IIMK GD/PI experience

Had my GD/PI for IIMK at Mumbai on 21st. 2 PM slot. Panel 1.


GD:
There were 10 people in my group including two ladies. The morning people had something related to population for their GD and so I was expecting something similar. Was stumped when I saw the topic:"The best things in life aren't really things." The groups was at a consensus right from the beginning. That the best things are relationships, love, satisfaction etc. which aren't tangible things. Almost everyone had similar points. No one emerged as a clear leader. A peaceful GD, at the end of which everyone was, more or less, on the same footing.

I was the fifth person to be interviewed. It was one hell of a wait because of the heat. With a neck-tie, it was even more suffocating.

p1, P2 - interviewers

p1: Tell me about yourself?
Me: Told
p1: Your father?
Me: Told
P1: your mother?
Me: Told
P1: Any siblings?
Me: Told
p1: What is this ICT? Never heard of it as a degree! (Me from DA-IICT)
Me: Told them that ours is the only college offering such a degree. Explained the course structure.
p1: Question about my percentages in one of the years.
Me: Explained them the conversion formula used in our college for grade to percentage conversion.
p1: YOu have done this course Discrete Maths. What did you study in that?
Me: Predicate Logic and Graphs.
p1: What is predicate logic?
Me: Explained.
p1: Where is it used?
Me: Was not sure. But told them that it is used in theoretical formulation of programs.
P1: YOu have heard of Poisson distribution?
Me: (was scared. Got defensive) yes. But don't remember exactly.
P1: If you have continuous data, which distribution will you use?
Me: Clueless stares.
P1: YOu should remember it na. You seem to have studied it recently.
Me: Sir, it was back in 4th semester.
P1: Ok. tell me what all distributions did you study.
Me: Told.
P1: So which one will you use for discrete data and which one for continuous data?
Me: Clueless stares!!
P1: Ok. You know what is discrete data and continuous data.
Me: Explained.
P1: You have this very interesting course "Introduction to modern algebra."
At this moment, p2 chips in.
P2: What is a ring?
Could understand him here. So there were rounds of "pardon me". Finally he asked me to tell me whatever I had studied in modern algebra.
Me: Told them about groups, rings and fields.
p1: Explain them.
Me: explained.
P1: You must be having a job through campus placements.
me: yes sir. In ________.
p1: So _______ is a good company. Go and join it. Why come to an IIM?
Me: rata hua why MBA? I said something about industry more suited for me than academics.
p1: But you have taken this elective "modern algebra" in your previous sem. People who are interested in an MBA take business/ humanities electives. But you went for such an elective which shows you are an academic type of a person.
Me: Some global gibberish.

At this juncture, p2 comes to my rescue.
p2: Are you aware of the business scenario in the country/
Me: yes. I read newspapers regularly.
p2: which one?
Me: TOI and ET.
p2: What is sensex?
Me: Told. used the term market capitalisation?
p2: What is market Cap.
Me: told.
P2: do you think the rising senses reflects a growth of economy?
Me: Yes. Explained my viewpoint. There were some counter questions. In one of the answers I used the term institutional investors.
p2: Who is an institutional investor?
Me: explained whatever I knew. Used the term scientific investing.
p2: Say I am a finance guy and I invest scientifically after doing all the research. Am I an institutional investor?
Me: No. If one is an Insitutional investor, one will go for scientific investing but reverse is not true. Somewhere used the term mutual fund.
p2: Tell me what is a mutual fund?
Me: explained.
p1: Ok. It was nice talking to you. You may leave now. ALl the best.
p2: All the best.
me: Thank you.

So. that was it. Around 10-12 minutes only. Don't know what to make out of it. Everyone was having simialr interviews. Even in GD, everyone was on an equal footing and then interviews were also quite similar for most of the people. Looks like percentiles are going to matter a lot.

The profs didn't grill me. But they weren't smiling either. The process had an air of seriousness all the time.

Next is L on 6th of March.

IIMA GD/PI experience

Hi all,

The IIM saga began for me on 18th of Feb.

