Things leads to a good rating in ILP(No need to read, better experience this on your own)

In this thread I shall be discussing how to get good rating in ILP.

First of all let me tell you that rating in ILP matters. Well, it doesn't have the power to ruin or make one’s career but it certainly can affect after coming out of ILP training. It’s entirely different ball game when it comes to allocating to project. TCS random number game again takes the center stage over merit when it comes to allocation of project. A lot of unseen factors come into play when it comes to allocation in project. There will be interview conducted for each project in which candidates will be selected based on their skill, merit, ILP rating, willingness to work for company, attitude and how far one lives from the office. An important role is also played by the RMG(kind of HR) whom under new associates are tagged. It is the job of RMGs to find project and manage associates in the initial stage. So in this entire world of uncertainty the only thing that can help you to take project of your own choice is the ILP rating. Besides these, there are some good projects in which they only take trainees having more than 3 rating.  Coming back to this rating thing, it will be awarded after the completion of training at ILP. A rating of 3 out of 5 is considered as average which is awarded to everyone and 4 is considered as better and 5 is phenomenal. I shall come straight to the facts what you should do to make your 3 months at training at ILP worthwhile.

1.       First of all if one is a non IT/CS guy, forget it. The chances are very bleak until one is extra-ordinary. Anyone with computer background will find learning core concepts easily and they can score very well in internal tests. The only exception is the mainframe domain in which things are more or less equal for everyone. So it’s a fair game in mainframe as everyone is at the same level.

2.       Second, one needs to be sincere and take this training seriously. Students need to leave their college care free attitude and should focus on behaving professionally. This “behave professional” or “be professional” term is going to come across many times in ILP training. So my suggestion is to develop a very optimistic idea about this term as it is going to be used every time one makes a mistake.

3.       Always dress very carefully. Dressing sense is very important in professional world. One should wear different shades of shirts and some occasional ties and clean shoes. The dress should always be proper,well ironed and clean. The dressing sense should not be very eye catching. One should follow a good dressing style with complete consistency. The Monday to Friday look should be completely consistent. This is easy to say very hard to follow daily activity.

4.       Be helpful. It doesn't matter whether you are introvert or extrovert, helping others comes naturally or not to you but you should have helping nature in ILP. The whole ILP is based on the idea of sharing knowledge and helping each other. Help each and every one just like you help your friends. And it should come naturally to you. It should not be like that you are helping others just to get a good rating but it’s a part of good team work and I will say one needs to develop this in real life too.

5.       Seating arrangement in ILP is again very important. There will be people from all over the country predominantly from south. So one need to interact with them despite of all those language barriers. One should try to make new friends, talk to everybody and appreciate the good things about others too. The training leads always keep a notice of these activities. Just make sure one should never have a fixed seating position or a fixed group. Try to interact with everyone during this training. Give it a chance and I think you will yourself like it.

6.       Biz-skills:-These are very important classes. They are really very smart people. They will interact like friends, tell their own stories but one should not get too much involved with them as they are very professional and one should understand that they are just doing their job. One should try to interact in their session, actively part in their sessions and should come forward to speak when given an opportunity to speak. It is worth mentioning that the biz-skill lead takes a written note of one’s every activity in the class room. So coming to classes at proper timing, use of English language in the training campus, pronunciation of words, body language will be noticed in the record too. Try to follow a simple routine but with pure consistency.

7.       In ILP soon trainees will be divided into smaller groups of size 6. Being a SPOC(Single Point of contact) of group increases the chances of getting noticed. A spoc is person who is directly responsible for the outcome of a project in a group. A spoc in a group is selected after initial training by common voting and discussion. One should have already done something good in order to be selected as a spoc. Always remember it’s the group which chooses its spoc its not the other way around. As a spoc one need to manage the work, divide the work for each person and take responsibility for the entire group in times of tough situation. At times, spoc needs to praise team members, convince them and most important of all listen to every team member.

8.       There may be 3-4 occasions of presentations where one can have to present his module, project etc to the whole classroom. So prepare for it and plan for it. Always try to make presentations as interactive as possible. Try not to be boring and one more thing always have one feature that will differentiate your module from others. You have to think it by yourself. As this one thing will help you to create an impression among others.

9.       Last and the most important, be optimist. Being overly optimistic is like a being a fool and no matter how hard a fool can try he will always come to find the fools end. So be wise and again think about it. Being optimist for me it to be realist, being practical and behave in the best possible way no matter whatever is the situation. There may be times when there are different opinions in a group over something. One should to be calm, reasonable and bring the objectives and goals of the group into picture rather than going for his personal opinions.

All the best for your training at ILP, I wish it was worth once reading.

Note: I have written a blog about my life in TCS as a fresher. I hope it helps.
http://mylifeintcs2.blogspot.in/