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Catch22_av
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July 18th, 2012, 8:47 am

I know a "friend" who works at Irevna. Just to give you a back ground about the firm. Irevna did start out as a KPO in financial services sector. It was first of its kind and generally used to recruit CA's and MBA's (from Top B schools). The main business begun as a support to Equity Research to large IBs. And I think recruiting from top institutes was a signalling mechanism because most IBs do recruit from IIMs. Later it was acquired by CRISIL (which is a ratings agency in India and wholly owned by Standard & Poor's which in turn is owned by McGraw Hil.Now when you say there is a 2 year training program that is true if you work for CRISIL. I think you are referring to CCAP Course. But if you are recruited by Irevna the training is not for 2 years. They initially have a 2 month boot camp training period which deals with a wide range of topis depending upon whether you are recruited for Equity Research division or Derivatives Analytics divison. Equity Research bootcamp will involve Financial Statement Analysis, Cashflow Modelling, Advanced Excel (as most reports are done in Excel), Report writing etc. Derivatives research training will involve Math refresher, Asset Pricing, Hedging, Index construction etc. Post boot camp you will work with a client project (top IBs) either Offshore (Chennai, Mumbai, Pune) or Onsite (London, NY, Tokyo, HK, Singapore, Beijing, Poland, Argentina).Coming to the other debate about quality of IITs and IIMs. Before I give my opinion I would like to declare that I belong to one of the IIMs (A, B and C). I partially agree with you Capafan2 in the sense not all the people from IITs and IIMs are smart. But quality of the mix is much better than your average institute. TJ made a point about work ethic and I agree with him that people from IIMs have a much better work ethic. A large reason for this is there is a lot of focus on work ethic and integrity in the IIM Curriculum. A lot of respect is given to dead lines and adhering to time. I remember being not allowed to sit on an exam because I was late to the examination hall by 5 mins. I have known people dismissied from the course when they were caught cheating in an exam. Plagiarism is a no-no. Infact Capafan2 I would go the extent that the superior intellect of IITs and IIMs may be in question (people get lucky in entrance exams like IITJEE and CAT) but the work ethic is something which is drilled in to you in those institutes.Chicago Guy - PM me if you have any further questions on Irevna\Crisil. I can consult my "friend" and let you know.
 
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lexington
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July 18th, 2012, 9:30 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976 I have found the IIT / IIM grads to have much better self-discipline, much better work ethic, the speed with which they assimilate the knowledge and the corresponding increase in their productivity makes them far more valuable.i agree with you. here is the proof. this guy was the best student when he graduated from one of the institutes you mentioned.
 
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EscapeArtist999
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July 18th, 2012, 10:23 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: Catch22_avI know a "friend" who works at Irevna. Just to give you a back ground about the firm. Irevna did start out as a KPO in financial services sector. It was first of its kind and generally used to recruit CA's and MBA's (from Top B schools). The main business begun as a support to Equity Research to large IBs. And I think recruiting from top institutes was a signalling mechanism because most IBs do recruit from IIMs. Later it was acquired by CRISIL (which is a ratings agency in India and wholly owned by Standard & Poor's which in turn is owned by McGraw Hil.Now when you say there is a 2 year training program that is true if you work for CRISIL. I think you are referring to CCAP Course. But if you are recruited by Irevna the training is not for 2 years. They initially have a 2 month boot camp training period which deals with a wide range of topis depending upon whether you are recruited for Equity Research division or Derivatives Analytics divison. Equity Research bootcamp will involve Financial Statement Analysis, Cashflow Modelling, Advanced Excel (as most reports are done in Excel), Report writing etc. Derivatives research training will involve Math refresher, Asset Pricing, Hedging, Index construction etc. Post boot camp you will work with a client project (top IBs) either Offshore (Chennai, Mumbai, Pune) or Onsite (London, NY, Tokyo, HK, Singapore, Beijing, Poland, Argentina).Coming to the other debate about quality of IITs and IIMs. Before I give my opinion I would like to declare that I belong to one of the IIMs (A, B and C). I partially agree with you Capafan2 in the sense not all the people from IITs and IIMs are smart. But quality of the mix is much better than your average institute. TJ made a point about work ethic and I agree with him that people from IIMs have a much better work ethic. A large reason for this is there is a lot of focus on work ethic and integrity in the IIM Curriculum. A lot of respect is given to dead lines and adhering to time. I remember being not allowed to sit on an exam because I was late to the examination hall by 5 mins. I have known people dismissied from the course when they were caught cheating in an exam. Plagiarism is a no-no. Infact Capafan2 I would go the extent that the superior intellect of IITs and IIMs may be in question (people get lucky in entrance exams like IITJEE and CAT) but the work ethic is something which is drilled in to you in those institutes.Chicago Guy - PM me if you have any further questions on Irevna\Crisil. I can consult my "friend" and let you know. I know a "friend" who works at Irevna. - I love it!!!!
 
