My interview experiences

I got Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) calls from two B-schools on last weekend.

On Friday, it was for Great Lakes, Chennai. The venue was Hotel Tunga Paradise, Andheri and timing was 11.30 AM. I reached the venue on time. The whole admission process was conducted by the students only as GL is a student driven institute. The crowd looked impressive. I got a chance to interact with few guys and found most of them had 3-5 years of experience. Some of the guys were dressed in business suits. I was among the very few, who were not even wearing a tie.

After the documents verification, I went in for the interview. There were two guys in the panel. One person was from industry and other one was an alumni. Both were very cool and were smiling all the time. They asked questions about how things work in IT, deadlines, project estimates, day-to-day activities, difference between working in USA and India. The interview lasted for around 25-30 minutes, but there was no stress at all as the questions were restricted within my domain only. When I came out I couldn’t believe the PI was already over.

The GD was also cool as everyone got chance to speak and it was followed by a psychometric test of 10 minutes. The whole process was very smooth and overall it took 2.5 hours to complete.

On Sunday, had a GD/PI call for SP Jain Dubai-Singapore programme. The venue was SP Jain Mumbai campus and timing was 2.30 PM. I reached before time and had to wait for one hour for the process to start.

There was no GD. We were given a case-study and were to answer the questions in 45 minutes and had to write two essays in 15 minutes. After the documents verification, it was interview time. People from earlier slots were already waiting, so we had to wait for our turn and it was a long wait.

By the time my turn came, at around 5, I was already tired of waiting. I went in and found two old khadoos professors in the panel (P1 and P2). After the initial greetings, they started firing the questions.

P1: We've gone through your profile. First of all tell us, how come your acads are so poor?
Me: (I know I’ve average acads, but POOR?? Anyway, tried to give some explanation.) Always wanted to do an MBA and was not much focussed in engineering.. blah.. blah..

P1: How do we know that you'll be focussed in MBA?
Me: Sir, this is what I always wanted to do.

P1: You said you were not focussed in your engineering, but why do you have poor scores in school also?
Me: Umm..well..actually..I mean..you know..

P1: How did you get admission in DAVV college? Was there any payment seat?
Me: Sir, it's University's own college. There are no payment seats. I got through pre-engineering test. Actually I had an All India Rank of..

P1: (Cutting me in between) So you got through some test.
Me: (Huh..some test..I took an year's gap to prepare for it) Yes sir.

P1: You've mentioned that you did your schooling from CBSE. Which school was it?
Me: Central School, Mhow.

P1: Mhow?
Me: Mhow is a small town near Indore.

P1: Oh! That Army Headquarter?
Me: Yes sir. I've done most of my schooling from there. I've lived most formative years of my life there and have lived closely with Army people.

P1: Is that the reason for your poor performance?
Me: Sir?

P1: There is a lot of freedom in that society and I guess you misused your freedom.
Me: Umm..(where is it going?)

P1: What is the biggest achievement of your life that you are proud of?
Me: It was when I was titled Best Student of the year in school. Normally, the School Captain gets this title. Even though I was not the School Captain, still I was given this title as an exception.

P1: Do you think you were very popular in your school?
Me: Not exactly popular, but people liked me.

P1: Why?
Me: I'm a likable person. Even in my college and in my organisation people like me.

P1: And you still don't help yourself?
Me: Sir?

P1: You don't help yourself and perform so poorly in your acads.
Me: (Acads again!) Umm..

Later P2 asked me about Satyam fraud, IT best practices, social issues, my hobbies etc, but P1 kept cutting me in between to ensure that I’d not get comfortable at any moment.

I came out, not sure what went inside or how long it went. They’ve a second round of interview with Dean, if the first round is cleared. I was definitely not expecting, but got a call for it immediately after coming out. I was surprised, but was not in a state to feel anything though only a few moments back I'd seen a girl in tears when she got a call for Dean's interview.

The Dean too started with the same question about my decent GMAT score, but my not-so-good acads. It was a short interview and he asked about my career aspirations, why SP Jain and some usual stuff. He kept marking and writing notes on my application form without looking at me, not sure even if he was listening to my responses.

The whole process took around 6-7 hours to complete and included a lot of waiting time. I mentioned this as a scope of improvement in my feedback form also.

It is very difficult to predict how an interviewer judges a candidate. Both the interviews were extreme in nature. The only thing common was that I came out smiling.

And for now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed!

Why MBA?

There are a lot of questions that are asked in a B-school interview, but this one seems to be the most favourite among the interviewers. It's asked in almost every interview. The Interviewer knows that the Interviewee is not going to give an honest answer, but asks the question as it has been a sort of tradition. The Interviewee knows that whatever he says is not going to be believed by the Interviewer, but tries his best by saying something like:

~ It'll provide an environment to grow as an individual and expand his horizon of knowledge.

~ It'll provide an opportunity to interact and learn with some of the best brains of the country.

