World is self-centred!
January 12, 06 by BharaniRecently ISB announced a award called “ISB Young leaders award” and “ISB Torch bearer award”, for students who have displayed strong extra-curricular activities, or helped in building the brand of the school, or displayed strong leadership skills…
Now, what I feel strange about the award is we have to nominate ourselves or somebody else can nominate for us(But given the pressure everyone is under, I strongly suspect if the second case will ever happen). Few people I know, who deserve this award are not nominating saying that its ISB who should recognize the students and honour the awards.
“Self Sales pitch”, seems to be the norm these days. Be it admission, recruitment, award, election…Ultimately you represent yourself…World is self-centred…anything for others is only beyond you!!
But when I put myself in the shoes of school, recruiter, position, the notion of “sales-pitch” becomes clear…I would pick up the student who conveys a strong image about himself…Because the time is limited and you have to believe what you see and what you hear..no time to research deep!
This brings to my mind another sensitive topic…Exaggeration in resumes. In the beginning phases of career, I was of the opinion that exaggeration is not good. But over a period of time, when I interacted with recruiters, I understood that exaggeration is not seen upon as negative attribute, but as some skill! Recruiters are clever to make out the difference between ‘extreme’ exaggerations and ‘polishing’ exaggerations. One of my belgian colleague who was my project manager was also of the opinion that exaggeration to some extent is acceptable…Exaggeration puts you across as ‘mature’ candidate who can see the business impacts of your activities!
If you have a look any MBA resume, chances are that you will find some portion as non-factual and some as factual. It’s the non-factual portion which is tough to substantiate…
All of a sudden, all the technical aspects of your job evaporate and only the business aspects emerge! Now, that’s an art…As long as you can defend your statements.
