Colloquium 2011: IMT Ghaziabad's 'Aankalan' wins accolades from all!

A unique assessment test centre competition for students of the B-schools of India was held at the IMT Ghaziabad campus on October 16, 2011. Here’s how the event panned out…

Some students said the innovative event taught them much more than the classroom has; some felt the tools applied brought out the best in them; and some said they learnt the practicalities of competing… but every one of them was thrilled to be a part of the whole experience. What all of them are talking about is Aankalan, a unique competition that was held on October 16, at the IMT Ghaziabad campus. The inter B-school level live HR competition was part of a flagship event Colloquium 2011, held on October 15 and 16, 2011, which was organised by IMT Ghaziabad’s HRuday Club.

With uniqueness as its focal point, Aankalan was an Assessment Test centre competition for students of the B-schools of India. Events of this kind are rarely held in B-schools and even if they are, it is on a small scale and definitely not with so many rounds incorporated within them. Aankalan’s first round included an Essay Presentation on a video featuring Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam; this was followed by the Case Study round. The third round was all about Negotiation and Communication Skills and round four was dedicated to a Group Discussion.

While the competition received 50 entries from various B-schools, the organisers short-listed six students from IMI Delhi, DSE University of Delhi, MDI Gurgaon, IMT Ghaziabad and SIBM Pune.

Madhav, a participant from IMI Delhi, said the whole experience was truly thrilling. “They had an entirely different Assessment Centre setup for this event. It was such a great opportunity! I was also looking forward to experiencing the various tools, especially the GD, that they used for the evaluation. All in all, it was a very new, unique concept and I was glad I could be a part of it; it brought out something new in me.” Besides this, Madhav felt that the quality of participants was very good and that the organisers were not only very cooperative but took good care of every participant.

“Getting true feedback about myself, introspecting on that, and learning where I stand in comparison to the students from the rest of the institutes” is what Ritika from SIBM, Pune, said she took back from Aankalan. “The format was really innovative because it was based on assessment centres. Students are not really exposed to these activities unless events like this take place. We do have events of different kinds on general topics, but one that conducts assessment centres is a rarity in itself, which is what made this so very interesting,” she states.

According to Arjun Malhotra of IMT Ghaziabad, “The first round was very well-designed. The video itself was completely exclusive. It was obvious that a lot of time and effort had been spent designing every round of Aankalan. I really appreciate the effort the team members put in. It is here that I leant how to compete and that you must leave no chance for error.”

Varun Chaudhary from DSE, University of Delhi, goes a step further and says that he has learnt so much more from the practicality of the events in Aankalan and from what he gleaned from industry experts while there. “This is far more than what I have got from a formal education structure. Here, I was able to apply very little of what I have learnt from a formal structure. Which is why I think Colloquium and Aankalan was such a fantastic opportunity. What the event demanded, in terms of timelines and diligence, from each participant was awesome; that is what we enjoyed the most! The whole experience was wonderful! It is very important to simulate a natural business environment and that is what we were doing in all the rounds — assimilating actual events and that is my personal takeaway from Aankalan.”

Siddharth Nagpal, who was one of the judges at the competition, also expressed his praise for the event and the student-organisers saying that they did a commendable job of engaging the participants from the very beginning. “Aankalan has been a wonderful initiative by IMT; it was a first-time experience for me too. The best part of it all was that the students took so much interest in organising an event such as this; it certainly is not an easy task. But I am sure it will go a long way in helping them learn more about assessment centres and understand so much more about the behavioural dimensions of roles and jobs. Not only did the student-organisers invest time and effort to plan the event to perfection but they also displayed the ability to incorporate small changes at the last minute. All of them thought on their feet and everything fell into place perfectly.”

As the competition took off, “Think people” was all the advice he gave the participants. That its straightforward simplicity worked wonders and the hard work of the organisers paid-off, is evident!