We Should First Make Our Hands Dirty By Going Through The Drill Before Advising - A Few Thoughts

We Should First Make Our Hands Dirty By Going Through The Drill Before Advising - A Few Thoughts

Aniruddha Sarkar

11 March 2025

#01

Have you seen some freshers who joined an organization with an air they were born to lead?

More so, if these people also have a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from a premier institution.

During campus recruitment for fresh talents from the premier business schools, the organizations behave as if they are at the receiving end. Instead of interviewing any candidate, these organizations present their cases to the outgoing batch of MBA students.

These students then literally rip all these organizations apart by asking inconvenient questions.

A Few high-profile recruiters, who offer high salary packages, are the gainers.

The students pick up organization names as choice numbers one, two and three based on their priorities.

Then, salary negotiations take place. By the end of the day, a few students are hand-picked at staggering salaries.

Next morning, all major financial news media outlets in the country declare the performance of the business schools in terms of :

• How many placements took place?
• How many students received offers for astronomically high salary packages at leading multinational and national organizations?

All the Schools for Business Management within the country are ranked based on their successful placement sessions.

#02

Many of these students, mostly bearing excellent tags, like, say, IIT & IIM tag, in the Indian context, leave the shores of this country, India, within a few days. Let us call them as Group 1 passouts.

We Indians rejoice at their cracking of global positions in foreign multinationals. These are the cream of the Indian talent pool that leave the shores for a grand, high-profile career abroad.

They contribute immensely to their lands of adoptions and are duly recognized as well.

#03

Another group of pass outs, the Group 2, from these business schools may opt to stay back in the country for a while.

They decide to wait and watch a bit more before leaving the shores with a lucrative package. To start with, they look for a stepping stone, an Indian Organization, to launch themselves.

However, they negotiate hard and mostly secure a reasonably good salary package under the Indian context.

The Indian organizations recruit them with a high hope. This group of professionals joins the Indian industry.

Next, what happens?

Within the four corners of their new organizations, they settle quickly. They immediately start focusing on their assignments. They show their promises. For example, in sales and marketing assignments, they may promptly secure hard-fought wins. Many of these professionals stay back in the Indian industry, grow, and immensely contribute over a period.

Initially, they also had been cherishing dreams to move abroad.

Now, they have a second thought. They grow within an organization. They may change jobs within the country. Sooner, they assume higher responsibilities and keep delivering.

Subsequently, they prove themselves as domain experts within the industry.

I hail this group of professionals for their genuine contributions to the Indian industry. They are taking crucial Indian business policy decisions today to shape the country for tomorrow.

#04

Another group of passouts, the Group 3, from these business schools, are, however, always unhappy.

They join the new organizations from the business school. However, they don’t engage themselves mentally in day-to-day business activities.

They keep trying their luck and make a few quick job changes.

They may leave the country or may stay back. However, we never hear about them.

Incidentally, there are quite a few such professionals.

They also had all credentials and promises to contribute and succeed, either in India or abroad.

However, they did not mentally engage themselves in their assignments during the initial years of joining the industry.

They were always busy thinking about their next move. They considered their present job as the temporary stepping stone!

They never worked hard enough and did not make their hands dirty.

They never built their careers upon further learning specific domains on-the-job. Over time, they became administrators, analysts, consultants, advisers, etc., without sufficiently doing the drill themselves on any specific knowledge domain.

They allowed themselves to miss the opportunities to work hard and learn on-the-job.

Many such professionals had the promise to contribute. However, they did not go through the rigorous drill on-the-job and make their hands dirty.

#05

Today, the industry should choose the right professionals from the campus who shall engage themselves wholeheartedly on the job from the word ‘Go.’

It does not matter who has got which tag, like, say, IIT-IIM, or any other equivalent tag.

If the person does not engage himself/ herself with the new organizational assignments and uses it only as a stepping stone, then the organization suffers.

During campus recruitment of such high-profile professionals, organizations need to set their expectations clearly and put adequate safeguards in case of abrupt departure.

For lateral recruitment at middle management levels, it is important to check whether the person has already engaged himself/ herself on the job, had gone through the drill, and made his/ her hands dirty.

Because the organization has to depend on this individual for its future growth.

Any mistake in such selections may undo a lot of good initiatives in the long run.

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