career-advice on S Anand

Make 5 new friends today

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 21:04:54 +0530

Here’s my address to the graduating class the IITM BS Program today:

Make five new friends today.

Your CGPA is what you’re most focused on. When I graduated, my CGPA helped me get a job. It didn’t help much after that.

Getting that job helped me for the four years I worked there. That’s it.

The things I learnt in class helped a bit longer. Maybe six years. There is a long tail.

But all of these are depreciating assets.

Make five new friends today.

The friends I made at college are still friends. Your friends will grow more influential and build stronger relationships. That is an appreciating asset.

And in the AI era, this is an asset that will appreciate even more.

Talk to the person to your left. Your right. In front of you. Behind you.

Make five new friends today.

UPDATE: Actually, I said “make three new friends today”, not five. When I typed this out, my fingers wrote five. I don’t know why.

Do what you like

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Fred Gratzon’s advice on work

I just do what I want to do and learn what I want to learn and enjoy what I want to enjoy and sometimes I get so wonderfully and powerfully caught up in some project and I start dreaming expansive daydreams and I go for it with every ounce of energy and enthusiasm and love that I can muster.

And the money . . . it just takes care of itself.

How to do what you love

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Excellent article by Paul Graham on How to do what you love.

[the] new definition of work [is] to make some original contribution to the world, and in the process not to starve.

I think the best test is to try to do things that would make your friends say wow.

If you admire two kinds of work equally, but one is more prestigious, you should probably choose the other. Your opinions about what’s admirable are always going to be slightly influenced by prestige, so if the two seem equal to you, you probably have more genuine admiration for the less prestigious one.

The test of whether people love what they do is whether they’d do it even if they weren’t paid for it

Comments

Arun 19 Jan 2006 4:22 am: Nice article. My takeway was this: Another test you can use is: always produce.

Prof Vijay Kumars Interview tips

Sat, 10 Feb 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Prof. Vijay Kumar was kind enough to give us hints on how to prepare for placements.

How to prepare for interviews

Have a list of intelligent but unoffensive questions for each company.
Contact alumni who are working there, and find out what work is like.

What should I find out

How does the work improve my employability or value? Specifically in terms of the
- Nature of work
- The experience that I get
- Skills acquired
What will the salary growth be over time?
What are the perks at different levels?
What are the promotion and growth opportunities?
What industries does the company focus on?
How many people are there, and what is the employee growth rate?
What do clients feel about you? (Talk to clients themselves – maybe friends in client organisations.)
Which is the largest office? Where are most of the projects executed? (It makes a lot of sense to get into this office. Project staffing is usually done with people in the same office.)

What should I question

Revenue per employee. Is the denominator total employee hours or billable hours? That makes a big difference. Usually its the former, to make it look inflated.
Why are you giving me international figures? What are the Indian figures for revenue per consultant? Revenue per partner? Salary per consultant? Billable hour percentage? Consultant to partner ratio? As a rule of thumb, the consultant’s salary is one-fifth of the revenue per consultant. For partners, its usually half.
What components of the cost-to-company will come to my pocket? Could you break down the components of the cost-to-company?
What component of the pay is sign-on? The larger the sign-on, the less the basic pay, and hence the less the next year’s pay.

What does an interviewer want

Brains: logical thinking, primarily
Creativity
Hard-work, but one can take that for granted for a person from the IIMs
Willing to take direction, and yet is a self-starter
A person who can explore new ideas on their own
Good interpersonal relationships
A person who can make casual conversation
Can suavely deflect objectionable questions
Well dressed, good posture, etc.

Should I go for consulting?

If you like solving problems, want to move quickly from one assignment to another, and like helping people, you’re good for consulting.

How are consultants evaluated?

Quality of assignments
Followup on assignment
Client feedback
Budget overruns (applicable more to PLs and managers)
Input into thought leadership and knowledge-base
Strengths and weaknesses
Future directions for improvement.

Comments

pegasus 2 Feb 2007 11:03 am: nice points… I also once had the fortune of visiting him in person.

Resume resources

Wed, 19 Jul 2000 12:00:00 +0000

Google has a bunch of resume resources that tell you how to write a resume. A good one to look at is Quest Career’s, and another is at Learn2.