How to face IIM Interviews

<h1>How to face IIM Interviews</h1>Author: <a title="Dimple Dalby" href="http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/dimple-dalby/195917.htm">Dimple Dalby</a> The focus of a B-school interview can range from specific questions about your job to broad discussions on life. Approach the interview as a conversation to be enjoyed, not as a question-and-answer ordeal. It may be about your hobbies – your recent cross-country trip. This doesn’t mean that the interviewers are not serious. It just means that you’re being sized up as a person and a future professional in all your dimensions. Try to be your witty, charming, natural self. Do not try to put on. The interviewers will be able to see your masks through. Students, faculty, admissions personnel and alumni conduct interviews. Don’t dismiss students as the lightweights. Either way, you should have in mind what you want to convey about who you are before you go into any interview. Lack of preparation is a common complaint among interviewers, and if you are prepared, you will stand out among your competitors. Prepare structured answers for the following potential questions. <ol> <li>Why should we admit you into our MBA program?</li> <li>What are your strongest abilities?</li> <li>What skills would you be bringing to the classroom?(relevant if you have job experience)</li> <li>What are you looking for in this program?</li> <li>Tell me something about yourself?</li> <li>What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses?</li> <li>Where do you want to be in 5 years?</li> <li>Why do you want to study in this institute?</li> <li>What does “success” mean to you?</li> <li>What does “failure” mean to you?</li> <li>What are your three major accomplishments?</li> <li>What have you disliked in your past jobs? (If you have worked in more than one organization)</li> <li>What kinds of people do you enjoy working with? (If you possess work experience)</li> <li>What kinds of people frustrate you?</li> <li>How long before you can make a contribution (Not monetary) to the institute?</li> <li>In the past year, what have you been dissatisfied about in your performance?</li> <li>What according to you is your ideal job and how will this program help you realise the same?</li> <li>What can you tell me about your past bosses? (If you have work experience)</li> <li>Which is more important to you: money or the type of job?</li> <li>What have you learned from your activities in college?</li> <li>Were your extracurricular activities worth the time you put into them? What have they taught you?</li> <li>What qualities should a successful manager possess?</li> <li>What two attributes are most important in your job?</li> <li>What major problem have you encountered and how did you deal with it?</li> <li>What have you done that you consider creative?</li> <li>Who do you admire? Why?</li> <li>What do you get passionate about?</li> <li>What courses are you taking? What to Expect in an IIM Personal Interview?</li> </ol> SAMPLE INTERVIEW Given below is a sample interview a student went through before he got admission in IIM-A. m-candidate p1,p2,p3- interviewers p1 was technical expert with long face covered by beard . p2 was a man with plain glasses and wide face . p3 was an old man with white hair . All the questioning was done in a cyclic order of p2p3p1p2p3p1…. Last time my grinning caused my plan to go haywire as I was grilled on marriage . So this time I thought of not smiling during the interview which was a blunder . Again I had some particular strong points which I wanted to tell at any cost , like magazine , math magic , tennis , movies and my memory. m may I come in sir p1 yeah come in manish m thank you sir . good afternoon to you all p2 good afternoon manish . See there is a lizard at that upper extreme corner of the wall and an insect at this point on the ground . Whats the shortest distance the lizard has to cover to get the insect ? ( ok so could there be a worse start than this . I was midway thru sitting on the chair and paused right there only to search for these creatures from the lost world , the lost world because they were not there . So while I was hanging in the air , I didn’t have a seat under me, I didn’t have any creatures before me and I didn’t have an answer with me . I had to imagine them to be there . I first seated myself and then tried to visualize the answer . The walls of that room were not meeting like the normal 90 degrees but at about 60 degree. The room wasn’t a 4 walled either) p2 did you get the question ? m yes sir , it will be square root of ….. p2 arre bhai , its a lizard . It can’t do these mathematics . m In that case sir , its going to fall down and rush to its prey . p2 fall down ? and get itself killed ? m but sir its a lizard ? lizard doesn’t gets hurt on falling . Moreover , the time taken during fall will be much less than than during sliding on the walls . p2 so thats what you think m yeah (a moment of silence. I got the impression that may be I was going totally wrong. They didn’t want a logical answer at all, but instead a mathematical one) p2 don’t you think this would be the shortest path ? (draws a path on the paper . Its from the lizard to the opposite point of the wall touching the ground . then straight to the insect) m sir in that way , this should be the shortest path (I gave my interpretation with a straight path from the lizard to the insect passing thru the centre of the in between wall) p2 you say that will be the shortest path m yeah (another moment of silence) p3 ok manish why is APJ Abul Kalam so famous ? m well sir apart from being the current president of our country , he was one of the few people involved in the nuclear tests carried out by India on may 11th , 1998 , monday . The operation with the code