Indian Institutes of Management and Interview Essay

With academic internships on Internshala (likes of CERN, JNCASR, EPFL etc.) ruling the roost, we collect been inundated with requests for tips on how to write an impressive Statement of pop the oral sex ( fleece). The kind which grabs selection charges attention and forces them to accept you in virtuoso go. We present, a been in that location and dupee that, expert dictateing you the finer nuances of how to write an effective trite procedure. astir(predicate) the author Nirmal Jayaram graduated from IIT Madras in 2006 post which he did his M.S & Ph.D from Stanford University. Whether Nirmal is synonymous with the bourne Academic Brilliance or coined it I am non sure. ideal this he graduated with a CGPA of 9.54 from IIT Madras (last 4 sem GPA creation 10/10), he had calls from all 6 IIMs and att breaked converses of only 2 and born-again both including IIM Ahmedabad. But of course he did non join it. He had admits with full scholarships from Stanford, MIT, Berkley , Cornell, UTA, & Purdue. Rumors has it that MIT admission committee s sheded him for weeks to swing his decision in their favor and sulked for months when he went to Stanford instead. With these certification, if I were you I would pay VERY attached attention to what he has to say on plunge theme.Happy edition 1. Understand what a avowal of r break throughine means Youve probably been in situations where you control to choose one among several exciting alternatives. Recruiters face the corresponding scenario while dealing with several good resumes intended at the homogeneous job opening. The invokement of intend gives you an opportunity to connect all your finishing materials together and express to the recruiter why you fit the role the best. To understand what goes into a good record of purpose, you need to put yourselves in the recruiters shoes, and targetvas to get a feel for the two burning questions a recruiter has 1. wherefore atomic number 18 you pursualed in the opening? Some metres the answer to this might be limpid. You on-going argona of study/ be pertinacious could fountainhead be tight tie in to the job opening, but it still cant woe to clearly enunciate your interest in this argona of micturate and how that helps you destiny upon further in your intended line of achievement path. Naturally this is much much than than fundamental when the job opening is in an area unrelated to your live area of utilisation, although you might believe that the tender area is really your calling.The end goal is that the recruiter necessitate to believe that you are very serious roughly this opening and you would give it your all once you actually get the job. to a greater extent(prenominal) on this later. 2.What do you bring to the table? So, you view as shown the recruiter that no one could be any more serious approximately the opening than you are. Youve won half the battle, but you still need to prove that you are non all bluster and you are capable of performing the work at a very elevated level. Your resume does this for you eruptly, but the statement of purpose gives you an opportunity to highlight or so of your major achievements and skill sets that are fast related to the job of interest. 2. Tell a story, your story Lets talk about structuring your statement of purpose for a bit. Your statement of purpose needs to tell your story in such a authority that the recruiter clearly understands your background, your capabilities and your suitableness for the job. there are some(prenominal) government agencys to structure a statement of purpose, and this would be one Who are you and what do you do currently? Start out with your current schooling background and what got you there. perhaps you were inspired by pure science as a kidskin and ended up as a physicist. Maybe you were excited by the world of algorithms in high school that inspired you to pursue the guinea pig of computer science . Or by chance you even wanted to build the following Eiffel tower and decided to become a Civil Engineer What are your current academic credentials? Dedicate some part of your statement of purpose to explain your academic achievements and credentials in your current education program. If you did great in your college entrance exam or in your college exams, state it here and explain how this reflects your dedication to your current field and the hard work you are ready to put in. If you won scholarships through with(predicate), for example, the National Talent look to Examination, make sure the recruiter knows that. What is your current state of knowledge? Most disciplines are very broad and several(a), and it is imperative that you explain your specialization in more detail. Discuss your coursework and explain why you chose to specialize in the area that you did. call up that the job opening requires an intern that pursues research in the analyses of large info sets. You coul d be a mathematician and might generate pursued a diverse set of courses, but you need to explain why the field of selective information mining excites you the most. You need to unique(predicate)ally identify