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"