As the chaotic weekend on campus gives way to the staid seriousness of placements and as excited tuchchas and tuchchis are welcomed back to Wimwi, here are some thoughts on what you can do to make the most of the placements season.

You and the firm

Reach out to a wide set of people to find out more about firms you are seriously considering. Instead of trying to impress or to discover your chances of getting placed at that firm, focus on learning about the firm and whether you would enjoy working there.

What is your life story? What are some interesting sub-stories in your life that recruiters would like to hear about, that show up the most valuable aspects of your personality? As you think about these, try to steer clear of templates, and focus on real incidents, initiatives, activities, and reactions in your life. If you want to spice up your stories, ensure that you are confident of pulling it off on the d-day. I found last year that the stories in my life were interesting enough even without being spiced up!

Ah, the inevitable ethical dilemmas

When in doubt, do what placecom says. If nothing else, you can blame them later! On a more serious note, it is a good idea to follow placecom rules because the system is a tried and tested one.

Be ethical. Not because that will help the world be a better place or will earn you a place in heaven later (if these are reasons enough, read no further and skip to the next point), but because as you take the baby steps on a path to great achievements, it pays to keep yourself free of blemishes. Imagine yourself being featured on the cover of TIME magazine one day, and somebody tells the gossip column of a top-selling newspaper that it was his/ her answer to “why consulting” that you copied. Now this is only an example, but you get my point.

Help out your batch-mates as long as the sacrifices required from your part are not along the lines of lending your one perfect set of formal attire the day you need it. If helping others comes naturally to you, well and good. Otherwise: yes, your batch-mates are your competitors, and yes, this is the land of blatant RG-giri, and no, altruism may not be your cup of tea, but helping someone adds to your confidence even more than RG-ing them out (if at all that is possible) does.

Along comes the d-day

As far as possible, do not try anything new on the d-day. And by this I mean new clothes, accessories, shoes, and horror of horrors, a new accent. Instead, use pre-placement talks and other low-risk interactions (are any interactions with recruiters ever low-risk?) to try out some elements of your new look, and take the time to feel natural in them.

Iron that shirt, polish those shoes. First impressions are still not passé.

Soak in all the attention you get and enjoy yourself! After you join the firm and the honeymoon period ends, chances are high that you become just another face there. At least, none of the really senior people would be able to spare so much time just getting to know you and selling the firm to you. While my own experience last year was not free of apprehension, it was memorable enough for me to blog about – you can read that post here.

What else can you do?

1. Prepare for your area of interest. Use the placecom prep folder as appropriate, depending on whether you wish to put all your eggs in one basket or spread out your bets.
2. Form an initial draft of your preference list of companies early on, and revise this as you get more information or as your preferences change. In any case, and I can’t emphasise this enough, do not fill up the preference list half an hour before the deadline – the list does affect the order in which you interview firms on the d-day and filling it up thoughtfully will help.
3. Not everyone gets placed in the first hour, but that’s as long as you will last on an empty stomach. So make the best use of the free snacks (unless policies have changed) at the imdc audi, and attend every interview as if it’s your first one.
4. Deep breathing helps if you are feeling stressed.
5. If you don’t know much about the company (a non-ideal but highly likely situation), absorb whatever you can from the leaflets prepared by placecom.
6. If the first day is not your best day, learn from it, let it go, and look forward to the next day/ cluster. The best opportunities don’t necessarily come first. And right now, who knows what the future will look like ten years on? Or even two years.

Before I indulge in any further gyan-giving (considering how much fun it is, now that I am not the one facing the fire!), let me end this post. For suggestions on how to get yourself into the right mindset for placements, go through my previous post on thinking rationally about campus placements.