Insightful Journey of Gaurav Shah from NITIE Mumbai

My life started just like any normal person. I graduated, started working in IT and everything was sorted till then. But life was planning to teach me some lessons and I was not prepared for. After working for 3 years, I joined NITIE, Mumbai to add one more feather to my academic cap- MBA. As soon as I held this feather, I drifted away from the life I was living. I somehow managed the transition from academics to professional life before but this transition from professional life to academics was much more difficult to handle. Before I could even get adjusted to this transition, I had multiple things to work on- cases, assignments, summer preparations, etc. The clock kept ticking and I kept at it, soon it was time to make a resume!

When I prepared mine, I thought I had done well- highlighting the most important parts of my career. I had close to no extra-curricular achievements on my resume, however, I thought it wouldn’t matter. My work experience would be enough to get into my desired firm. But this was my wishful thinking, the reality being the polar opposite. It struck me really hard when I didn’t receive even a single offer from top tier firms visiting the campus. I was shattered but I didn’t let my hopes die. I started retrospecting and I found that more than 75% of my resume was filled with my work experience points while others had quite a lot of extra-curricular achievements on their resumes- be it sports, national level competitions, etc. That was the day I planned to work on this aspect and more than anything- on myself.

I started discussing this with my close friends at NITIE and there was one such interesting conversation that I remember clearly. Staring right into my eyes, my friend asked- “Do you want recognition, on a national level?” And I replied back as if this was some movie and I was the protagonist expected to deliver a dialogue which will be remembered forever- “No. I want satisfaction, on a personal level”. Yes, that really did happen. The answer was always within me, I just needed a kick start. That day I understood this quote by George R. R. Martin properly- “Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt you.”

After that day, I worked on quite a few case studies and failed in many of them. However, I was able to crack a few which made all the difference. The experience of solving these cases and the discussions around the problems with industry experts helped me understand these problems from different perspectives. Perspectives, I realized, were important. My efforts led me to win 2 PPIs from top tier firms. And then I knew I was walking on the right path. “Companies don’t shortlist me, so I am trying to win as many PPIs as I can”, I used to joke sometimes. Besides, I made quite a few friends from different B-schools, who share the same passion for solving cases. In the end, I am glad my efforts paid off. And finally, I got recognized as one of the ‘Top 100 Competitive Business Leaders 2019’ from Dare2Compete. There couldn’t have been a better way to end my 2 years at God’s own campus.