MBAUniverse.com now presents Q&A with MBA students who are studying at Prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) and other premier B-schools. The institutes include IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore, IIM Lucknow, SJMSOM of IIT B and others.
MBA Aspirant, this Q&A series will give you the idea of how IIMs and other premier B-schools conduct GD/PI rounds, what they tests in GD/PI rounds and student's advice to MBA aspirants.
Read below the Q&A with Nagendra, the first year student of Post Graduate Programme in Management of IIM Lucknow.
Q&A with Krishna, IIM Lucknow
What does your institute call/term the personal interaction and assessment rounds, and when and where were they held last your?
Last year, the institute conducted essay writing, followed by a GD and then an interview. The process was held in major cities across the country in major cities and started in the month of February. It is normal practice to issue these details to shortlisted candidates once the shortlists of institutes are announced.
What was the 'format' of these rounds when you took them last year?
The format as mentioned above was essay writing followed by a GD and then an interview. The group (about 10 in size) was given a topic on which they had to write an essay. The duration for this was about 15-20 minutes. The GD was then based on the same topic. The GD too lasted for about 15 minutes. Then the candidates were individually interviewed. The duration of the interview was candidate specific.
According to you, what do the personal interaction and assessment rounds aim to assess/ test in the MBA applicants?
According to me, the first and foremost criteria would be an assessment of the overall academic ability of the candidate. Since the course is academically rigorous, this is an important test. Next would be his/her intent for doing an MBA. Third would be an assessment of the candidates communication ability and general awareness. Please note that this view is strictly personal and each institute has its own set of qualification criteria.
I would like to answer this in 2 parts.
Second, for candidates with not so significant work-experience, the focus would be on their academic projects, extra curricular activities in college (if any) and of course their courses itself. So, it is best to be prepared to face questions on these.
Common to both sets of candidates would be questions on general awareness. I would personally suggest candidates to read a business daily or magazine regularly for this. Also, interviewers would sometimes like know about the candidates hobbies. This really comes in handy to assess the candidate's abilities outside of academics, which is also a very important part of an MBA course.
Lastly, I would expect every candidate to have a sound answer to the following questions:
Give me a brief introduction of yourself.2) Why MBA? 3) Where do you see yourself after your MBA?
Click below to read the MBAUniverse.com Special series of articles by leading MBA test prep companies experts on GD/PI.
MBAUniverse.com Special: How to excel in final frontier – the GD round
http://www.mbauniverse.com/admission_2009_coverage.php?id=1739
