the ones driving media traffic and inspiring a lot of fly-by-night operators to come up with Ponzi equivalent schemes. Unfortunately, this lot is the most gullible also.

People Labs’ Work in Progress

At the outset, let me share with you that last 48-hours have seen some of the most intense discussions in history of People Labs. The key areas of discussion were:

·        Need v/s Demand: We all see a lot of posts around requests for internships, or individuals sharing their recent certification credentials. Most of these are individual efforts and that too, a one-time effort. We tried to decode a pattern which indicates towards some demand, but were unable to do so.

·        Competitive Landscape Mapping: We also looked around to figure the contours of market-place. We could see some great souls willing to help others, some fly-by-night operators who are looking to exploit the present situations, and some who are using the present situation as an opportunity to either move up on LinkedIn rankings or create their database for some future endeavors. As far as the offerings are concerned, they are primarily around assistance to land an internship, or about creating Whatsapp or Google group for like-minded students and recruiters, or about some webinars by individuals.

·        Paid or Subsidized or Free: Most of the offerings presently are free or highly subsidized. However, we could also see some respondents who complained about some fishy transactions later on (Can’t vouch for their authenticity).

·        To reach to students or B-Schools: Traditionally, we have operated in B2B space. Should we use this opportunity to change our Business model? Also, for most of the B-Schools, the present priority (and rightly so) will be next year admissions. So, would they be responsive enough?

·        Scalability of Offering: Can we offer some internships-Yes. Can we request some of our entrepreneur friends for the same-again yes? But is this scalable- No? So, what to do…

Sharing what we are finally going ahead with:

·        Offering Summer Internships (without stipend) to 25 students: We have already written to our long-term clients about helping their students with summer internship. At the core of the mail is also our personal commitment to make this a memorable learning experience for all the students. Lesson 1: These clients have stood with us, so they naturally have the first right of rejection over any such offering.

·        Launching “Super-Over” Online: Super-Over is our highly effective Employability Enhancement product, and the entire team is working on putting it online. The same shall be ready for release by coming Monday. A 10-hour product, the various components of the same include

o  Leveraging Psychometric test for Interviews,

o  How to Leverage Summer Internship Experience,

o  Decoding ASK( Attitude, Skills and Knowledge) Matrix in Interviews,

o  Industry Overview and key skills needed (For the most prominent recruiting sectors e.g. Banking and Financial Services, FMCG etc). Lesson 2: Look at long-term benefits to your audience rather than instant satiation.

·        Launch of “Webinar with Experts”: Team is clear about NOT doing it for any generic theme (Leadership, Motivation et al). We are still working on themes, and preparing list of experts to be reached out (In case we go ahead with the series). We are open to your suggestions about topics you think are most relevant. Lesson 3: Gyan doesn’t sell (Yahan sabhi gyani hain :P).

One other thought under process is a series on “Effective Public Speaking”, but will take 2-3 days more to crystallize our thoughts there.

Most important bit:

1)     We will NOT offer our services free of cost. Two simple reasons: One, we need to survive, and two, we never value free of cost services.

2)     At the same time, we are socially responsible. So, 50% of all our proceeds from these products will go to PM-CARE relief fund (Will be open and transparent to all stake-holders about it).