I was amongst the few to be a part of the first day first show at IIMA.

Venue: IIMA KLMDC annexe
Time: 9:00 AM
Panel: 2

Case study:

There were 9 people in each panel ( 2 ladies in my panel). 4 moderators sitting in one corner each of the room and bserving us. There was a round table with number tags indicating our positions. They first checked our admit cards and then collected our forms and the photocopies that they had asked for in the call letter. Thereafter, the general instrucions for the case study were given - 5 minutes to read, 20 minutes to discuss and 5 minutes to summarise. Summary to be written in running format, not in points. We were given a write-up with the case, a pink page to note down our points and a ruled page to write the summary. In the end, all three of them were taken back.

The case:

Bharat had subscribed for a recently launched Tech magazine (launched in Dec. 2004). But was asked to wait for 2 months before he could receive the first issue. Moreover, in Jan 2005 he was told that he would have to pay more for the magazine as the costs had increased. Bharat felt that this was unfair as he had already paid for the subscription and any prise rise thereafter should not affect him. He threatened to take the distributors to the court. The distributors are in a fix because if Bharat is paid a refund, other customers will ask for the same. Moreover there cannot be a double prizing policy. S what should distributors do?

Very peaceful dicussion. Everyone was able to speak whenever he/ she wanted. Not much digressing from the topic. But the points raised were also very general. None of the points was such that the group hooked on to it and discussed it for some time. In fact, with 5 minutes more to go, one of us almost brought an end to GD but saying that "in the end we have agreed that...". Fortunately, a new point came up (courtesy: yours truly) and the group could discuss further till the moderator asked us to stop.



The interview started within 10 minutes of the GD. I was the second person to be interviewed. And so I ahd no preconcieved notions of the panel. Went inside with butterflies in my stomach. But the panel soon made me comfortable. In the beginning, when they were stuck on one question, I though that they were planning for a stress interview. But nope. They soon became very jovial. They were laughing all the time and therefore today, for the fist time in an interview, I too smiled. Really, very cordial panel.

Four people. Sitting on one side of the round table. However, only 3 of them asked questions. The fourth one was sitting slightly further from the table, looking at me all the time, smiling and noting down something.

P1, P2, P3 : interviewers

p1 : Yes ___, what is Dhirubhai Ambani doing (me from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of ICT )
Me: Sir, ..(with an astonished look on my face)
P1: Yes, Yes, I know he is dead. (Bursts out into laughter. I too smile)
p1: So what are his sons doing?
Me: Sir, they recently parted ways.
p1: SO whose side you are on?
Me: Tried to be diplomatic. Both are good and blah blah.
P1: No, but I want to know that if the brothers declare tommorow that all DA-IICT students have to declare their allegiance towards one of them, whom will you choose?
Me: In that case, I would go with Mukesh because I find my personality more simialr to his than Anil's.
p1: ANd what makes you think so?
Me: Sir Anil is highly enthusiastic and dynamic. Mukesh is calm, patienet, confident blah blah ..
P1: So you are not dynamic?
Me: Sir, I believe in taking up one task at a time and doing it in the best possible manner.
here p3 chips in
p3: You said MUkesh is cool, calm and so are you too. But cool these days also means dynamic. As you people say "Cool dude". WHich cool did you mean? (laughter all over)
Me: Sir, I meant Mukesh has a cool temperament.

p2 looks at a mention of the prize I had won in an event called crossword. But thinks that it is something about the bookshop crossword. he asks me whether I am a mmeber of the crossword. WHen I refuse and expalin him about what crossword actually is, he again bursts into laughter. He laughed a lot during the interview.