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lexington
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July 18th, 2012, 11:06 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist999QuoteOriginally posted by: Catch22_avChicago Guy - PM me if you have any further questions on Irevna\Crisil. I can consult my "friend" and let you know. I know a "friend" who works at Irevna. - I love it!!!!board member friend?
 
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capafan2
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July 18th, 2012, 12:45 pm

QuoteBut quality of the mix is much better than your average institute. TJ made a point about work ethic and I agree with him that people from IIMs have a much better work ethic. A large reason for this is there is a lot of focus on work ethic and integrity in the IIM Curriculum. A lot of respect is given to dead lines and adhering to time. I remember being not allowed to sit on an exam because I was late to the examination hall by 5 mins. I have known people dismissied from the course when they were caught cheating in an exam. Plagiarism is a no-no. Infact Capafan2 I would go the extent that the superior intellect of IITs and IIMs may be in question (people get lucky in entrance exams like IITJEE and CAT) but the work ethic is something which is drilled in to you in those institutes.I should apologize for my strong response. In fact I never doubted the quality of IIT's. IIM's are smart but I not sure useful. But that is an MBA culture at work. As someone with a very very disciplined work-ethic and not from an Ivy league I tend to get pretty worked up when I hear Ivy league justifications. It is like a class system which does no one any good.There is a flip side to being an Ivy Leaguer. Over time it becomes a sense of entitlement. I see it everyday. Say a 25 year old from IIT and IIM is a very hard worker. His work ethic and skills separate him from the regular guy. What happens is that a lot of IIT'ians and IIM'ers end up seeing more of their colleagues get super successful in their mid 30's. That is when their sense of entitlement becomes a problem. The work-ethic that you speak off goes out of the window in favor or shameless politics just to get ahead. Majority of them (and IIT'ians are no the only guilty party here. It is an Indian problem so to speak, thanks to out close knit and hyper competetive society) will look down on any work outside of managing people. This work ethic that you speak of simply does not manifest in this age group. And it is precisely in this age group where I stop caring about their school lineage. If I need an experienced worker with a strong work ethic I cannot look only within the Ivy League class. In fact in that class I get more attitude than willingness to brawl it out with tough problems.The other aspect of IIT is that it is a very biased sample. For people who completed their high school in India in the late 80's and early 90's like me, mostly people in the Northern part of India ended up in IIT. Most of the IIT's I meet are from the north and some from South. Somewhere in the middle of India where I come from (Mumbai) people simply did not learn about it until late 11th grade (IIT entrance is after 12th grade). Every person from Mumbai I know who went to IIT had some family member (dad or mom) who had gone to IIT who guided them. The IIT prep starts around 7th or 8th grade. It s very risky to take it on in the 12th grade when you have other good schools to try for and paying from your nose for tuitions (This is applicable to Mumbai). I have a bright nephew in 8th grade whose mom I convinced to get him on the IIT path. Let to himself he would not even know as in Mumbai the societal pressures are in another direction (10th grade and 12th grade results). IIM's are much more homogenous lot. I tried hard but had only an outside chance. The entrance is too hard and someone like me who has a good but somewhat slower CPU has at best an outside chance. But again IIM's do not have skills by virtue of going to IIM. From what I know they did not teach them much quantitative stuff there in the 90s. But they do have lineage. Some of them did end up getting their PhDs in hard subjects like TJ for whom I have a lot of respect. But a lot of them are just too big in the head.
Last edited by capafan2 on July 17th, 2012, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Catch22_av
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July 18th, 2012, 3:42 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: lexingtonQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976 I have found the IIT / IIM grads to have much better self-discipline, much better work ethic, the speed with which they assimilate the knowledge and the corresponding increase in their productivity makes them far more valuable.i agree with you. here is the proof. this guy was the best student when he graduated from one of the institutes you mentioned.lexington - Your point being?
 
