Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Group Interview Experience- Shray Khurana



Name: Shray Khurana
Entrance Exam Percentile: CAT 96.2, XAT 94.6
Programme and Batch: PGDM 2014-2016
Work experience: 22 months

For WAT:
1.       How was your performance in the MBA entrance exam? Also share your overall WAT experience?
I was quite satisfied with the VA, DI & LR section, however in the QA section I struggled a bit. I knew right after the section was over that I had made some silly mistakes but then nothing could be done about it. The result was also the same, my QA/DI %ile was 89 and VA/LR %ile was 98.

2.      What was your topic for WAT and what was your Time limit?
My topic for SPJIMR WAT was ‘Promoting Hockey in India’. It was more about the structure of thoughts than presenting innovative ideas; I was quite satisfied with the way I handled mine.

3.      What was your approach towards WAT and how would you rate your writing?
We had to write 1 page in about 15 minutes. I began by introducing the topic, the current situation of hockey in India, why it is important to promote it and then how to promote it. I would rate it around 8/10 for structure & flow & a 7/10 for ideas & content.

4.      How did you prepare for WAT, your Time Management strategy?
Reading newspapers, staying up-to-date with current affairs always gives content to write. Also, reading articles gave me an idea as to how to write and structure your thoughts. I devoted equal time to all the four questions of my WAT with a 5 minute planning time before writing.

5.      How did you Structured your essay writing along with the time constraint?
I broke down the topic in four questions I’d ask from the author, and then I tried to answer them with an equal importance. It helped with planning time as well as I allocated an equal share to each question.

6.      Was the topic tough for you to write? Please share the difficulty while outlining the structure for the essay and how you tackled the problem?
No the topic wasn’t tough but it is difficult to stay on track while writing about something you know about. So I wrote a rough draft first and scribbled, changed, rewrote a lot of text there. Then I wrote it in fair once I was satisfied with it.

7.      Is there any advice for the aspirants who’d be appearing in the WAT test soon?
Keep yourself up to date with the current affairs and general topics; also keep on reading regularly and practice writing once a day. This way you will feel more comfortable with structuring your thoughts which is a key to evaluation in a WAT.
For PI:
1.       How many members were there in your interview board?
We were a group of 6 aspirants as SPJIMR conducts group interviews in a group of 6, sometime 5 if there is a shortage of a candidate in a particular slot.

2.      How was your interview structured?
There were three interviewers and six aspirants. We all were given 1-2 minutes to introduce ourselves in a sequential manner. Then the interviewers started asking questions in a random order directly to the aspirants. As and when they felt like, they would ask a question directed to everybody & then everybody would pitch in the discussion.

3.      Was there any tough question for you to answer?
Yes, the toughest question is always to justify your decision to do an MBA & choosing the specialization you have opted for. I had an IT background so it was challenging for me to justify my decision of opting Finance as my preferred specialization.

4.      What were the key factors which you think influenced your selection at PI stage?
I believe I tried to remain calm and confident. Also I was able to answer some technical questions correctly, as I had read for them during my preparations, & pitching in the discussions were some factors that might have influenced my selection.

5.      How did you prepare for your PI?
Newspapers are a must. I attended mock PI sessions & read up on the basics of Finance and current economic situations. Also, I read up on my work experience related basics and practiced answers every day.

6.      Did you appear for any other PI exercise at other top B-schools? Please share a few experiences (where you went wrong).
I appeared for XLRI and IMI; I was able to convert IMI but couldn’t convert XLRI. One area where I fumbled in my XLRI interview was my engineering knowledge as it was more technical directed interview & I was under-prepared. I suggest one should read up on at least 4-5 subjects from their graduation to discuss in the interview.

7.      Any interesting moment from your PI which you would like to share with MBA aspirants
Our interviewers asked us, if we had a bucket list and today is our last day in the world, what is the 1 thing we’d want to do? This induced a lot of interesting answers from all the aspirants, some said they’d play a musical instrument they never played, some said they’d visit Ladakh, some said they’d go partying etc. It made every one quite relaxed and from that point on the interview saw a lot of passionate discussion from every one.

8.      What is your advice to aspirants for Personal Interview?
Be confident and keep a positive smile all along the interview; this helps you to get comfortable as well. Prepare on the basic questions, read up on the specialization and its current trends & also read about the college you are appearing for the PI for.

No comments:

Post a Comment