Part - I

Fresh out of B-school Campus... just ambled into your first job just because you got it easy on Campus... The reality of "CTC" Pay Package has dawned on you when you check your first pay-slip... Just realized that the worst professor in college is still better than your first Boss... Feel somehow that your life is stuck in MS-OFFICE - The reality of life for MBAs is Excel or PowerPoint, I heard Google is catching up at campus. Having gone through this myself, (I am still not out of it!), having had the nightmare of freshly minted MBAs reporting to me every year (90% of MBAs in their first job believe that their first Boss in Incompetent) and struggling to manage their transition to reality, guess I am now in a position to give some Gyan on assessing your job and career moves. I crystallized these thoughts while discussing these situations with a friend of mine, her issues with the first job where similar to what most of you would be facing. Job!! Money !! or Career !!

• Money is not Important: - I do not actually mean it, not that I am asking you to struggle through an insipid low paying job. I did that for almost a year. But the rules of taxation are such that anybody earning between Rs.5.00 Lakhs to Rs. 10.00 Lakhs per annum ends up more or less with a similar quality of life. So if you are just switching jobs for a few thousand more, think twice, it may not be worth it. Do not concentrate on money right now. It is not too difficult to make money. But nobody is going to pay you a higher salary because you ask for it, organizational decision making processes are far too complex. It is not how hard you work or how you please the boss that matters! I tried this for a couple of years to no effect. The crux of the matter is what "Value" you are delivering to the organization, if the Organization as a whole (at least the people who matter) sees you deliver value they have no option but to pay for it.

• Evaluate Payoffs: - Any Company or everybody pays you to get a job done. The choice you have to make is whether you really want to do "that" Job. Here what you need to check is - are you emotionally enjoying the job. I have seen guys struggling through high-pressure and stressful sales jobs, because of incentives, commissions and Quarterly conference at plush location when they would be much happier doing a less glamorous job that they would enjoy. This is also seen in situations when people are stuck in so called "Corporate Office" positions assisting the Senior Management with their Excel or PowerPoint, although there is a glamour attached to being in the Corporate Office etc, check whether you are actually adding to your skills. You would be better off on the Shop Floor or Field Sales at a younger age.

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* Vijay V. Bhat, an MBA from SCMHRD, Pune, having worked in Managerial positions in the Manufacturing sector, is currently working as a Consultant with a Hyderabad based IT company. The views expressed here are personal and do not represent his organization.