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Catch22_av
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July 18th, 2012, 3:44 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist999[I know a "friend" who works at Irevna. - I love it!!!! . You know how the tale goes.
 
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lexington
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July 18th, 2012, 4:14 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: Catch22_avQuoteOriginally posted by: lexingtonQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976 I have found the IIT / IIM grads to have much better self-discipline, much better work ethic, the speed with which they assimilate the knowledge and the corresponding increase in their productivity makes them far more valuable.i agree with you. here is the proof. this guy was the best student when he graduated from one of the institutes you mentioned.lexington - Your point being?do you understand what is the point of traderjoe1976?
 
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July 18th, 2012, 4:14 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: capafan2QuoteBut quality of the mix is much better than your average institute. TJ made a point about work ethic and I agree with him that people from IIMs have a much better work ethic. A large reason for this is there is a lot of focus on work ethic and integrity in the IIM Curriculum. A lot of respect is given to dead lines and adhering to time. I remember being not allowed to sit on an exam because I was late to the examination hall by 5 mins. I have known people dismissied from the course when they were caught cheating in an exam. Plagiarism is a no-no. Infact Capafan2 I would go the extent that the superior intellect of IITs and IIMs may be in question (people get lucky in entrance exams like IITJEE and CAT) but the work ethic is something which is drilled in to you in those institutes.I should apologize for my strong response. In fact I never doubted the quality of IIT's. IIM's are smart but I not sure useful. But that is an MBA culture at work. As someone with a very very disciplined work-ethic and not from an Ivy league I tend to get pretty worked up when I hear Ivy league justifications. It is like a class system which does no one any good.There is a flip side to being an Ivy Leaguer. Over time it becomes a sense of entitlement. I see it everyday. Say a 25 year old from IIT and IIM is a very hard worker. His work ethic and skills separate him from the regular guy. What happens is that a lot of IIT'ians and IIM'ers end up seeing more of their colleagues get super successful in their mid 30's. That is when their sense of entitlement becomes a problem. The work-ethic that you speak off goes out of the window in favor or shameless politics just to get ahead. Majority of them (and IIT'ians are no the only guilty party here. It is an Indian problem so to speak, thanks to out close knit and hyper competetive society) will look down on any work outside of managing people. This work ethic that you speak of simply does not manifest in this age group. And it is precisely in this age group where I stop caring about their school lineage. If I need an experienced worker with a strong work ethic I cannot look only within the Ivy League class. In fact in that class I get more attitude than willingness to brawl it out with tough problems.The other aspect of IIT is that it is a very biased sample. For people who completed their high school in India in the late 80's and early 90's like me, mostly people in the Northern part of India ended up in IIT. Most of the IIT's I meet are from the north and some from South. Somewhere in the middle of India where I come from (Mumbai) people simply did not learn about it until late 11th grade (IIT entrance is after 12th grade). Every person from Mumbai I know who went to IIT had some family member (dad or mom) who had gone to IIT who guided them. The IIT prep starts around 7th or 8th grade. It s very risky to take it on in the 12th grade when you have other good schools to try for and paying from your nose for tuitions (This is applicable to Mumbai). I have a bright nephew in 8th grade whose mom I convinced to get him on the IIT path. Let to himself he would not even know as in Mumbai the societal pressures are in another direction (10th grade and 12th grade results). IIM's are much more homogenous lot. I tried hard but had only an outside chance. The entrance is too hard and someone like me who has a good but somewhat slower CPU has at best an outside chance. But again IIM's do not have skills by virtue of going to IIM. From what I know they did not teach them much quantitative stuff there in the 90s. But they do have lineage. Some of them did end up getting their PhDs in hard subjects like TJ for whom I have a lot of respect. But a lot of them are just too big in the head.No apologies required my friend. I am not sure what you mean when you say "IIM's are smart but I not sure useful". What is an MBA culture? Could you please define it so that I can better understand what exactly you mean? My contention was never that a non ivy leaguer is not smart or doesnt have a great work ethic. From point of view of many employers education is just a signalling mechanism. From that perspective with a limited time to find out about a person in the hiring process its understandable (doesnt make it right) that one's Ivy League credentials can play a part. From my point of view all a Ivy league education guarantees over a non Ivy league education is a head start. But 2-3 years after passing out your experience and demonstrated ability counts over where you went to school to. Quote"The other aspect of IIT is that it is a very biased sample. For people who completed their high school in India in the late 80's and early 90's like me, mostly people in the Northern part of India ended up in IIT. Most of the IIT's I meet are from the north and some from South. Somewhere in the middle of India where I come from (Mumbai) people simply did not learn about it until late 11th grade (IIT entrance is after 12th grade). Every person from Mumbai I know who went to IIT had some family member (dad or mom) who had gone to IIT who guided them. The IIT prep starts around 7th or 8th grade. It s very risky to take it on in the 12th grade when you have other good schools to try for and paying from your nose for tuitions (This is applicable to Mumbai).I am not sure how the above is relevant? I dint know IITs existed until I was at end of my 1st year in college. Are you saying that people who are not aware of IITs might be smarter than people who get into IITs because they were aware of it at an earlier time? Quote"IIM's are much more homogenous lot. I tried hard but had only an outside chance. The entrance is too hard and someone like me who has a good but somewhat slower CPU has at best an outside chance. But again IIM's do not have skills by virtue of going to IIM. From what I know they did not teach them much quantitative stuff there in the 90s. But they do have lineage. Some of them did end up getting their PhDs in hard subjects like TJ for whom I have a lot of respect. But a lot of them are just too big in the head. Yep the entrance to IIMs is tough. I got through in my 3rd attempt. And a large dose of luck is involved in getting through these examinations. I did take quite a few quant subjects when I was in IIM. They were always Quant electives available. First two trimesters had mandatory quantitative methods courses (mostly dealing with Hypothesis Testing, Probability, statistics etc). After that we had Electives such as Stochastic Modelling in business decisions ( which deal with random walks, brownian motion, stopping time etc), another elective was related to Time Series Analysis ( which had PCA, GARCH etc), another elective was on Operations Research related concepts. Ofcourse we dint have much programming to do apart from in Excel and a bit in SAS.
 
