If you are reading this, you are thinking about how personal interviews at B-schools get conducted. Don’t worry, I am here to help you with that by sharing my experience. I am currently pursuing my Master of Business Administration(MBA) from the Department of Management Studies(DMS), IIT(ISM), Dhanbad.
Hello everyone, this is Ankita Mandal. I am a B. tech graduate and currently pursuing MBA core at DMS, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad. All of us had different dreams at different stages in our life. When we are in school, preparing for our 10th grade, our goals are to select the streams of our choice. After 12th our goals change, to selecting a good course for the desired career path. Being a science student, my choice was Engineering. I decided to go for higher studies after engineering during my B. Tech days itself. I had two options join an M. tech programme through GATE or joining an MBA programme through CAT. I was more inclined towards a career in Management; hence I went with the MBA programme. I was in my final year of college, and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to crack CAT in my first attempt. Nevertheless, I decided to give CAT 2021 a shot. I thought it as a practice test and promised myself that I would do better next year within which my B. Tech would also be completed. Keeping this in mind, I started preparing for CAT 2021 along with my placements. In November 2021 I wrote CAT and at the same time I got placed in Cognizant, TCS and Wipro. I was pretty sure I was going to go for a job and hopefully, prepare for CAT 2022 along with it. Surprisingly, I got a good percentile in CAT with which I was eligible to apply to various IIMs and IITs. I was determined to not do MBA from a private college so, I skipped those applications. Most MBA aspirants would know that to get into colleges, there are two more steps after CAT. One is WAT (Writing Ability Test) and the other is a Personal Interview. Some institutes conduct group discussions as well. Due to COVID, most of the institutes I applied to limit the process to a personal interview. As I have given interviews for my placement previously and having aced them all, I was confident about my personal interviews. Prior to my application to IIT Dhanbad, I received calls from few IIMs. Their admission process was a great experience and it helped me in my interview to IIT Dhanbad. IIT Dhanbad personal interview came after. In the interview, first I was asked to show my CAT score card, my 10th and 12th mark sheet and final semester mark sheet of engineering. The panellists started off by asking me some general questions and some situational questions. Thankfully, I could answer them all with confidence. Finally, they asked me about selections from any other institutions, to which I talked to them about a call from IIM Rohtak. Then, the panellists asked me, what if you convert to IIM Rohtak and IIT Dhanbad?
Profile: GEM 98.07%, 26 month workex
Interview Experience at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay 2022Date - 3rd March, 2022
SJMSoM - IIT Bombay is one of the best institutes of management in India and I cannot boast enough about being a part of its flagship MBA course for the session 2022-24. Even getting an interview call from SOM was a big deal for me as I am a person with a GEM profile (General, Engineer, Male) with a short stint of 3 months with a Big 4 firm. I even had interview calls from all IIMs except BLACKI and other colleges like NITIE, FMS and IIFT and appeared for the interviews in all of them. One of the things that amused me with regard to the interview process was the Gather platform which was used to conduct interviews very interactively. This allowed us to interact directly with our mentors on the platform and other candidates as well which was a stress reliever during the stressful waiting time before the interviews. The experience all in all seemed as if we had visited the campus for the interviews but in a virtual setting (kind of Metaverse experience). Another thing that impressed me during the interview process was that the seniors who managed the process were very helpful and supportive at the same time and guided us on document verification, how to deal with the interview that was to come and what should be expected from interviews of SOM in general. As many of you might know that the interviews in SOM are generally taken by 3 panellists with one panellist belonging to the candidate’s graduation domain and thus technical questions from graduation specialization were expected. But to my surprise, almost no technical questions specific to my domain were asked to me. This was because I was lucky enough to get a panellist with a similar interest which was the Indian Air Force and we led a casual discussion around the topic with a few questions like the lens used in my spectacles, the name of a few fighter planes and the countries providing them etc.
Through the first time I got their email, I was surprised. One of the largest institutes in the country was taking their interviews through an online video-game-like role playing server? It tickled me even more because the entire process up till this date had been so smooth and seamless that this seemed even more foreign to me. However, I could not hope for a better way because it was handled beautifully.
My interview was held online. It was a very short interview lasting only 5 minutes. Panellists (P1, P2, P3) where P1 was an economics teacher, P2 was a professor in finance and P3 was IITB alumni.
