IIM-Calcutta GD / Interview experience

Interview date : 15th March
Time : 9:30 AM
Venue : IFMR, Nungambakkam, Chennai.

IIM Calcutta ...... THE oldest IIM ...... yes, started in 1961 as a collaboration b/w Alfred P Sloan school of management (MIT), Indian Industry, Ford Foundation and Government of West Bengal .......... Another insti in the top 3 ........ Last year's class profile happened to be about 70% experienced people ....... Lots of pressure .......

Did not have the luxury of getting dropped in the venue by Manikandan, my friend in Bangalore !! This is my only interview which is happening in Chennai ... So, started from home by about 8 in my Bullet ...... Today is Holi ....... I was hoping against hope that nobody on the way should be tempted by my bright white dress ..... Was even contemplating if I should wear a jerkin - just in case - but chucked the idea in the end ...... Reached the venue without an issue.

IFMR campus was more like a posh, old British style home which got converted into an insti ...... It was basically a pretty huge mansion ....... centrally air conditioned ...... Not as professional as the confines of IIM-Bangalore ....... At the same time, it was not as brick-and-motorish as College of Engineering, Guindy either (my college) ........ somewhere in b/w.

3 Gentlemen on the panel. There were supposed to be 10 candidates in today's interview. 2 did not turn up. 6 freshers and 2 experienced persons. Profile of the candidates, in the order in which we were interviewed.

1. Narayanan - PSG student - 2 years work-ex in CTS
2. Divya - an IITM student
3. Ravi - an NIT Trichy student
4. Yours-Truly
5. Avineesh - an IITM student
6. Karthik - an IITM student
7. Sriram - a CEG - Comp. sci student - my junior
8. Praveen - a B.Sc. Math student - Chennai Mathematical Institute

GD : Topic was "Should only the best player in the team be made its captain?"

I did not get to start the GD. Narayanan did. Started off by talking about the qualities of a "best player" (vs) that of a "captain" ....... the group agreed that they are 2 different roles with different requirements ....... if same person has both, then GREAT .... but it rarely happens ...... Of course, the captain should not be a bad player either ....... he should be an above average person whom the others can look up to ...... can respect ....... he must have a vision for the team .... blah blah blah ......

2 points that I made were well taken

a. Narayana Murthy quite often mentions that a good leader should be able to lead people smarter than him .... so, a leader need not be the smartest of the lot .....

b. Bill Gates mentioned that though he loved programming a whole lot, he had to take a step back and look at bigger things in order to achieve the goal of making this world a better place to live in ...... he was saying so in the NDTV interview during his last visit ...... using this, I tried to bring home the fact that the leader has a vision which is bigger than his own personal one ..... leaders should be willing to do this, on behalf of the team ....

Somebody suddenly diverted the discussion into a seemingly irrelevant area ...... he was talking about super powers emerging at the global arena ..... how US by being the best country is kind of becoming the captain of the world ...... I openly opined that we were digressing from the core issue ......

After the discussion ended, each one of us (in an arbit order were asked to summarise the discussion AND points if we had missed it earlier) .... Everybody's summary was pretty much similar ...... nothing extraordinary ...... At the end of my summary, I reiterated that the country level analogy was not a good parallel to the topic on hand ..... It was a small risk that I took .... Throwing a wet towel on what the group discussed for a good 2 minutes ....

Two guys, as part of their summary, mentioned about my Narayana Murthy and Bill Gates example .... I do hope the panelists made a note of this !!

GD ENDS

Interview: I forgot as to who asked what question. Hence, I have not distinguished amongst the 3 panelists .... "P" indicates one of the 3 ......

P : Tell us about your family/educational background/significant accomplishments
Told

P : Few questions about the annual income of my family members that I had mentioned in the form. He did make it quite clear that the questions were purely out of curiosity and would not have anything to do with the outcome of the interview. I personally liked the way he expressed himself.

Answered the questions to his satisfaction

P : How many people report to you in your team
Told

P : How do you motivate the team
Told

P : Would your team members be able to mention @least 1 item in which they are better just because you lead the team
Told

~ ~ I dare not elaborate on the answer that I gave this question ... Otherwise my team mates sitting right next to me are going to bash me up royally ~ ~

P : Where do you get your projects from. Who are your clients.

Gave Gyan about our offshore development model and Pershing/BNY being our clients.

P : Is it not a risky proposition? If you do not have other clients?

Gave Gyan about it being a balanced risk. It is risky for both the client as well as iNautix ..... Client has reduced its team size based on its dependence on iNautix ..... iNautix, with its hands full, does not need to look beyond Pershing and BNY .......

P : What was the biggest problem that you faced while @ work

Again, I am not going to elaborate on this answer, for obvious reasons !!

P : What was the biggest decision that you took and how important was it to you ..... You need not restrict yourself to your professional life ..... since beginning ....

Told about a decision that I had take after my 10th class and how important it was.

P : Was'nt the decision not in your parent's hands?
No .... The decision was mine ...... My parents only facilitate decisions and leave the final choice to me .....

~ ~ This was probably the only situation in the entire interview when they raised an eyebrow and were critically checking if I was bluffing ..... I guess the answer that I gave them satisfied them ~ ~
P : What was your percentile and what calls have you got ?
Told

P : You seem to have 44 months of experience .... which is a pretty long one .... Why did you wait so long ...... Why did we not see you before ..... Were you trying your hand @ CAT previously also ???

Elaborated about a few economic factors and did admit that I tried once previously, when I was in my final year.

P : What do you do in your free time
Told about biking

P : Do you go alone?

Another P interrupts and asks the first person : Do you want to know if he has a lady companion ?!?

Everybody laughing ....

Told that we are a bunch of guys

P : Still a bunch of only guys ?!?
Yes Sir !!

P : Tell me something, why is it that there are more temples in South India when compared to North India
South India has predominantly been ruled by Hindu kings and they spent a lot of time and energy in building the temples .... But, North India as subjected to lots of invasion from foreigners ... They have been ruling for centuries at a stretch .... They had spent their energy in building the mosques .....

~ ~ I knew I was treading into controversial territory ... I did not want to say that they destroyed temples and invite associated questions ... So, I stopped at this ~ ~

The Panelist quipped : Yes .... I also read that they not only built mosques .... but a few kings also destroyed the temples .....

Nodded .... Yes Sir ....

~ ~ You can say this boss !!! I cannot ..... I will just stick to nodding for the time being !!! ~ ~

Thank you - You may go !!

My take on the interview : I also discussed about this with Baskar, the director of Ascent Education and deduced the following .......... I am not sure as to what can judged about me in such an interview. The other 7 people on my panel had similar interviews. Obviously, he could not rate one of us as a 9 on 10 and rate another as a 7 on 10 ....... There was no right or wrong answer for any of the questions asked to us in today's interview.

If this is not going to differentiate amongst us, probably they have some other criteria in mind ..... CAT scores ??? college scores ??? work experience ??? background of our grad institute ??? Height ??? Weight ??? What could it be ???

Guess we will know by the end of April !!!

Your comments please .........