your data mining-related coursework that clearly illustrates that you have the theoretical background to succeed at this new job. Discuss your preceding(a) projects This is particularly critical for research based jobs that require that you be creative, cozy working in open-ended troubles, good at communicating orally and in written, and will not get easily frustrated by occasional unvoicedies in furthering the project due to research complexities. Some jobs in like manner require that you be capable of working without much guidance or work as part of a large team. The most diaphanous way to communicate that you possess the above-mentioned skills is to provide a abbreviated description of all your past projects and the skill sets you demonstrated along the way. sever ally journal or conference papers that you published as part of your projects will go a long way in dowry you get a research-oriented job Discuss your non-technical skills A cluster of undefeated people are technically sound but also magnetised and possess excellent inter in-person skills. These are virtually essential qualities in modern work places and activities that youve been part of where you have demonstrated these skills should help you big. such(prenominal) activities include playing a leadership role in a department or college level association, being part of NSS, or maybe even running your own small startup Identify yourself with the conjunction/ university It is of utmost importance that your statement of purpose does not look generic, instead an seems well crafted to the specific job opening. It would be wise to discuss concisely about your interest in the specific workplace and not except the nature of work, and in particular detail the attempts youve made to learn more about the workplace.3. Ensure that the statement of purpose is written in a professional manner A poorly worded statement of purpose with spell out or well-formed errors is a big invert move out that would sure pique your cause. Request help from friends and colleagues regarding possible wording changes that would make the see look more professional. Avoid terminalinology and wording that arent obvious to the reader, and remember that various countries may use different terminologies to refer to the aforementioned(prenominal) word. Keeping these sensitivities in mind will help. 4. Be brief Recruiters do not have the time or energy to read through a rambling 4 page essay. The statement of purpose shouldnt exceed a couple of pages and should be to the point. We are not seek to author the next Lord of the Rings hereStatement of Purpose (SOP) is a document containing ones person-to-person and professional expound which makes the t withdraw of knowing a unreserv edate for the MBA school much easier. It is a concise essay about ones career goals, identify means to achieve them, and accomplishments so far in reaching towards those goals. An SOP often acts as the yardstick for assessing the capabilities of a prospective student of the MBA School. What should your SOP contain?According to top experts the answers to the following queries mustiness be there in your SOP You, your background and personality The reason or reasons for making a particular career choice Your hobbies Your short-term and long-term career goals Social initiatives taken by you, if any Leadership qualities demonstrated by you How you have dealt with failure Example of teamwork at the workplace Strengths and weaknesses Ethical dilemmas onslaught by youPreparing for piece the SOPSome suggestions on how to prepare for writing the SOP Think deeply about matters concerning you, your choices and aspects of personality. Adopt pre-writing strategies and jot bring thoughts a s they occur Prepare a rough draft and ascertain it to remove any errors. Start well in advance.While writing the SOPSOP is an extremely important document that you will have to prepare beforehand you will be accepted into any MBA School. You must ensure that your SOP lacks any kind of spelling or grammatical error. Your ability to write at an acceptable level will tell a great deal about you as an overall student, so do not neglect to proofread your document before submitting it. The SOP must make an interesting read otherwise it wont leave any impact on the readers minds. Integrate your knowledge about the B-school with your career goals, as this will make it seem as though there is really no other school that you are sentiment of attending. Some important points to keep in mind while writing the SOP OriginalityThe answers have to reflect the distinctive you all the way. So, be original. write Paste exercises will do more harm than good as one shoe size does not fit all, esp ecially in basis of personality.Relevance analyze the question very carefully before you start framing your essay. Consider the question entertain detail your long-term career goals. Why have you classified them as long term? Do you foresee any change in these goals in the emerging? Now, you must be careful in crafting a reply to each question in a convincing manner. Concentrating only on the first off segment will make the statement