In the final admission round more top rated B schools like IIMs, IMI, FMS are doing away with Group Discussion (GD) round and have introduced extempore speech, Psychometric tests, Written Ability Test along with Personal Interview round. MBA Universe brings forth one of real accounts of personal interview round held in Feb.2015 for admission to International Management Institute, Delhi. Name of the candidate has been changed to protect the identity.
Our candidate Sugandha is a B. Pharma from well known university and has been working for last one year as a faculty with the role of developing training modules. She fared well in CAT 2014 scoring 90+ percentile with a consistent good academic record of 80 to 85 percentage of marks from class 10th to graduation.
Sugandha a slim girl wearing a season friendly dress, appeared in final admission round at IMI in the last week of February 2015. According to her the experience in PI-WAT round was little different from other institutes like MDI Gurgaon or IMT Ghaziabad as IMI has Psychometric testing process instead of GD
Final admission round at IMI comprises four components- essay writing, psychometric testing, personal interview and extempore speech. What actually transpired on that day is detailed below
Time to report for final admission round
Reporting Time was 9.00 A.M. and number of candidates called for the final admission round in a single day was more than 100. Late comers were accommodated but they missed the proceedings that had already taken place like briefing session. After getting the attendance sheet signed from each of the candidates, a senior faculty of the institute, probably the admission incharge, addressed the gathering highlighting the USPs of International Management Institute. A video about the institute was also shown to the candidates during the briefing session.
Essay Writing followed by Psychometric test
The first part of final admission round began immediately after screening of USPs of IMI. Instructions about the essay writing and Psychometric tests were given by the senior faculty who made it clear that psychometric test would follow essay writing and there wouldn’t be any gap between them.
Essay writing began at 9.45
Full scape paper (A4 size) sheets, one to each candidate, were distributed for essay writing. The duration for writing an essay was 15 minutes. Following two topics were given for writing a well worded essay and the candidates had to choose one of the two topics.
Topic 1- In the rising social era, people are communicating less and networking more.
Topic 2- corruption in India; cause of slow growth
Key features of Essay Writing Test
• Candidates had to choose single topic unanimously and all of them were supposed to write on that particular topic only. No such liberty for some or others to write on a topic different from the chosen one was available.
• All the candidates decided in favour of topic 1 and had to write on that one only.
• Essay of 200-250 words in 15 minutes was considered good enough.
• All the written essays were collected exactly after 15 minutes without awarding extra time.
Next was Psychometric Test
Specific instructions given to the candidates for Psychometric test were that they had to read the questions very quickly and were supposed to mark the answer with whatever clicked in their mind immediately without giving a second thought. That was the very purpose of the test and was the only way to complete it.
Psychometric question paper was distributed immediately after the essay writing. The test contained 73 questions in all. Time allotted to answer these questions was 10 minutes only.
This was adhered to strictly. Candidates had to return the sheets immediately after 10 minutes despite the fact that number of candidates couldn’t complete even half of the test.
Question examples that appeared in the Psychometric test
Questions were more or less personality based and focused to judge the candidate’s attitude. A few questions that appeared in the psychometric test are given below-
Four options to choose from were given for each question –
strongly agree/agree/disagree/stronglydisagree
1. I am highly disciplined
2. I give attention to minute details to attain perfection
3. I believe in finishing the work on time despite of quality issues.
4. I am the type of person who goes along with the crowd.
5. I agree to everybody easily
6. I am an easy going person
7. I am always cheerful
Verification of documents before PI
After psychometric testing, documents were verified during 8-10 minutes. Candidates were sent to the panelists according to the serial numbers allotted to them. Our candidate Sugandha was 5th in the row.
Personal interview
Sugandha entered the room after politely asking for the permission from the panelists (three in number). She greeted the panel bidding them good morning with a smile. The panelist sitting in the middle asks her to take the seat which she does, not forgetting to convey note of thanks to the panelist.
