When Gaurav Tripathi graduated from Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida there was a recession on and it was a tough time for placements. 

“It was certainly not an ideal placement month for the batch of 2007-09,” he said, but the hard work done by the placement cell and the “emotional and mental support which was there within the campus” helped them overcome the challenge. As Gaurav said, “Be it the faculty or peers, we all were working together to get jobs. The faculty always encouraged us with different off-campus leads and taught ushow to look for jobs through job portals. The best part was that even after tough competition, we were particular about the profiles of the companies we wanted to go to and, without any personal interests or selfishness, we were referring jobs and leads to others within the campus.” 

It all paid off for him, as he managed to land positions with some good brands, starting off with Hotel Park Plaza Noida, which is a part of the multinational group, Carlson. He then got an opportunity to work with the leading tobacco player in India, Godfrey Phillips India and now is with Madura Fashion and Lifestyle, which is a retail apparel company of the Aditya Birla Group. In his current role, he is handling the human resource operations for North India, which encompasses six states with different cultures and talent pools. 

Gaurav is responsible for maintaining skilled staffing levels. “My job involves a lot of analysis, starting from the manpower projections to human attributes. All the states have their own culture and dissimilarities. So a day typically starts with loads of trackers and reports. A lot of interaction is required with the new or potential staff, so my job demands a lot of travel too.” 

He feels his biggest achievements have been landing jobs with these top-rated brands and then being able to perform in a much better way than expected. He gives all the credit for this to the education he received at Jaipuria Noida. 

Noting that his batch at Jaipuria had students from all around the country with different educational backgrounds and cultures, he said they all learned to work together as a team, “starting from classroom presentations, to organising the annual event ‘Udaan’, to helping each other with the placements. And maybe that’s really helping me perform my current job, which has so many geographical variations.” 

As he finally sums it up, “The knowledge and the practical industrial exposure from Jaipuria Institute of Management Noida helped me to come out of the slow market and successfully climb the corporate ladder.”