A Frequent Flyer & Company

For a lot of you that have been shattered by my surprise disappearance from the virtual world over the past 3 days, don't despair - for I have returned.

Following a brief sms from a friend: 'McKinsey testing at LUMS on the 28th', I made a swift decision to fly to Lahore, completely unaware of how that experience would actually turn out.

For my lazy/busy buds: In a nutshell, they didn't let me test, yet, I negotiated to a somewhat positive outcome anyway. Thank You AIESEC.

For those that feel the need to indulge in me a little more, I shall narrate the events in slightly more detail:

I leave the house at 4am to see if I can get a cheaper ticket for the 8am flight to Lahore. While I wait on the waiting list (what else are you supposed to do on the waiting list anyway, I mean that's the name of the list!), I pick up the monstrous bundle of practice cases that Kirmani had given me to look over. Even at 4am after a very tiring day, I manage to find myself doing rather well at the cases (Either that, or I was really too sleepy to care..). Decked up with confidence, I make my way to LUMS only to find out that there is a prescreened list of people that can take the test! And of course, I'm not on it. On another day, I would have resigned that as bad luck, whined a little and moved on, but today wasn't it. I had taken extra care to ensure that the Career Development Office at LUMS had given me the green light regarding my test eligibility the morning before I travelled. So I storm into the office, very sure there was a mistake, only to be told by a lady pretending to be friendly that she was sorry and that McKinsey & Co had clarified the procedure to them only the night before. Bah!

So I leave the office, rather bitter about the state of affairs when I run into a friend (Bilal Rana, the savior!), that tells me he might have the contact details of the person responsible for the Middle East Office's recruitment. Next Obstacle: Internet is down at LUMS. So I call someone in Karachi to access Bilal's inbox and find me the numbers that I scribble onto the back of my hand. This is followed by a phone call to the Dubai office that has me meet a very sweet answering machine on the other side! Hmmm.. Can a random person like me really call up the McKinsey'ite on her cell phone. Well, nothing to lose.. Oh Wait, what am I supposed to say to her?!

After a few erm..s and errr...s, I find myself explaining that there has been miscommunication and that I have flown in, introducing myself as a LUMS graduate working with AIESEC (hoping to dear God she knows either!), and that I needed her help.. Obviously, she's not too impressed. Surprisingly, she's the actual test administrator that is present AT LUMS at the moment. She tells me that the venue did not allow her to host more people and being the cocky one that I am (coupled with my knowledge of VERY random details), I tell her that the testees list had 46 people while the auditorium accommodated 72! Before I do more damage, I ask her to let me speak to her in person, and if nothing else, get some feedback on my resume! Bullseye.

A little before I am supposed to meet her outside the test venue, I find someone looking somewhat lost. Joining the dots immediately, I swoop in to engage her in conversation! Bingo! We talk about the mess up and I tell her that I was just trying to make the most off my trip. I ask her to at least see my resume and give me some feedback. Now, my resume isn't much. Outside of my rich AIESEC experience, and some overachieving stats from school, I don't have much on my plate such as 2000 internships. Nevertheless, she scans it, and says the magical words, 'Hmm.. Why don't you speak to me in 10 minutes..!'. Well, I guess she did know AIESEC after all!

After what seems like an eternity, I get a signal from her to come into the test venue. She proceeds to show me the envelopes with individual names on it and explains the reason that I cannot test is due to the fact that she doesn't have a package for me and that she was simply not authorized to give a test to someone not registered through the procedure! So I ask her for a recommendation and she guides me to a way of applying such that my information reaches her directly and that if my resume is screened, she will be able to test me individually in a month's time when she comes back for interviews. Voila! Thank you AIESEC, for having given me the faith, confidence and skill to say 'Anything is Negotiable!'. It is. :)


This was followed by a couple of days with family, where I found myself selling 'Vision and Big Picture' to my parents as regards different opportunities (AIESEC and non-AIESEC) for next year - with some degree of success, and hanging briefly with some very close friends including a dear (and rather hot!) caboil! 3 days and 12,000 bucks later, it was probably worth it, still.

Am now back at home, and smiling widely as I look at an email in my inbox congratulating me for being shortlisted and inviting me to the assessment center for Cadbury Schweppes in London at the end of May.

The next month will be a crucial one for the direction that my life takes. I can only hope that it will continue to be as action packed with McSchweppes International!

Now, Back to changing the world.. with a closing thought: Do I have regional preferences for work? Should I? Does it make career sense to be in a certain part of the world? Or am I too young to be asking such questions?

Adios.