(Real) IMT - Ghaziabad Interview Experience

IMT (Institute of Management Technology) Ghaziabad is one of the good institutes in India for an MBA.

For details , check out the B-School rankings by Business standard and Outlook to get an overview about the college.

Interview Details :

Venue    : XIMR , Marinelines , Mumbai

Time      : 8.30 am

Process : Group Discussion followed by Personal Interview

Date      : 13th Feb 2014

Reached the venue at 8.00 am and had a sandwich at the Xavier's canteen.Worth a try !

Entered the document verification room where I waited for 45 minutes for my turn. A tit-bit Hi and Hellos with all the aspirants there. I was into the Panel 4 and participant 1 .

After verification of documents , the instructor lead us to a classroom on the top floor.The panelists assigned us to the respective seats. I was number 1 and the seating arrangement was in a "U" shape , so i had a bit of disadvantage of having a corner seat.

GD process : 

Problem Statement : New delhi : Proximity to Tokyo or Beijing 

Thinking time         : 5 minutes

Discussion              : 10 minutes

Participants            : 17 members

Summarize GD      : 5 minutes

                                              

I was able to make only 2 good entries because there was a lot of chaos in the GD. Everyone was shouting like hell and there was a girl who was at the center position who polluted the whole decorum. Constantly opposing all the views said by anyone and raising voice uptill limits. For my 2 entries I also shouted like anything , literally nanga shouting if you can get it.

IMO , the whole group would loose marks as it was not a fruitful discussion.

We concluded with a few normal suggestions majorly on the side of China and friendship.

Interview Round :

Panel consisted of 

(P1) - 48-50 aged Professor from IMT itself having specs and a friendly attitude

(P2) - 42-45 ahed Professor from IMT with a huge body , more on serious yet jolly attitude.

(M) - Me

They rang the bell and I was participant no 1.

M : Sir please may I come in ?

P1 : Yes Mitesh please come , have a seat.

P1 : ( Constantly smiling ). I too smiled . So mitesh how many members do you have in your family ?

M : Described about the family and the background in Junagadh.

P1 : What does your father do ?

M : Described about the whole footwear business in detail.

P1 : So why don't you join your father's business and develop it . It would always be more profit-making?

M : Sir , I do not interest in my business as of now. I am not neglecting the opportunity but as of now , I want to have some industry experience and 10-15 years down the line think about other options of the circumstances in that time are feasible.

A bit of silence for 4-5 seconds.

P1 : As I can see in your form , you have mentioned ASIC over here. What do you mean by ASIC ?

M : Described about ASICs and VIPs I worked on. 

P1 : Can you explain it in more detail ?

M : Described the whole strcture of the firm , the hierarchy , the work allotted to me and the modules i worked on. The whole model and stuff .

P2 : So Mitesh , on that note what would you prefer to be questioned on ? Elec or Comm ?

M : Sir , I have always been inclined to electronics and my work was also in VLSI so I would prefer it .

P2 : Paused for a moment. Mitesh , just out of curiosity , how many components does basic 8085 consists of ?

M : Sir , I do not remember the exact ,

P2 : No , no , just out of curiosity , just answer what can it be , take a wild guess .

M : In millions.   (fucked up here ,  beacuse the base model consisted of only 6k gates while it grew into milllions after a while in the next gen processors)

P2 : Okay.

M : In between , the gate related discussion , I described Moore's law regarding the number of transistors in future.

P2 : What is Moore's law ? In detail ?

M : Gave a defination , but Sir i am not sure whether this is 100 % correct as i guess i am missing some element in the defination.

P2 : Revolved me in and around the processor and Moore's law thing for 3-4 minutes.

M : I said a straight NO to some of the questions which I didn't knew about , he was OKAY with it.

P2 : You have good prospects in US. Why dont you go to US and earn some quick money ?

M : Described the whole thing I was asked in my Symbiosis Interview. Seemed satisfied.

P2 : (Suddenly) , How much a Tie cost  ?  Is it Expensive these days ?

M : It depends on the brands and the quality you want .

P2 : No but tell me a amount for a buy.

M : The basic Tie starts from 400 /- I guess but I do not have much information in detail.

P2 : Can't you spend 400 odd rupees on wearing a professional Tie instead of a Party Tie which you are currently wearing ?

(It was almost a professional Tie but it had 2 dots in the middle , which he noticed)

I felt a bit awkward at that moment.

M : Smiled. Sir I admit it is my fault and I am sorry for the mistake.

P2 : Smiled (He was grilling me uptill now).

P2 : So why MBA ?

M : Told the basic reasons and explained the reasons ?

P2 : Is your father an MBA ?

M : No , Sir.

P2 : So then it means your father doesn't know how to run a business right ?

M : Sir I never mentioned that , for entrepreneurship , you need an MBA ? I am basically focusing on the industrial aspects which require an MBA for good exposure. seemed satisfied. In between , I mentioned about the opportunities in Junagadh too.

P1 : So why dont you want to go back to Junagadh ? Don;t you like your hometown ?

M : Framed the answer properly and described the standard of living in Junagadh , in Ahmedabad , in Mumbai and in California from an angle to Internet access and speed. Discussed opportunities in Tier 2 more than tier 1 and told about start-ups in ahmedabad (Dexter consulting , Just mexican franchise , Cityshor) etc. Went on for 3-4 minutes

Both of them nodded positively.

P1 : Okay , mitesh one last question ?

P1 : Do you think being participant no 1 puts you in a disadvantage ?