lopsided and put off the admissions jury.ConcisenessEvery word, every sentence should be present in the essay for a purpose. Rambling and undirected thoughts are a no-no as your essay will be condition a couple of transactions within which the panel member has to locate something memorable and distinctive. visionImagery means using words that enable demos to form in the minds of the reader. For example, the explicate turning point is better than writing The course of my life changed resolutely at that point because it succeeds in giving rise to a picture in the mind of the reader.Avoiding slang expressionUsing too much jargon clichs or long-winded sentences obscure the point you want to convey. captain tone and elements of standard usage There is a world of exit in the way we articulate and the way we write. You should avoid informal means or slang while penning the academic essay. Keeping the standard elements of usage in mind will go a long way in ensuring admittance in the MBA School. It takes a push-down stack of time and engages your mind to undergo lot of thinking before you come up with the perfect SOP. So you should start much before. whole this takes time, so go writing the SOP well in advance. Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more on MBA admission tips guy rope Toppers share their GD, PI & WAT inducesWhen a student is selected by a top B School, it is ensured that he has not just scored well in CAT but has also performed well in the root Discussion,Personal Interview and or Written Ability Test (WAT) or Essay Writing rounds. This page will give you the GD, PI & WAT meets of the CAT 2011 toppers who are now students of the academic year 2013-15 of the top B schools. I had an enjoyable WAT & PI experience of IIM Ahmedabad B Sekhar Anand IIM Ahmedabad Tricky WAT by IIM Indore Vishal Vyas IIM IndoreMy audience at XLRI lasted for 15 minutes Arjun Gupta XLRI Jamshedpur I had a grilling oppugn session at Common approach Process of new IIMs Siddhant Gupta IIM Raipur WAT & PI experiences of top 3 IIMs Anusha Subramanian IIM Bangalore If you are a fresher, be thorough with your subjects for PI Parag Poddar IIM Indore My WAT return was on foreign coaches at Indian sports Aditya Agar IIM Bangalore My audience experience was different in the top tetrad IIMs Mohit Srivastava IIM Bangalore There was no stress at my audience it was a candid dialogue with learn men Tanishq Goyal IIM AhmedabadI had an enjoyable WAT & PI experience of IIM Ahmedabad, B Sekhar Anand IIM Ahmedabad Q Please sha re your WAT/PI experience in detail.A My WAT/PI experience was very enjoyable. The topic for WAT was on corruptions affects- a topic that I was comfortable with. The PI on the other hand was skewed towards my academics. A lot of preparation beforehand helped me answer most of the questions. though I could not answer a few, the interviewer was fairly satisfied with my approach to those questions.Tricky WAT by IIM Indore, Vishal Vyas IIM IndoreQ Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail. A WAT and PI were the two vital stages of IIM Indore selection process. WAT was somewhat guileful with a question on prcis writing and another enquire about my opinion in a given situation where a choice was to be made between a family managed business and a professionally run organization. PI probably was the most challenging part, with the interviewers asked extensively about by job profile and nature of work asunder from a good amount of general knowledge. Work experience was someway a dif ficult part to tackle with questions ranging from basic programming concepts to effort quality standards and their constituents. Overall, it was a mixed kind of interview which had its own high points and lows. I was hoping to convert with a good performance on almost all the measures which I later did.My interview at XLRI lasted for 15 minutes, Arjun Gupta XLRI Jamshedpur Q How many GDPI rounds have you had? Please share your experiences in detail. A I be the GDPI rounds for the following institutes NMIMS, Core XIMB, PGDM & PGDM(HRM) SPJIMR(FIN) XLRI (BM & HRM)SPJIMRs admission process is unique in the sense that they call you on the basis of your profiles. In the group interview rounds also, the emphasis is on ethical motive and values. They question you comprehensively on your work-experience, if any. XLRI has a single PI round for the BM program. The interview covers all the important points, viz., work-experience, Graduation subjects (Math, especially for Engineers), current affairs and ethics. Highly capricious stuff, I must say. The HRM program has both GD & PI components. My interview went on for around 15 minutes in which I was questioned a lot about purifications, economies and technologies. I was asked to relate the factors citing suitable instances. Some questions on work experience and mathematics were also there.GD topic was related to IT sector. It was moderately basic hence I did not face any problem during the GD. XIMB had a single GDPI round for its BM and HRM programmes. The GD was related to Income discrimination and was manageable. The interview again revolved around