name ‘ buddha has smiled ‘ made him famous throughout the country because even I didn’t know him before that date . Afterwards he was in news for being rejected a post of teacher at IIS due to some unavailability of degrees . p3 you may have seen this xavier institute , xavier school etc . Who was this xavier ? m Sir I don’t have the exact idea but I suppose he may have been some great person in the Christian field . p1 ok manish what are you currently studying ? m Computer Engineering , final year p1 how many bytes in a kilobyte ? m 1024 p1 1024 ok whats the latest speed in the desktop equipment ? m p4 1.9 ghz (fluke, this was as per my latest information) p1 whats this hz in this 1.9 ghz (oops I didn’t knew that) m this hz is the frequency . number of instructions executed per second p1 number of instructions executed per second ?? you are a computer scientist ! you are supposed to know this.(this comment broke my heart .I didn’t have anything good to cheer about in this interview till now and that mistake seemed to be like the final blow. I thought its a gone case now) m actually what happens is when an instruction is executed, data flows thru the data bus and its fetched from the memory (pin drop silence) p2 ok manish lets say we got a nth order polynomial . you know how thats written m yea sir a0+a1*x+a2*x^2+………an*x^n p2 yeah suppose all the a’s are known and I want to find the value of this polynomial for a particular value of x . in such a way that I have to do minimum multiplication. (as disappointed I was at that moment, I heard all a’s are UNKNOWN) m first we need n-1 equations to find these a’s (another stupid mistake I did) p2 no no but all a’s are known m all a’s are known ? well then it can be simplified as a0+x(a1+x(a2+x(…..)))))) p2 ok thats right . but whats this principle called ? m I don’t know the name of this principle sir but this is the same principle used in nuclear fission , nuclear fission i mean . 1+3(1+3(1+…….)))). I read it in my 10th class p3 you are in final year m yes p3 what are you doing in your final year project ? m we are implementing a proxy server p3 its a group project m yes its a group project with me and 2 other people p3 so what exactly are you making m then I started the longest stretch of my speech. I made a thorough description of my project. whatever I knew. even though irrelevant, I just went on and on and on. (after finally I stopped) p1 whats the fastest sorting method you know ? ( i wasn’t sure ) m quicksort p1 and the slowest ( this time I was sure that i wasn’t sure ) m in the worst case bubble sort . p1 quicksort and bubblesort , are you sure ? m yes sure p1 can you explain quicksort ? m in quicksort we divide the array in half , and continue to do so till we are left with single elements , then we reverse the process and keep on joining them while sorting the individual elements ( totally wrong answer but I explained all this using my hands , so he was more looking at my hands rather than listening to me ) p1 can you write the algo of quicksort ? m since I don’t remember it , I’ll have to make it . p1 okay p2 where are you from manish ? m we are basically from an agricultural rural family in village lala district rewari. but I’ve been here in delhi through out my life and the credit goes to my father . Even though from being a agricultural family , he had the foresightedness to visualise the importance of education . He got himself educated , his brothers educated and today if my uncles are earning their livelihood they owe it to my father only. p2 what are the various problems people face in a village ? m the most important one is lack of literacy p2 and .. m and those people aren’t aware of whats happening around the world. p2 but that is because they aren’t literate m oh yeah p3 what % of India’s population is beyond the poverty line ? m I don’t know the exact number sir p3 whats the literacy rate of India m its above 50 but I am not aware of the exact figure p3 whats the literacy rate of Rajasthan ? ( oh yeah well sure , I don’t know rate of India , I will sure know that of Rajasthan ) m I don’t know p1 you have been doing programming m yeah p1 what happens to the code you write m this source code is converted to the object code and then its complied and linked to form the exe file p1 this exe file is in which language ( i didn’t knew ) m assembly language p1 assembly language ? who understands assembly language ? ( obviously assembler ) m compiler ?? p1 you are doing computer engineering ? you are way distant from accuracy ( that was it . I had lost it , I didn’t have the fuel left ) p2 whats this magazine all about ? you have written it quite many times m so finally something which was one of my strong points , something which I was totally sure of . I just went on and on in full detail p2 anything else p1 no p3 no p2 ok manish, best of luck p1 nice attempt with the magazine p3 why are you looking so pensive m thank you sirAbout the Author: Dimple Dalby writes on behalf of <a href="http://www.careers-india.com">careers-india</a>, a leading portal for careers and higher education in India and abroad.Article Source: <a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/">ArticlesBase.com</a> - <a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/how-to-face-iim-interviews-1064975.html" title="How to face IIM Interviews">How to face IIM Interviews</a>

The focus of a B-school interview can range from specific questions about your job to broad discussions on life. Approach the interview as a conversation to be enjoyed, not as a question-and-answer ordeal. It may be about your hobbies – your recent cross-country trip. This doesn’t mean that the interviewers are not serious. It just means that you’re being sized up as a person and a future professional in all your dimensions.