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July 18th, 2012, 4:16 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: lexingtonQuoteOriginally posted by: Catch22_avQuoteOriginally posted by: lexingtonQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976 I have found the IIT / IIM grads to have much better self-discipline, much better work ethic, the speed with which they assimilate the knowledge and the corresponding increase in their productivity makes them far more valuable.i agree with you. here is the proof. this guy was the best student when he graduated from one of the institutes you mentioned.lexington - Your point being?do you understand what is the point of traderjoe1976?Sorry still dint get what you are trying to say? Are you trying to invalidate a statistical assesment by pointing out an outlier?
 
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capafan2
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July 18th, 2012, 5:01 pm

QuoteNo apologies required my friend. I am not sure what you mean when you say "IIM's are smart but I not sure useful". What is an MBA culture? Could you please define it so that I can better understand what exactly you mean? My contention was never that a non ivy leaguer is not smart or doesnt have a great work ethic. From point of view of many employers education is just a signalling mechanism. From that perspective with a limited time to find out about a person in the hiring process its understandable (doesnt make it right) that one's Ivy League credentials can play a part. From my point of view all a Ivy league education guarantees over a non Ivy league education is a head start. But 2-3 years after passing out your experience and demonstrated ability counts over where you went to school to. If you go to an IIM and end up in sales or investment banking it is one thing. I guess you are in the correct field. But to end up in a Big 4 consulting firm's technology arm (not audit) or in some technology firm I don't get it. One person like that I know (and he is representative of a lot like him), simply does not respect technologist's and thinks he is some leader (cult of the big consulting firm). That is the MBA culture I refer to. You end up looking down on the very people who execute your business. I feel the same way about IT folks in Wall Street doing and MBA and trying for management roles in IT. It stems from not having respect for your own skills. QuoteI am not sure how the above is relevant? I dint know IITs existed until I was at end of my 1st year in college. Are you saying that people who are not aware of IITs might be smarter than people who get into IITs because they were aware of it at an earlier time? What I meant is - if you are from Northern India, your being from IIT means something. Otherwise there are very good schools in other parts (I went to one in Mumbai but these are not known worldwide or even India wide) which people go to and who are just as good. Which ties back well with the IIM's being a more homogeneous lot. Almost everyone who went to IIM would have been good enough to go to IIT if only they knew.QuoteYep the entrance to IIMs is tough. I got through in my 3rd attempt. And a large dose of luck is involved in getting through these examinations. I did take quite a few quant subjects when I was in IIM. They were always Quant electives available. First two trimesters had mandatory quantitative methods courses (mostly dealing with Hypothesis Testing, Probability, statistics etc). After that we had Electives such as Stochastic Modelling in business decisions ( which deal with random walks, brownian motion, stopping time etc), another elective was related to Time Series Analysis ( which had PCA, GARCH etc), another elective was on Operations Research related concepts. Ofcourse we dint have much programming to do apart from in Excel and a bit in SAS.I am honestly surprised by this and also quite impressed. I am a firm believer in hard skills. You can manage or lead all you want but hard skills are very important. These teach you respect for hard work - the work ethic you refer to. You have to manage and lead something after all. A lot of MBA's I have met (I have an MBA too but never really enjoyed it. Was my first of the three masters degree. Succumbed to peer pressure) have next to no hard skills and are actually proud of it.
Last edited by capafan2 on July 17th, 2012, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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July 18th, 2012, 5:20 pm