my work-experience. We had a very candid discussion instead of an interview. I could easily answer all their queries related to work. NMIMSs GD was related to the airline sector. The interview was about gas pedal/Diesel pricing, Basic Share Markets term and history about my bring up company. For all the above GDPIs, I brushed up my Graduation Subjects well. Read about the major issues which are plaguing the nations, basic indices to measure economic wellness & society, knowledge about the parent company, its product profile, job role, etc.I had a grilling interview session at Common Admission Process of new IIMs Siddhant Gupta IIM RaipurQ Please share your WAT/PI experience in detailA I had my WAT/PI in Delhi. I was given a topic on financial crisis in Europe. I was asked to speak on any topic from current affairs during the interview. I chose to talk on KFA bailout. I explained the problem and was asked for possible solutions. I suggested some solutions and a few cross questions were fired. Then I was asked a few questions on chemistry (I am a chemical engineer). Towards the end, I was grilled on Which IIM will I choose if I happen to get quintuple converts. I linked it to the question related to the meaning of name and the panel seemed impressed.WAT & PI experiences of top 3 IIMs, Anusha Subramanian IIM Bangalore Q Please share your WAT/PI exp erience in detail.A Let me share my experiences of attending IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore. IIM Calcutta I had a good WAT and GD. My interview was mostly about events doing the rounds, a few mathematics questions, logic puzzles and some general questions about my future plans, etc. IIM Ahmedabad The WAT was sly as we were given only 10 minutes to complete the essay. I was questioned on a wide range of topics ranging from work, recent happenings in the software program industry and academics. IIM Bangalore My interview with IIM Bangalore was almost entirely based on the statement of purpose submitted before. I was quizzed in great detail about specific points in my SOP, regarding my work experience and future plans.If you are a fresher, be thorough with your subjects for PI, Parag Poddar IIM Indore Q Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail.A The WAT process for IIM Indore involved summarizing an article in one-third word specialize and was followed by es say writing. I had been practicing essays during my GD/WAT preparations and this helped me perform well in the WAT section. This was followed by PI. Being a fresher, I was questioned thoroughly on my subjects. Professors suss out every aspect of my personality through questions on general awareness, GK, current affairs and my background. The interview was a great learning experience and helped me pronounce myself better and identify areas of improvement.My WAT topic was on foreign coaches at Indian sports, Aditya Agar IIM Bangalore Q Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail.A At IIM Bangalores WAT/PI process, I was asked to first write an essay on Foreign coaches are a waste of money in Indian sports. My interview was centered on my experience at work and I was asked a lot of questions on the contributions I made to the organization. All in all, the interview was a big political campaign of gambleing out what I gave to the organization I worked for and to the college I came from, which, trust me is very difficult to comprehend.My interview experience was different in the top four IIMs, Mohit Srivastava IIM Bangalore Q How was your WAT/PI experience?A The interview experience was very different at all the four IIMs. IIM Lucknow was focussed more on general affairs. IIM Bangalore was mostly academics and SOP based (they actually asked me an algorithm) IIM Calcutta was purely quant based in terms that the first five questions were based on Permutations and Combinations. After I satisfactorily answered them the interviews started asking me questions on Seattle and where all I had been in Seattle. IIM Ahmedabad was very unpredictable in terms that most of the questions were not from my strength. It was somewhat less academic.There was no stress at my interview it was a candid conversation with learned men, Tanishq Goyal IIM Ahmedabad Q Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail.A I got calls from all 13 IIMs, but I gave interviews for the top four only. In IIM Ahmedabad, the WAT topic was In todays world, business and ethics dont go hand in hand. The questions ranged from my work experience, puzzle out math problem, my hobby tennis to politics. The entire interview was like a candid conversation with learned men on some stochastic topics. There was no stress at all.Personal InterviewA personal interview is aimed at knowing a view more considerably assessing the clarity of thinking process, future goals and the fit with the B-school. A personal interview is aimed at knowing a panorama more intimately assessing the clarity of thinking process, future goals and the fit with the B-school. Personal Interview What does it test?Analytical Skills During the personal interview, Interviewer will check the analytical skills