AIM MBA - A Management Portal: October 2012

CAT 2012 1 week Analysis

According to Vinayak Kudva, product head, IMS Learning, the paper has been following a set pattern over the past few days. “There were no big surprises in the exam pattern. The Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation section was of easy to moderate difficulty level. The Verbal Ability section was unpredictable. It was lengthy and difficult, especially the three reading comprehension passages took a long time to read. Candidates’ time management skill was put to test,”

Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

Algebra and functions formed a major part of the Quant section. The other topics were trigonometry, mensuration, number system, P&C and geometry. Questions on data interpretation were moderate to easy in nature. Overall, the paper was good and balanced.

Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning

This section was difficult and lengthy. In verbal ability, there were para jumbles, sentence completion, sentence correction, fill in the blanks and vocabulary. The highlight of the section was passages. There were three passages, of which two were lengthy and took a long time to read. Questions asked from the passages were also indirect. Questions like what was the tone of the author, theme of the paragraph, etc were common features like the past six days.

Logical reasoning questions were difficult and calculation intensive.

Ref: Mbauniverse

3 phases of career

Majority of professional careers can be broken into three discrete phases: the “Promise Phase,” the “Momentum Phase,” and the “Harvest Phase.” Unless you are a founder/entrepreneur, how highly you are valued in each stage is a function of two distinct but related sources of value – the value of your potential and the value of your experience. Understanding how the mixture of potential and experiential value shifts over each of the phases will give you powerful insights into what you can do to maximize your career success.

The Promise Phase. At the beginning of your career, your value is almost entirely dependent on your potential — what you will be able to contribute to the organization in the future. The first five or seven years of your career constitute The Promise Phase. When you get a job fresh out of college or in the early years, the basis of your value is primarily determined by your natural talents, your intellect, your ability to work in teams, your ambition, you enthusiasm, and the like. These aspects are how hiring managers and bosses evaluate you - on your potential.

The Momentum Phase. As the early years of your career unfold and you start to gain more professional experience, your success is determined less and less by your potential and more and more by the actual experience and expertise that you develop. As a more senior executive, your success becomes much more dependent on your track record. This is the flywheel of your career that we call the Momentum Phase. If you are a marketing executive, this is your experience building brands, managing new product introductions, advertising campaigns, creating and optimizing customer segmentations, building social media campaigns, and opening up new channels for customer acquisition. If you are a finance executive, this is your track record managing the preparation of financial statements, taking a company public, establishing banking relationships, managing risk, and leading acquisitions. The more experience of these sorts you have in your area of expertise, the more you will be valued by your current organization and of course by others seeking to recruit executives.

The Harvest Phase. At some point in the Momentum Phase, usually between the ages of 45 and 55, there comes a point where careers begin to diverge. Some individuals manage to keep developing personally and professionally, moving into new positions or redefining their existing roles. Many others, however, start to fade. They get passed over for new opportunities or find themselves in a rut. Even though they might be doing what they have always done and doing it well, their careers seem to be headed south or on an inexorable march towards retirement. Those who are able to move successfully into the final, or Harvest Phase of their careers with ever-increasing levels of success do so by discovering ways to apply their experiences to new situations. This is the CEO who becomes an operating partner in a private equity firm overseeing portfolio companies, the accounting partner who builds a portfolio of corporate board directorships and audit committee chairs, or the top corporate executive who mentors entrepreneurs … or maybe even becomes one her/himself.

Understanding how careers really work, how you are valued, what is expected of you, and what you need to deliver at each stage will help you progress on your career trajectory. Source: James M. Citrin

Leadership and Corporate Accountability—India (LCAI)

Harvard Business School(HBS) announces Leadership and Corporate Accountability—India (LCAI) on September 26, a new programme scheduled from November 19 to 22, 2012 at the HBS style classroom at Taj Lands End, Mumbai as part of its executive education programme portfolio for India.

Leadership and Corporate Accountability - India is an interdisciplinary programme, which will examine the dynamic and ever-evolving role of accountability in 21st century Indian corporations. Led by renowned professor Rohit Deshpande (faculty chair of Leadership and Corporate Accountability-India), who helped design and teach the required MBA course on this topic at Harvard Business School, the programme will provide business leaders with a hands-on framework for promoting socially and financially responsible corporate conduct, in the Indian environment of heightened competition and accountability. Rohit says, "The Leadership and Corporate Accountability - India programme emerged as a response to the internal and external governance challenges facing business leaders globally. The program will prepare participants for leadership in a changing global society. They will return with an understanding of values, incentives and risk management systems."