My MBA Journey -Part 11 (GD-PI Prep 2)

In this post, I will share some of the learning from my GD & PI experiences.

GD Leanings:

• It is recommended to start the GD .But it is a high risk high reward venture. One needs to be absolutely sure of the topic if one wants to start. Most important point to remember here is to give direction to the GD and set the stage for discussion. If you have no or little idea about the topic, better let somebody else start the GD and you chip in afterwards. However the earlier you enter the GD the better. Make sure to make your presence felt at least once in first 2 minutes of the GD.
• Never take a stand upfront in a GD. Try to cover all possible aspects in the GD. However if you take a stand, make sure you stick to it. Moderators penalize heavily in case you change your stand afterwards. Changing your stand shows that 1) you don’t analyze the situation thoroughly and 2 ) You are a “follower” who is easily convinced by some “leader” of the GD.
• In a 10 min GD, enter the discussion atleast 4-5 times. There is no ground rule on how much you have to speak in each entry but make sure what you speak is at least audible to moderators.
• Make heavy use of 3Ls: Listen, Listen, Listen. You have to be a patient listener (at least show that on face even if you are abusing the other person from inside :)).
• Never make an eye contact with moderator. Always address all the members in the GD. Never ever ignore even a single member while talking.
• How to deal with “Fish Market”? In case you are stuck in a fish market kind of GD which is highly probable, make sure you don’t get nervous or desperate. Try to calm the group. However if group is really gone out of control, better be a patient listener. I have seen many groups which were disqualified within 4 minutes of start of GD and only members selected were those who kept quiet during the fish market.

During mock and actual GDs , I faced both extremes :very peaceful to almost War sort of GDs. My strategy however used to be more or less the same for each flavour of GD . In my IIM Lucknow GD, which had 10 people, I was 3rd to enter the discussion. And I made some 8-9 entries in 20 minutes. Each time I tried to speak new point .I was also successful to give an entirely new avenue for the group to think and discuss in one of my points. Btw GD Topic was “You have to break a few eggs to make an Omellete”

Now I move on to the next section of the post viz. PI Preparation, learning, experiences….

For PI, as mentioned before, “Malay Ray” was the man. Apart from that I had already prepared answers to all the commonly asked questions in PI such as Why MBA, Why Now , Why this IIM , What you will be 5 yrs , 10 yrs down the line …… Make sure you rehearse the answers pretty well to these questions. Any goof –up in these answers could turn out to be very costly.
Also “Pagalguy” – forum for MBA Aspirants, was of great help. There I could get a repository of all the questions asked in the previous year in IIMs and that helped me prepare accordingly. I also made extensive use of “Wikipedia” for building my database.

Remember with limited time at your disposal, you have to be very selective in what you need to prepare/study and what not. So make sure to research well on the kind of questions asked in PI of a particular b-school.

I will end this post with some points which a candidate should bear in his mind for a PI:

• Never try to befool your interviewer. He/She knows a lot more and can easily see through your tricks. If you don’t know an answer simply say “I don’t know”. Interviewers will almost always appreciate your honesty.
• At times, interviewers will make fun of you or try to stress you. Do not get irritated or frustrated under such condition. Interviewers simply want to test your mental stability. FYI… I was stress interviewed in IIM Lucknow for 5 min which I handled without getting agitated or nervous
• At the end of the interview, if prompted by interviewers to ask a question, ask a genuine query and do not ask just for the sake of asking. Irrelevant or naïve questions could attract –ve points.

My-mba-journey-part-10 (GD & PI Prep )

It's been alomost a year since I wrote on my Blog. And the credit for this goes to IIM Lucknow, popularly known as HELL :) (more on IIM L and beyond in upcoming posts). Now I know why they say that MBA is not a piece of cake when they say it. But now when I am in realtively chilled out phase my MBA (thanks to my intern company), I commit to finish the series which I started a year ago.

So here I go with my GD & PI prepartion....

With barely less than 2 months in hand, I joined TIME , Career Launcher and Malay Ray. As I was working in Noida , it was convenient for me to join Noida centres of the above institutes (For Malay, obvioulsy I had no other option but to go to Delhi thrice a week)

Advice for prospective CAT takers: Always try to join nearest coaching institutes unless u get some coaching which is worth the extra travel and energy and money.These 2 months or so are very valuble and each second saved/waisted could make or break things on D-day.

I attended some 10-12 GD sessions in all with each session having 2-3 GDs .And there almost all type of GDs were covered (abstract/case studies/role play etc. etc.) But as mentioned earlier TIME GDs were always very fruitful, both beacuse of the manner in they were conducted and beacuse of the feedback provided by moderator.

Also there is a much hyped workshop of Career Launcher called "Boot Camp" specifically meant for IIM call getters. In "Boot Camp " students are taken to some resort outside the city for 2 days .And various events such as mock GDs, PIs , games etc. are held. I personlly don't have too favourable comments for this programme but almost everyone who attended it spoke highly of it (so future MBA aspirants could plan accordingly)
FYI.. We were taken to some place in Gurgaon and next morning, feeling bored, I ran back to Noida.

Similar worksop is conducted by TIME also at Delhi centre. It is conducted almost within a week of CAT test results. I found this worksop better than the Boot-Camp of CL.

After having attended , numerous mock GDs and actual IIM GDs , I can safely vouch for the fact that content is important but more important is how convincingly you say it. Moderators always look for person who can contribute effectively. Effectiveness includes (in no order) :-

• Speech delivery style
• Body Language
• Listening skills
  
• Content
• Leadership Skills
• Communication Skills/Englisg fluency/Accent (least imporant)

Of the above points, I believe " Leadership Skills" is most imporant and in this is embedded all other aspects of effective GD particpant. Coaching Institutes will provide you enough gyan on how to exhibit leadership skills etc (read how to fool moderators into believing that u can be a good leader:)). during that 10-15 min . So I will skip this part.

To not lengthen this post, I will contine GD&PI part in next post.

As always my 2 cents worth follow:

• There is big myth that one needs to have good communication skills to master GD. Moderators look for leadership skills and thinking ability not how well an aspirant could speak angrezzi

• Always use pen/paper and note down (after the GD) useful points which other particpants threw during the course of GD. And yes, review them regularly. This not only improves your knowledge of the topic but also provides many valuable pointers for upcoming GDs (and interviews as well)

• Read atleast 1 National English Daily such as HT/TOI/Hindu and one Business Newspaper (I recommed Economic Times for people with limited finance knowledge. Other business papers were all Greek to me :)) . Make sure you form an opinion on all the burning topics.
  

• Make extensive use of your most trutsed pal "Mr. Google" and "Wikipedia"