QuoteNo apologies required my friend. I am not sure what you mean when you say "IIM's are smart but I not sure useful". What is an MBA culture? Also what is the point of doing an MBA if you want to work in some form of technology shop. MBA teaches you nothing. It is only way to get some sort of status on your profile so you can jump a queue. MBA early in life makes sense. It also makes sense if you go to say Chicago school as they are so quantitative and the goal should be to get into Finance (somewhat quantitative). But vast majority of people do an MBA to just have the status of doing it. One of the things I see as seriously wrong in the American Business work ethic is that there is tremendous value attached to soft degrees like that. Yet there is a lot of money to be made using hard skills. I know that first hand. Plus not everyone who is a lawyer or working in business on Wall Street makes a lot of money. Yet people are crazy about all this. Also lot of people with hard skills are terrific managers and even leaders (I hate that term but you get what I am trying to say) without an MBA.To me trying to find good people (people with a sense of ownership and those who will treat your success as their success - great work ethic as you call it) is very very hard. You cannot test it in an interview and you have to go with gut there. You can basically find very competent people who will not go that extra mile which leads to extreme trust. If you try to use proxies like school lineage you are hurting business as you have just artificially reduced the scope of your search making it harder to find good people. Plus if you find people who take lineage of their own schools seriously you end up with good people who are not good to everybody. It annoys me when someone from a good school feels antagonistic about reporting to someone else who is not from a good school. It is like women feel when men do not want to report to them or a white guy not wanting to report to a black or brown guy. And once you take schools too seriously, it is only a small step towards that.It is like when me and my wife discuss about our children's future we both think that the choice of spouse is the single most important decision with respect to long term well being and happiness. If we think that their spouse should be Indian (because we are Indian) because we have some preconceived notion about how Indians are so good (self-serving because we can relate to Indian in-laws of our kids better) we have reduced their chance of finding a truly good life partner in a very diverse (USA) culture.
 
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July 18th, 2012, 6:19 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: lexingtondo you understand what is the point of traderjoe1976?TJ does not have any point to make. 90% of the stuff he posts is pure BS and only to relieve the boredom.
 
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lexington
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July 19th, 2012, 5:08 am

QuoteSorry still dint get what you are trying to say? Are you trying to invalidate a statistical assesment by pointing out an outlier?all the Indians involved in the Galleon scandal are from IIT/IIM. A financial engineer from SG who was arrested by FBI last year for stealing code from bank is also from IIT/IIM. Only Indians from IIT/IIM commit financial crime in the US. Get some data before applying your statistical analysis.
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July 19th, 2012, 8:28 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: Catch22_avInfact Capafan2 I would go the extent that the superior intellect of IITs and IIMs may be in question (people get lucky in entrance exams like IITJEE and CAT) but the work ethic is something which is drilled in to you in those institutes.People say we have like a few trillion nerves in our body and when you said that, you managed to get on each of them. Get lucky in IIT ??? Have you ever seen the degree of expertise that it needs in the subjects . I would say that you have a very bad insight into this exam. I burned my eyes and sacrificed a lot of things to get cracking into that ..Lucky !!!! huh !