Sales Pitch

When i was at b-school, people were crazy for i-banks and consults, ofcourse that was before global meltdown. 

At IIMI there were 30 odd people out of 180 who opted for marketing over finance in our batch. Where they landed up during placements is totally different story, but even among those 30, most of the people dreamt about getting into branding and marketing kind of roles. 

Sales profiles were seen as only a route to land up into marketing as most of corporates still feels that sales exposure help in buildup to branding kind of activities. People use to hate those organizations who use to offer sales profile without any assurance of getting into brand management unless they offered 12.5+3 kinda package, uss package pe toh even finance guy opted for sales (anyway lets not digress). 

Six months into FMCG system made me realize that sales actually can be lucrative, Initially it gives you a temporary respect (from all the sales officers, distributors et al) which is such a feel good factor for a fresh MBA (ego massage), frequent movement from one location to another is actually great for someone who is unmarried, unsettled, irresponsible and wild freak (for information sake i'll be soon moving to Jaipur, so any jaipuria landing in this blog, Hi!!, Totla you listening??)

During your trainee stint most of the time its a temporary set up, where less is expected but much can be delivered. Most of the time this scenario results in much higher job satisfaction during initial months, and finally all the luxeries associated are incomparable to any other profile. An added advantage is that, it is easy to make people understand your work.

In b-schools perceptions about job profile get build around very weak understandings and most of the time around packages, this year with economy hitting hard people have to make more informed choices, going with herds may not be a right strategy this time (it never was), Waiting for desired job profile without getting bogged down by other offers around should be the way to handle tough situation.