Try to be your witty, charming, natural self. Do not try to put on. The interviewers will be able to see your masks through. Students, faculty, admissions personnel and alumni conduct interviews. Don’t dismiss students as the lightweights.

Either way, you should have in mind what you want to convey about who you are before you go into any interview. Lack of preparation is a common complaint among interviewers, and if you are prepared, you will stand out among your competitors.

Prepare structured answers for the following potential questions.

Why should we admit you into our MBA program?
What are your strongest abilities?
What skills would you be bringing to the classroom?(relevant if you have job experience)
What are you looking for in this program?
Tell me something about yourself?
What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses?
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
Why do you want to study in this institute?
What does “success” mean to you?
What does “failure” mean to you?
What are your three major accomplishments?
What have you disliked in your past jobs? (If you have worked in more than one organization)
What kinds of people do you enjoy working with? (If you possess work experience)
What kinds of people frustrate you?
How long before you can make a contribution (Not monetary) to the institute?
In the past year, what have you been dissatisfied about in your performance?
What according to you is your ideal job and how will this program help you realise the same?
What can you tell me about your past bosses? (If you have work experience)
Which is more important to you: money or the type of job?
What have you learned from your activities in college?
Were your extracurricular activities worth the time you put into them? What have they taught you?
What qualities should a successful manager possess?
What two attributes are most important in your job?
What major problem have you encountered and how did you deal with it?
What have you done that you consider creative?
Who do you admire? Why?
What do you get passionate about?
What courses are you taking? What to Expect in an IIM Personal Interview?

SAMPLE INTERVIEW

Given below is a sample interview a student went through before he got admission in IIM-A.

m-candidate

p1,p2,p3- interviewers

p1 was technical expert with long face covered by beard . p2 was a man with plain glasses and wide face . p3 was an old man with white hair . All the questioning was done in a cyclic order of p2p3p1p2p3p1….

Last time my grinning caused my plan to go haywire as I was grilled on marriage . So this time I thought of not smiling during the interview which was a blunder . Again I had some particular strong points which I wanted to tell at any cost , like magazine , math magic , tennis , movies and my memory.

