CII's event for young MBAs

In an attempt to get far flung management institutions of south India to showcase their management talent to the industry, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-southern region, is organising its third annual ManageMantra (MM) in Chennai on November 5 and 6, 2004.

MM is a unique initiative of CII which aims at facilitating the networking of academia, industry and young managerial talent.

"Companies get an opportunity to interact and recruit young management students who were untapped or undiscovered. Faculty members can use this opportunity to understand the current requirements of the industry, which they can then implement within the curriculum," said R Ramaraj, managing director and CEO of Sify Limited and chairman of MM 2004.

As many as 50 management institutes and 30 corporates will participate in the two-day event.

The event provides an opportunity for fresh MBAs to benchmark their managerial skills on international hiring parameters and gauge their over-all score in employability.

"Ten students will be participating from each institute and they will be tested on various grounds. There will be five elimination rounds which will test the candidate's verbal and numeric ability, team handling, presentation ability, business acumen, stress tolerance and individual value system," said Saundarya Rajesh, chief executive of AVTAR Career Creators and co-chairperson of MM 2004.

CII Education Sub-Committee (CII-ES), is also planning to organise two career fairs, one each at Hyderabad and Coimbatore. The career fair will act as an employment opportunity for all graduates.

"For corporates, the event offers some of the best available young managerial talent from the entire southern region at a single forum. This year, we are expecting the companies not only to issue letters of intent but also making job offers," said PK Mohapatra, president and chief executive officer of RPG Enterprises and chairman of CII-ES.

The first event was organised in 2002 in Tamil Nadu. Over 30 colleges and 20 corporates from across Tamil Nadu participated and 60 letters of intent were issued to the contestants.

MM was scaled up to the regional level in 2003 with the second edition showcasing talent from 40 colleges and 25 corporates and 227 letters of intent were issued. The corporates who participated in the past include Pepsico India, Ford India and Sify Limited.