If you are reading this, you are thinking about how personal interviews at B-schools get conducted. Don’t worry, I am here to help you with that by sharing my experience. I am currently pursuing my Master of Business Administration(MBA) from the Department of Management Studies(DMS), IIT(ISM), Dhanbad.
Hello everyone, this is Ankita Mandal. I am a B. tech graduate and currently pursuing MBA core at DMS, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad. All of us had different dreams at different stages in our life. When we are in school, preparing for our 10th grade, our goals are to select the streams of our choice. After 12th our goals change, to selecting a good course for the desired career path. Being a science student, my choice was Engineering. I decided to go for higher studies after engineering during my B. Tech days itself. I had two options join an M. tech programme through GATE or joining an MBA programme through CAT. I was more inclined towards a career in Management; hence I went with the MBA programme. I was in my final year of college, and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to crack CAT in my first attempt. Nevertheless, I decided to give CAT 2021 a shot. I thought it as a practice test and promised myself that I would do better next year within which my B. Tech would also be completed. Keeping this in mind, I started preparing for CAT 2021 along with my placements. In November 2021 I wrote CAT and at the same time I got placed in Cognizant, TCS and Wipro. I was pretty sure I was going to go for a job and hopefully, prepare for CAT 2022 along with it. Surprisingly, I got a good percentile in CAT with which I was eligible to apply to various IIMs and IITs. I was determined to not do MBA from a private college so, I skipped those applications. Most MBA aspirants would know that to get into colleges, there are two more steps after CAT. One is WAT (Writing Ability Test) and the other is a Personal Interview. Some institutes conduct group discussions as well. Due to COVID, most of the institutes I applied to limit the process to a personal interview. As I have given interviews for my placement previously and having aced them all, I was confident about my personal interviews. Prior to my application to IIT Dhanbad, I received calls from few IIMs. Their admission process was a great experience and it helped me in my interview to IIT Dhanbad. IIT Dhanbad personal interview came after. In the interview, first I was asked to show my CAT score card, my 10th and 12th mark sheet and final semester mark sheet of engineering. The panellists started off by asking me some general questions and some situational questions. Thankfully, I could answer them all with confidence. Finally, they asked me about selections from any other institutions, to which I talked to them about a call from IIM Rohtak. Then, the panellists asked me, what if you convert to IIM Rohtak and IIT Dhanbad?
Profile: GEM 98.07%, 26 month workex
Interview Experience at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay 2022Date - 3rd March, 2022
SJMSoM - IIT Bombay is one of the best institutes of management in India and I cannot boast enough about being a part of its flagship MBA course for the session 2022-24. Even getting an interview call from SOM was a big deal for me as I am a person with a GEM profile (General, Engineer, Male) with a short stint of 3 months with a Big 4 firm. I even had interview calls from all IIMs except BLACKI and other colleges like NITIE, FMS and IIFT and appeared for the interviews in all of them. One of the things that amused me with regard to the interview process was the Gather platform which was used to conduct interviews very interactively. This allowed us to interact directly with our mentors on the platform and other candidates as well which was a stress reliever during the stressful waiting time before the interviews. The experience all in all seemed as if we had visited the campus for the interviews but in a virtual setting (kind of Metaverse experience). Another thing that impressed me during the interview process was that the seniors who managed the process were very helpful and supportive at the same time and guided us on document verification, how to deal with the interview that was to come and what should be expected from interviews of SOM in general. As many of you might know that the interviews in SOM are generally taken by 3 panellists with one panellist belonging to the candidate’s graduation domain and thus technical questions from graduation specialization were expected. But to my surprise, almost no technical questions specific to my domain were asked to me. This was because I was lucky enough to get a panellist with a similar interest which was the Indian Air Force and we led a casual discussion around the topic with a few questions like the lens used in my spectacles, the name of a few fighter planes and the countries providing them etc.
Through the first time I got their email, I was surprised. One of the largest institutes in the country was taking their interviews through an online video-game-like role playing server? It tickled me even more because the entire process up till this date had been so smooth and seamless that this seemed even more foreign to me. However, I could not hope for a better way because it was handled beautifully.
My interview was held online. It was a very short interview lasting only 5 minutes. Panellists (P1, P2, P3) where P1 was an economics teacher, P2 was a professor in finance and P3 was IITB alumni.