m
may I come in sir
p1
yeah come in manish
m
thank you sir . good afternoon to you all
p2
good afternoon manish . See there is a lizard at that upper extreme corner of the wall and an insect at this point on the ground . Whats the shortest distance the lizard has to cover to get the insect ?
( ok so could there be a worse start than this . I was midway thru sitting on the chair and paused right there only to search for these creatures from the lost world , the lost world because they were not there . So while I was hanging in the air , I didn’t have a seat under me, I didn’t have any creatures before me and I didn’t have an answer with me . I had to imagine them to be there . I first seated myself and then tried to visualize the answer . The walls of that room were not meeting like the normal 90 degrees but at about 60 degree. The room wasn’t a 4 walled either)
p2
did you get the question ?
m
yes sir , it will be square root of …..
p2
arre bhai , its a lizard . It can’t do these mathematics .
m
In that case sir , its going to fall down and rush to its prey .
p2
fall down ? and get itself killed ?
m
but sir its a lizard ? lizard doesn’t gets hurt on falling . Moreover , the time taken during fall will be much less than than during sliding on the walls .
p2
so thats what you think
m
yeah
(a moment of silence. I got the impression that may be I was going totally wrong. They didn’t want a logical answer at all, but instead a mathematical one)
p2
don’t you think this would be the shortest path ?
(draws a path on the paper . Its from the lizard to the opposite point of the wall touching the ground . then straight to the insect)
m
sir in that way , this should be the shortest path
(I gave my interpretation with a straight path from the lizard to the
insect passing thru the centre of the in between wall)
p2
you say that will be the shortest path
m
yeah
(another moment of silence)
p3
ok manish why is APJ Abul Kalam so famous ?
m
well sir apart from being the current president of our country , he was one of the few people involved in the nuclear tests carried out by India on may 11th , 1998 , monday . The operation with the code name ‘ buddha has smiled ‘ made him famous throughout the country because even I didn’t know him before that date . Afterwards he was in news for being rejected a post of teacher at IIS due to some unavailability of degrees .
p3
you may have seen this xavier institute , xavier school etc . Who was this xavier ?
m
Sir I don’t have the exact idea but I suppose he may have been some great person in the Christian field .
p1
ok manish what are you currently studying ?
m
Computer Engineering , final year
p1
how many bytes in a kilobyte ?
m
1024
p1
1024 ok whats the latest speed in the desktop equipment ?
m
p4 1.9 ghz
(fluke, this was as per my latest information)
p1
whats this hz in this 1.9 ghz
(oops I didn’t knew that)
m
this hz is the frequency . number of instructions executed per second
p1
number of instructions executed per second ?? you are a computer scientist ! you are supposed to know this.(this comment broke my heart .I didn’t have anything good to cheer about in this interview till now and that mistake seemed to be like the final blow. I thought its a gone case now)
m
actually what happens is when an instruction is executed, data flows thru the data bus and its fetched from the memory (pin drop silence)
p2
ok manish lets say we got a nth order polynomial . you know how thats written
m
yea sir a0+a1*x+a2*x^2+………an*x^n
p2
yeah suppose all the a’s are known and I want to find the value of this polynomial for a particular value of x . in such a way that I have to do minimum multiplication. (as disappointed I was at that moment, I heard all a’s are UNKNOWN)
m
first we need n-1 equations to find these a’s (another stupid mistake I did)
p2
no no but all a’s are known
m
all a’s are known ? well then it can be simplified as
a0+x(a1+x(a2+x(…..))))))
p2
ok thats right . but whats this principle called ?
m
I don’t know the name of this principle sir but this is the same principle used in nuclear fission , nuclear fission i mean . 1+3(1+3(1+…….)))). I read it in my 10th class
p3
you are in final year
m
yes
p3
what are you doing in your final year project ?
m
we are implementing a proxy server
p3
its a group project
m
yes its a group project with me and 2 other people
p3
so what exactly are you making
m
then I started the longest stretch of my speech. I made a thorough
description of my project. whatever I knew. even though irrelevant, I just went on and on and on. (after finally I stopped)
p1
whats the fastest sorting method you know ? ( i wasn’t sure )
m
quicksort
p1
and the slowest ( this time I was sure that i wasn’t sure )
m
in the worst case bubble sort .
p1
quicksort and bubblesort , are you sure ?
m
yes sure
p1
can you explain quicksort ?
m
in quicksort we divide the array in half , and continue to do so till we are left with single elements , then we reverse the process and keep on joining them while sorting the individual elements ( totally wrong answer but I explained all this using my hands , so he was more looking at my hands rather than listening to me )
p1
can you write the algo of quicksort ?
m
since I don’t remember it , I’ll have to make it .
p1
okay
p2
where are you from manish ?
m
we are basically from an agricultural rural family in village lala district
rewari. but I’ve been here in delhi through out my life and the credit goes to my father . Even though from being a agricultural family , he had the foresightedness to visualise the importance of education . He got himself educated , his brothers educated and today if my uncles are earning their livelihood they owe it to my father only.
p2
what are the various problems people face in a village ?
m
the most important one is lack of literacy
p2
and ..
m
and those people aren’t aware of whats happening around the world.
p2
but that is because they aren’t literate
m
oh yeah
p3
what % of India’s population is beyond the poverty line ?
m
I don’t know the exact number sir
p3
whats the literacy rate of India
m
its above 50 but I am not aware of the exact figure
p3
whats the literacy rate of Rajasthan ?
( oh yeah well sure , I don’t know rate of India , I will sure know that of Rajasthan )
m
I don’t know
p1
you have been doing programming
m
yeah
p1
what happens to the code you write
m
this source code is converted to the object code and then its complied and linked to form the exe file
p1
this exe file is in which language ( i didn’t knew )
m
assembly language
p1
assembly language ? who understands assembly language ?
( obviously assembler )
m
compiler ??
p1
you are doing computer engineering ? you are way distant from accuracy ( that was it . I had lost it , I didn’t have the fuel left )
p2
whats this magazine all about ? you have written it quite many times
m
so finally something which was one of my strong points , something which I was totally sure of . I just went on and on in full detail
p2
anything else
p1
no
p3
no
p2
ok manish, best of luck
p1
nice attempt with the magazine
p3
why are you looking so pensive
m
thank you sir

Dimple Dalby writes on behalf of careers-india, a leading portal for careers and higher education in India and abroad.

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