My MBA Interviews’ experience
You can read the 1st part of my experience with CAT here: My CAT Journey (2020–21). Links for my IIM interviews: here
The Backdrop
After the CAT result, and subsequently the calls from BLACKI, I had to take a call whether I wanted to appear for the interviews. My internship in Amazon was going to begin on 25th Jan 2021, and I already had a job offer with a good CTC (After-all, that’s what most freshers look for when deciding whether to go for an MBA, don’t they?). But the equation changed on 13th Jan — it was COVID time, and I got a call from the start-up HR that my joining for full-time job had been deferred by 6 months. This effectively meant that I didn’t have a job offer right out of college, and by then, it was too late to sit for even-semester placements. Amazon’s PPO was a 50–50 shot, given their previous years’ stats. Suddenly, a shot at an MBA became the most lucrative option.
Preparation for Interviews
In around 2–3 weeks after results, the calls/invites from the IIMs started coming. Based on past testimonials, the preparation areas had to be Current Affairs, one’s own profile, and rationale behind going for an MBA. Concurrently, my internship at Amazon was also going on. This was when I started exploring MBA as a potential option, and in all honesty, found it to be a pretty good option, which could open up multiple opportunities. I also had to gather my CV proofs, get referrals from Professors for IIM-B, and had to prepare SOPs. The month of February went into it, as my interviews were scheduled for March.
The Interviews
The 1st interview that I had was for IIM-Calcutta. It started off with intro, and then the interviewer asked me to prove that e lies b/w 2 and 3, which I did. Despite me solving the problem, the interviewer didn’t sound convinced, and said, “It’s okay! You can’t know everything, right! ” I was like (in my head, with my expressions betraying my disappointment), “What! I just proved it”. He then asked me a question involving integration by parts (the part which I feared the most in Maths), and I fumbled in the formula and got it wrong. In my head, my interview was done and dusted. But the 2nd prof was even more savage. He started off by asking me if I had even studied in college or had just spent my time playing (I had mentioned about a gold medal in Inter-Hostel Volleyball competition). He didn’t seem very pleased with my CGPA (it was 8.67 at that time). He then propped up a question, which every BITSian is tired of hearing: “Beta, IIT mein kyun nahi hua?”. It almost felt like a ragging session, and the prof countered me on everything I said. I put myself in the reject list after the interview.
The next 2 interviews, IIM-K and IIM-L were a lot more casual and felt more like an ensemble of random questions and chill conversation with a dose of sarcasm. The next big interview that I had to face was IIM-A, which was the only “on-site interview”, for which I had to travel to Delhi. On my way to Delhi, my fellow passenger, a retired Army officer, helped me prepare by conducting a mock interview.
The interview was on 22nd March at 1 PM. I reached the venue just in time, and the AWT began. Post that, we, the candidates, were made to sit in a hall, where I made a couple of friends. The interview here was the most well-organized one, where the questions were actually relevant. I felt that the interview went fine but could have been better.
I had gone to Delhi along with my father, and it was a rather fun-filled return journey (We had booked the tickets only a couple of days before departure, and the WL wasn’t confirmed). The next day, I had my IIM-Indore interview, which again was very random, not profile-oriented particularly, and more focused on acads.
My final IIM interview was for IIM-B. A good part of this interview went in me trying to convince the interviewers about why I wanted to go for an MBA despite having a good job offer (and potentially another), which, by the way, was a common theme across my interviews, except for IIM-A. The interview went well, and according to my own evaluation, this was the best among all my interviews.
The Results
In April, I got to know that my joining at CureFit, which had been post-poned, was finally preponed to the original date, which came as a sigh of relief. Finally, I would not be jobless in the worst-case scenario, I thought. April was spent waiting for results, with the candidates getting restless, consistently bugging the IIM admins.
The results finally started coming in during the 2nd week of May. IIM-I was the 1st result that came out for me, which I converted, but wasn’t going to join anyway. The results for IIM-A and IIM-B came as a shock, since I didn’t even make it to the waitlist. I thought that C was my worst interview, so converting it was definitely out of the question. I started preparing myself mentally for writing the next CAT, because the feeling of rejection was something which bugged me (even though I had not wanted to go to an IIM in the first place).
When the C results came out, I had gone to the market. I saw a message on my phone, where people were discussing the results. With my fingers trembling in fear (because I was definitely not converting it), I opened the result, and was surprised: it showed: Waitlist 56. Now the general trend for IIM-C is that the people up to WL90 get through, so I had almost converted it!
Taking a call
Over the next 1–2 weeks, I had to mentally prepare myself for going for an MBA. At the back of my mind, UPSC CSE had always been a factor. However, during my Interview preparation, I had convinced myself that I was going for an MBA. Now that I almost had the offer finally, I had to decide whether it was going to be MBA or UPSC. I talked to some seniors and some bureaucrats, and the unequivocal suggestion was that if I wanted to go for UPSC, it’s better to try it now than after MBA, both in terms of financial viability and career progression. Besides, I also had my job offer back, and at that point, I was going for an MBA because I had cracked it, not because I had any strong reason to. So, I had to take the hard call of declining the offer, when I finally converted it on 29th May.
Key Takeaways
1. Your CAT percentile does NOT matter, once you get a call (Unless you have a 100 percentile with a highly differential score), since the final weightage of your CAT score is low for at least ABC, and people with calls in your category don’t have a huge difference among their scores.
2. Focus areas for Interview:
a. Know yourself inside out: this includes your graduation stream, your region, your college, and your company (if you are a working professional)
b. Sell your story: Why, and why now, do you want to go for an MBA? Have a coherent story in your head, and prepare for counter-questions on the same, including the possible alternatives, and why MBA trumps them?
c. Current Affairs: Be aware of the important happenings, be it the Foreign Policy, Economy and business news, and the likes.
d. For IIM Calcutta, brush up your mathematics’ skills, especially if you are an engineer.
3. Don’t self-reject: I thought that among the ABC interviews, my C interview went the worst, and my B interview went the best. However, I converted C and got rejected in B. So, don’t assume the results till they are declared.
4. Stay calm during the interview: Some interviews are meant to be stress interviews (Happened during the C interview for me). Just don’t panic, even if you think that the things are not going your way.