GDPI Experience for SiBM-Pune

Since long time,I was planning to pen down my experiences of MBA college interviews.
After cracking CAT,NMAT & SNAP,I was preparing myself for the next hurdle:Group discussion & Personal Interview.I decided to target 1st 15 MBA institutes in India & SiBM P is one of them.

I still remember that day.
5^th Feb 2012, 12:30PM - It was my first PI for the season 2012.

The process started with journey to Lavale campus.The senior student who was with us cleared our doubts & made us feel less stressed.The campus itself is awesome,well established on the hilltop.


SiBM Pune



I will directly start with my experience now.

1)Audio-Video round – There was an interview of Ratan Tata broadcasted by Bloomberg channel. It was for around 2 min & was played twice. After that, we were given 3 minutes to write what we saw & observed in the clip. Then we were taken to the discussion room to speak. Total people in the panel = 7, time given= 7min, it was one of the cordial discussions I have ever seen! Everyone was giving opportunity to others to speak. It was a good discussion & may be the panel appreciated it. 1 girl sitting in the corner didn't even speak.When the profs asked her to summarise,she gave her opinion :( I thought our whole group was in danger & so took the opportunity to summarise.

2)Group discussion- Topic - Indian companies can't sustain in the global market. Again it was a nice discussion. The funniest incident happened when one of the boys asked the girl sitting in the corner to express her opinion! She was completely blank & said "I don't have any idea!!!!" Again I took the opportunity to summarise.

In both the discussions,I entered 5 to 6 times;never crossed anyone;jotted down points mentioned by others & used them effectively during summarising.

3) Now starts the real battle: Impressing the panellists.
Our group leader told us about the background of the panellists.

Left professor – HR professional from Tata Motors

Right professor – Strategy teacher at SIBM, Pune

Yours truly :)

L- Tell us something about yourself

Me- Told.Full to prepared answer...

L- You said you “were” working. Why did you leave your job?

Me – Genuine reason.

L – Why MBA?

Me- Told.

L- Why don’t you go for CFA? It will give you in- depth knowledge of Finance.

Me- Told how MBA will be useful for developing qualities necessary to emerge as a business manager. CFA will be a self study course & won't make me a better candidate for decision making.

L –Then he started with HR question. See there is a condition that you are in a boat with your mother & wife. The boat topples & you have to save only one. Whom will you save? Why?

Me- Told mother. Told about her sacrifices. Without her, I would not have seen this beautiful world…

L – No but what about a girl who left her house for you? Isn’t it a sacrifice?

Me- Told that it would be difficult decision to take. But since I can save only one of them, I will save mother.

L – Tell me 2 reasons for not selecting you.

Me- Well I gave a very good reason.

L- Why are you convincing us not to select you?

Me- Sir, I wrote that question which I would like to ask other candidates as a panel member else I would say that I am one of those candidates whom you are searching.

R- Why should we select you?

Me- Again gave prepared answer.

R – You have mentioned that MS Dhoni is your motivator, what is your take on his & team’s dismal performance in Australia? I think they found chink in my plate armour!!!

Me- Told about Dhoni’s qualities as a leader as well as manager. How he is managing…

R- Should we sack Dhoni & Sachin?

Me- No Sir, it will be too harsh to take such extreme step. Spoke about how Sachin is 2^nd run scorer in the test & Dhoni’s impressive avg runs & statistics. Also spoke about dismal performance by middle order.

R – What do you think is the reason for India’s poor performance in Australia?

Me- A whole unit failed, can’t blame anyone. They couldn’t convert fifties into hundreds which could have given us a much needed confidence.

R- Who scored half centuries from the middle order batsmen?

Me- Kohli, Dravid did once…

R – Still, we should sack Sachin, right?

Me- No Sir. We have started expecting more from him. We expect him to score a hundred only & hence even if he scores 70s or 80s, we think that he under performed.

R –See, when you perform well, expectations will rise. You have scored more than 100 in SNAP. So we naturally expect more from you. Do you want to say that we are wrong?

Me- No Sir, but we can’t sack someone readily. We have to find out the root cause of the failure & develop a plan to improve his or her performance.

R – But what is the point in having non- performing players in team? What will you do as a CEO if your star performers don’t perform? You would sack them, won’t you?

Me- No Sir, I would design a plan to improve their performance. If they still fail, then I will take tough stance against them. (Finally both smiled and said yes!)

R- So do you write something?

Me- no Sir.

R- So what do you do when you have spare time?

Me- I play chess.

4) Extempore – Job security is more important than money (3 minutes to think & speak. They made me stand in front of them & asked me to speak. Decent performance.I liked the subject.There were plenty of things to speak.

An overall a good experience !!!

Final Verdict – Converted!