of the candidate in ways that cannot be done with a written test. Certain questions during the personal interview are devised to see how the candidate can analyze a situation and create a solution. For example, an employer may ask a candidate to explain a time when the candidate had to work quickly against a pending deadline. In the personal interview, the employer can ask follow-up questions to turn over deeper into the candidates critical thinking process, to see if he/she fits to be a part of the Institute/organization Goal Clarity Why do want to do an MBA? How does it fit into your career goals? What do you privation to do after your MBA? These are some hard questions that you will have to answer almost invariably in all Interviews. These questions search the sexual motivations of a candidate, and there are no right answers. The only way to answer these questions is to introspect what excites and motivates you what makes you perform your best what would you really like to do in your life, and how do you genuinely see an MBA helping. Tough questions, but answering them honestly is critical for your success Why MBA? is the most important question that MBA aspirants need to answer. There is no good answer for this. The answer needs to be your answer. In other words, you need to think deeply, introspect and find out what it is that really drives you. So put on your thinking cap, do some soul searching and then jot down the answers to whats your goal questions.Communication When an employer is engaged in a personal interview with a candidate, he will listen to hear how the candidate gives answers to questions, mention for body language that can indicate the candidate is not being truthful or is uncomfortable determine confidence by gauging centre of attention contact. Is the student is able to effectively communicate using his entire body, etc and these skills can only be judged during a personal interview.Domain Knowledge inclined that a good MBA is a demanding programme, B-schools would like to know how you will be able to cope up with the academics and the extra-curricular 24 x 7 demands of your new campus. They are also keen to assess how you have utilized the earlier learning opportunities. Be prepared to discuss different specialty areas in business and their responsibilities. Interviewers will also expect you to discuss current issues in business, including the economy, taxation, foreign competition, the role of technology and ethical challenges in the field. So be careful about the gates you open, and be very sure you have in-depth knowledge about whatever you mention.For e.g. if you say you have an avid interest in Badminton, be ready for questions pertaining to Prakash Padukone, Deepika Padukone, plastic shuttles v/s plumage shuttles, Saina Nehwal etc. It is advisable to brush up 2-3 subjects from your graduation thoroughly if you are a student fresh out of college. Also, contextual knowledge of the environs around you as well as general knowledge comes quite handy.Presentation Candidates who do not take the time to create a professional presentation for a personal interview can hurt their chances for getting the job. A personal interview gives the employer the opportunity to see what the candidate considers to be professional grooming, professional attire and a professional attitude. A candidates resume may be impressive, but if he shows up to the interview 30 minutes late and is not dolled up in professional interview attire, then he may not be the candidate you are looking for.Attitude In a personal interview it is not always the answer you give to a question that is important, but how you give that answer. An interviewer is well aware of the corporate culture within his institute and a personal interview gives the interviewer a chance to gauge the candidates attitude to see if there is a match with the institute.Importance of an InterviewWho Conducts MBA Interviews?Every business school has different policies when it comes to MBA interviews. Typically, an MBA interview is conducted by one or more members of the admissions committee. However, it is not different to be interviewed by current students or alumni. Professors do not commonly conduct admissions interviews, but there are a few schools who do assign faculty members to the task. No matter who interviews you, expect a lot of questions and an evaluation. Most admissions committees have a form that they work off.They will ask you specific questions from the form. If you are being interviewed by other students or alumni, dont expect anything different. They have probably been trained by the admissions committee to use the form or ask specific questions. Read more about the different types of MBA interviews. Personal Interview can also turn out to be an opportunity to sell yourself. While intimidating for some MBA-hopefuls, the personal interview represents a prime opportunity. Interviews allow you the chance to not only put a face and personality to the name and credentials on your application file, but also to express your academic, personal, and professional accomplishments, experiences, and intentions.