Now comes p2. tech guy. Asked me only acads. And never seemed to be convinced.

p2: you studied ICT? DId you specialise in anything?
Me: Yes sir, CT.
p2:How does an analog telephone work?
Me: Didn't know exactly. But told him about the carbon resistance in the microphone changing due to vibrations of the membrane when we speak, therby changing the current in the wires. (I think that the concept is correct but could not give a very technical explanation)
p2: What is the EMF of the battery used at the exchange ( Before that I had mentioned about the central batter exchanges)
Me:High 'coz they supply power to several subscribers.
p2: You said that there is the variable carbon resistance between the two wires connecting the handset and the battery. So I should get a spark when I short the two wires. But I don't
Me:Clueless here.
p2:Ok. How does a call reach from here to Timbaktoo.
Me: told about the exchanges, trunk lines. regional exchanges. etc.
p2:How man exchanges in India? Any guess?
Me: No idea. But may be around 200 in each state. So around 5000. ( Totally clueless here too)
p2: Ok. yu have studied networks.
Me: Yes sir.
p2:Tell me, what network topolgy will a telephone network be?
Me: Mesh topology
p2: Heard about tree topology? ( I think the mesh answer was wrong. Tree was the correct answer)
Me: Explained it.
p2: NEtwork topolgy of BSNL
Me: No idea.

p1 is back into action.
p1: you never felt curious?
Me: (Kya bolta? Dekhte raha unhe)

P2 back to acads.
p2; you seem to be good at probability. (Asks me a probability question.)
Me: I give the answer.He isn't convinced.

p1; How were the cellular operators in a region decided in India?
Me: I tell them about the spectrum auctions and the policy of mainatining a min and max number of operators in a circle.
p1: Why min limit?
Me: For competition.
p1: Why max limit?
Me: Too much market segmentation. Problems in spectrum allocation as spectrum is limited.
p1: No. of cellular operators in Gujarat ( Here, due to one of my answers there was again a round of laughter. I used that time to count the number of operators)
Me: 2 CDMA. 4 GSM.
p1: Name them.
Me: Named.
p1: WHy CDMA and not GSM?
Me; Explained the difference between the two.
p1: WHy only 2 for CDMA?
Me: told them..
p1: WHich countries use CDMA? Which use GSM?
Me: Answered.

Passes the baton to p3.

P3; Tell me about your other interests.
Me: Sir, reading and writing.
p3:What do you write?
Me: Articles for college magazine, daily diary, blog.
p3: What was the last article in the magazine?
Me: About my experience with CAT.
p3: WHy would anyone want to read that?
Me: blah blah
p3: What did you write?
Me: told
p3: When did you update ur blog? last blog?
Me: Told. Also told them about a bloggers community in our institute.

p3 jokes that we shuld check his blog there and then to see if I was telling the truth.

p3: Why blog? Why not just talk with people in your institute?
Me: blog without borders. Interaction with people from far off places and all that stuff ( seemed convinced)
p3: Looks at one of my crtificates and asks me about that event.
Me: answered.

At this point, our college festival "Synapse" comes into picture. so p2 asks me about actual meaning of synapse.
I give them the definition (the connection between nerve fibres) but tell them that that is all I know.

p1 again chips in.

p1: Do you watch movies?
Me: No.
p1: WHy?
Me: Am slightly impatient. Can't sit through 3 hours of a movie.
p1: last movie?
Me: Terminal

p3 is back.

p3: Which book did you read last?
Me: (last book I read was fountainhead but after reading PG threads, didn't have the guts to tell that to the panel as I am not that well-versed with Rand's philosophy). told them about Kiran Bedi's book that I am currently reading.
p3: Why that book?
me: told them that I prefer biographies.
p3; Why not Gandhi, Nehru's autobiographies?
me; Read Gandhi's. Nehru's could not complete.
p3: A few general questions about jails.

p3: ak. take your chocolate and you can go.
Me: Thank you.



So, this was all. Lasted for about 30 minutes. In fact never realised that I was in for 30 minutes. I though they hadn't asked me anything. So when they said "one last question", I was surpised. It was only after I was out that I came to know that mine was one of the "long" interviews.

Was quite happy after the interview, though later, on analysis, I found nothing special about my interview. Did not give good answers to some questions. In fact, gave incorrect answers to many of the tech questions. But most of the time, it all seemed to me like a casual chit-chat. We all were laughing a lot. It was much better than all the mocks that I had given. The panel was very good. Whatever might be the outcome, I enjoyed the process.