~ It'll provide a holistic view of the functioning of an organisation..blah blah..

~ It's all about money. Honey! (kudos to this guys' honesty, but not sure if he gets through)

~ Why not? (this one's surely out)

Some even give it a Ms-India-contest touch by saying that after their MBA they want to serve the society. Ok, I know that was a bit exaggerated, but you got the point of its being so pointless.

Well, the question has been haunting me too for quite some time, but still I couldn't find a convincing answer. So, after a lot of brainstorming (one of those high-sounding-MBA-words) I've come up with my 4-Gs theory, much in line with 5-Cs of economics or 4-Ps of management.

Glitz n Glamour - One of my earliest memories of an MBA was a young guy in his early 20s, working as a top executive with an MNC, earning a fat pay package, wearing a formal suit, sitting in a plush office in a high rise. The image was created as a result of reading some business magazines, which sells on the success stories of young enthreprenuers and 30-something CEOs. Though this image gradually changed when some of my friends after completing their MBAs were placed in field jobs for sales and marketing. They used to say "glamour kya..sabun bechna ka job hi hai yaar!"

Ghostel Life - Don't even bother to look into dictionary, the 'G' is intentionally added. As I haven't been (un)fortunate enough to stay in a hostel for my grads, there has always been a feeling of missing that crazy life.


Gorgeous Girls - Due to dearth of nice girls in my Engineering college and later in IT industry, MBA seemed a lucarative option with some colleges boasting a boys to girls ratio as high as 1:2-3 in HR. Once again my MBA friends shattered my hopes by calling it a myth.
I've started doubting if this species really attends any college as everyone seems to agree with the 99%-of-girls-are-beautiful-remaining-1%-are-in-my-college school of thought.

Getting Back to School - After working for so long in the same company, I need a break from the routine life of project deadlines, office politics, appraisal issues, salary concerns, etc and going back to school seems to be the only escape route.

Some people say that I never had a genuine reason to go for an MBA and I just say "Wait, till I come up with another reason".

I've already started looking for words starting with the alphabet 'G'!

Tour de' ISB

As I'm in Hyderabad on a official trip I thought of visiting the Indian School of Business (ISB) campus. They organise a campus tour on every Friday from 6.00 PM to 7.30 PM (maybe I should charge ISB for advertising this). So, I went online to book a slot for yesterday, but found that the batch was already full. Disappointed, I just dropped a mail to the Admissions Office saying that I'm from Mumbai and wanted to take the tour. To my surprise, after few hours I got an invitation from them, something that I might not expect from other established Indian B-schools.

The campus is located on the outskirts of the city and sprawls in an area of more that 250 acres. I'd not say that the infrastructure is phenomenol because that would be an understatement. 'Truly worldclass' would put it more appropriately.

The tour started with the tour guide showing us all the facilities present on campus from shops, banks, sports facilities to everything required for an years' stay. After this we headed for a classroom where the presentation was to be given about ISB and its admission process.


The ISB song '525600 minutes @ ISB' with slides showing the student life at ISB really made me nostalgic about my college days, which now seems like ages before. The presentation was handled by a student from the current batch and a guy from Admissions Committee. They went through the slides explaining why ISB is ranked in the top 20 B-schools of the world. By the way, it's the first B-school to get into this league in the very first decade of its inception. Some more stats were thrown at us, which we normally find on the ISB website.

Next came the most interesting part of the tour - 'Q & A session'. I was amazed to see the diverse mix of people attending the session. In the group of 50 odd people, we'd Army officers, Airforce officers, CAs, Consultants, News Reporters and obiviously a lot of Software Engineers. It was pretty visible from the queries asked that people were so specific about what they wanted from an MBA. There were some budding entrepreneurs also, who wanted to know how ISB could help them with their business plans.

I almost fell off my chair when the person behind me asked - "I've 16 years of work experience and I'm CEO of four companies. How could MBA at ISB help me"? They said it all depended on what he wanted from an MBA degree at this point of his career. Later he revealed that he wanted to take a break from work (maybe mid-life crisis) and wanted to utilize it properly. I was glad that we'd similar reasons for doing an MBA, only with a slight difference that he'd been in the industry a bit longer than me.

The gentleman next to Mr CEO was an Army Officer. He wanted to know how his application would be evaluated as he may not have best of acads and GMAT score. They said that it is entirely on case by case basis and each year around 5-7 Defense Officers join the program. Even the class President of current batch is an ex-Lt Colonel. When he asked - "Would it matter if I get a referrel from the Chief of Army Staff"? I almost fainted.

Why don't they ban such people from applying is what I was thinking on my way out. And this is not all. It's a weekly tour. Next week another group of aspirants would visit the campus and another one on the week next to that and so on.

The session turned out to be an eye-opener. I could now imagine the kind of people who finally make it. Some food for thought and a lot to be done. They say, aim for the stars and you'll atleast land up at the Twin Towers. Oh! that stupid Osama even destroyed them.