There were 2 male panelists with marketing and finance background and 1 female (HR) panelists. She was grilled for about30 minutes by the panelists
P1 – Introduce Yourself
Sugandha- Sir, I come from a simple middle class family. I am a B Pharma with 78 percent marks and have consistent good academic record with 85 in Xth and 83 percent in XIIth. I scored a good percentile of 91.88 in CAT 2014. I have been actively associated with various extra curricular activities right from my school level. I have been a consistently good student although never topped the school or college.
P2- Tell us something about your organization
Sugandha – Sir, the organization is registered as a non-profit society with Government of India and is a member of Quality Council of India as a professional educational institute. It presents unique, friendly and interactive platform to get rid of all your GMP related glitches. GMP is an essential element of industries like pharmaceutical, cosmetic, Ayurveda, biotech, homeopathic, medical device and food manufacturing.
P2- What role do you serve in your organization?
Sugandha- Sir, I am assisting senior faculty with the development of training modules and counselling/answering people’s query.
P2- Why do you want to do MBA now?
Sugandha- Sir, I want to take up a managerial role and am ready to face challenges associated with it but before that I want to do MBA so that I have a broader perspective of how things work in an organization and how so many activities go hand in hand. MBA will add value to my background and provide me a good platform in flourishing my career.
P2- What are lean manufacturing practices?
Sugandha- (Answered well, panelist seemed convinced)
P2- What are flexible manufacturing practices?
Sugandha– ( systematically answered covering various aspects and points related to it, panelist looked convinced)
P2-What other manufacturing practices are related with Good Manufacturing Practices?
Sugandha- Sir, Quality Assurance and Control, Pharma and healthcare Regulatory Affairs, Clinical Research, Pharmaceutical IPR and Good Laboratory Practice are other ones related to GMP
P2- What is a GMP?
Sugandha- Sir, GMP (Good manufacturing Practice) is an essential element of industries like pharmaceutical, cosmetic, Ayurveda, biotech, homeopathic, medical device and food manufacturing. GMP in itself is the most dynamic part which witnesses frequent changes in terms of newer rules being added and older ones being renewed.
P2- What is the full form of FDA?
Sugandha- Sir, it’s Food and Drug Administration.
P2- Who is the owner of Ranbaxy?
Sugandha- Sir, Dr. Tsutomu Une is the Chairman of the company and Mr. Arun Sawhney is the CEO and MD of Ranbaxy India.
P2- Who is the owner of Wockhardt?
Sugandha – Sir, Mr. Habil Khorakiwala is the Chairman and Mr. Murtaza Khorakiwala is MD of the company.
P2- Whats the value of a dollar in Rs.?
Sugandha- Rs.62. It goes on fluctuating
P3-You are from non medical stream and after that you chose B. pharma. Why so?
Sugandha- Madam, my interest towards chemistry and leaning its application in biology led me to it.
P3- Have you decided for any specialization?
Sugandha- Yes sir I look forward for a specialization in HR
(Other questions were like Draw the structure of ethanol (provided her paper and pencil); draw the structure of methanol)
Extampore speech - Last component of PI round
Two minutes were allotted to go for extempore speech on the topic given on spot in PI round. 30 seconds were given to think on the topic before beginning. Separate marks were supposed to be awarded for 2 minutes extempore in PI.
The topic for extempore was ‘Drug industry in India’
Sugandha spoke whatever she could gather and stopped herself, when the panelists asked her to, after two minutes.
P2 -You have mentioned that fear in public speaking is your weakness but you spoke well.
P1- yes you were good at speaking
Sugandha- Thanks sir, (little smile on her face). In bigger audience I fear more.
P2- Anything you would like to ask from us?
Sugandha- No sir, thank you very much
P2- OK Sugandha, thank you very much, we wish you all the best.
Sugandha- Thank you sir, Thank you Madam for such a nice learning session.
Remarks: Sugandha approached all the segments of the PI round well and is quite hopeful of converting the call to IMI.
Suggestion: In case you do not know the correct answer, please avoid guess work. It will save your time and will present a better image before the panelists.
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