Janani Sridhar believes that 15th of December 2012 has been the proudest day of her life. A product of the 1st batch of Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore, it was on this day that Janani landed a plum job with Xion Advertising in Mumbai. In so doing, Janani became one of the first three students of her batch – and also of Jaipuria Indore – to be placed.

“Apart from the placement cell at Jaipuria Indore, there is a centralised placement cell for all Jaipuria Institutes in Delhi as well. I got to know about Xion Advertising through the Jaipuria Institute of Management corporate office in New Delhi. There were three rounds in the Xion Advertising placement process. It started with a shortlisting of the resume. This was followed by the first round, a telephonic interview, which I cleared without much problem. The second round of the telephonic interview was much more detailed and tested us mostly on our communication abilities and how best we could handle pressure. This was a tough round, and it was really satisfying to have made it to the final call, which tested us on our overall knowledge.”

As a Business Development executive, Janani is currently handing the promotion division for Xion Advertising. Her work involves indentifying potential clients from the Media & Entertainment industry for a mutually beneficial association.

“I typically start my day by conducting market research with the help of different primary and secondary market research tools. The aim is to shortlist prospects. I then either ‘cold call’ these prospects or send them emails requesting for a short 30-minute meeting, to take the proposal further.Once this is done, the prospecting moves to a second level of discussion and, depending on the outcome of the call, an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) or an RFI (Request for Information) or RFP (Request for Proposal) is generated.”

Janani has to achieve Lead-based and Revenue-based targets, which makes her job challenging. For her, nothing is more thrilling than to convert suspect clients into prospects by correctly assessing their need.

“I’m new to the job, but I find it very exciting. I had a lot of support from the placement department, as well as the communications faculty at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore. They conducted frequent mock interviews to help me overcome my weaknesses and make me confident enough to crack the interview.”

Janani, who specialised in HR and Marketing from Jaipuria Indore, believes that Jaipuria Indore has equipped her with just the right skills to make it to the top in her chosen field.