M : Absolutely No Sir .

P1 : The students outside will know about the questions asked to you and they can prepare well marring your chances ?

M : That can go the other way round too , they may get stressed and loose out confidence. But I do not guess that would make much difference to well prepared candidates. 

P1 : Okay mitesh but our main aim here is to check students at par . So please dont discuss questions and answers with them. 

M : as you say Sir , not an issue.

P1 , P2 : Thanks Mitesh .

While returning a lot of candidates were waiting outside , I pretended to be on the phone and told them i'll be back in 5 minutes and let you know the process , which never occured !

Had a talk with one of my  friends after the interview as she gives me a good judjement on how it went .
Had a round near Marinelines and Leopold area , I love downtown mumbai cobblestone area like anything ! 

Overall an average interview because of some mistakes in the 8085 and Moore's things. Tie was a disaster.

NMIMS tomorrow . Valentine day tomorrow . Gearing up for it . Hope all goes well.

Verdict : In march.

:)

(Real) Symbiosis MBA Interview Experience

To secure an admission into Symbiosis University and its related B-Schools , one needs to appear for their entrance exam called SNAP. The process includes registering and paying for SNAP exam, appearing for the exam , results after a month , and getting calls from institutes of which you clear the cut-offs.

My SNAP Score             :  98.7841    percentile

Academic profile Score    :  79.9261    percentile (Based on your 10th , 12th and grad percentages)

Overall Composite Score :  96.9865    percentile

Calls : SCMHRD , SIBM-B , SIIB , SCIT

WAT - PI details:

Date       : 8th Feb 2014

Location : SIMS , Kirkee , Pune

Time       : 8.00 am

I had my stay at cousin's place in pune. Got up early in the morning and drove to kirkee from Kondhwa.

I did not have the photocopies of some of the documents and so got them photocopied and rushed for documents verification. The student co-ordinators were mostly girls and they were quite co-operative ;).

All the aspirants were divided in the group of 8 and a First year student was leading the group. He answered all the queries we had over there. The guy was quite friendly and so i tried to extract as much information about the panels , chances , how to impress them , panels' nature , type of questions , from him as possible.

After an introductory session and breakfast , we had the WAT (Written Aptitude Test). An answer sheet consisting of 8 pages was provided and a question paper. The question paper had 2 questions as follows :

(1) "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" - Nelson Mandela.

Write an essay on the above topic in 650 words.

(2)

Interprete this image and write down all your interpretations explaining each of them .

Answer : The group leader had told be to be creative in this question and so i wrote various shades regarding this image as in 

- A closed economy (No trade inflows / no trade outflows)

- A Corporate Catch - 22 situation (Aage kuwa piche mere Khaai , tu hi bata jau me kaha ?)

- Global warming & Arctic burst

- Pre-planning & Strategies to not get into such situations in business world

- Media awareness & campaigns by Leonardo DiCaprio

- Learning skills to tackle worse situations

- Creative way to test a management aspirant's thought process

I drew the same picture above , in the answer sheet and wrote all 7 points in all 7 directions to make a good pictoral presentation. It really looked good :).

The total time given was 40 minutes for both the above two questions.

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After the WAT , we again had a breakfast and I waited for an hour before my turn came in for a PI (Personal Interview / Personal Interaction). My turn arrived and the group leader asked 3 copies of my resume to give it to the panelists. After 15-20 seconds , I entered the interview - room.

Panel consisted of : 

(P1) 42-45 aged person with a moustache like kejriwal from industry , sitting on the left.

(P2) 58-60 aged person looked like professor and had a firm attitude.

(P3) 40-42 aged person with specs and moustache and a marathi look.

(M) Me

Interview :

M : Morning Sir (Looking at all of them)

P2 : Good morning Mitesh , please have a seat

P2 : (After a pause) So Mitesh , quickly tell me something about yourself which is not on this resume.

M : (This was a very basic question and so i had prepared for it) Told everything about born and brought up , folded the whole academics in a single sentence , told about the engineering and extra-curriculars , my final year project at Mt. Abu and stressed more on the work experience.Ended my sentence with culture at my company and the boss.

P2 : So , who is your Boss ? How is he , friendly or effective ?

M : Described about the boss' journey and told about his characterstics.

P2 : You are going to do an MBA and you would be the boss after a few years , so what would you prefer ?

M : I would act according to the nature of the employees under me . If they are of the nature that they would not work untill they have deadlines nearing them , I would give them pseudo-deadlines and be more on the stricter side but if the employees are self-responsible , a friendly nature would suffice.

P2 : Nodded positively , seemed satisfied. Looked towards P1 and gave some ishaara.

P1 : So , Mitesh you have had leadership positions at many places , so what do YOU think are the qualities in YOU which makes you lead the people.

M : Sir , i need around 30 seconds to frame my answer . Took my time and framed the answer .

Told about the roles during school , roles during engineering , roles during cultural fests and robotics and professional life.Covered how did i do it , problems i faced and things i thought you should act in particular situations for betterment of the whole group. This went on for 4-5 minutes. and at last i told him in a rhetoric way that I hope Sir you are able to get the overall picture to which he nodded positively.

P2 : Okay so mitesh , suppose if there is an unethical project but it is moral. That project would benefit your firm a lot. Would you participate in that project ?

M : After thinking for a while , No sir i would never compromise with ethics , BUT i would not stop them for executing the project. I would somehow step out of the project citing certain specific reasons to which the manager cannot oppose (he smiled to this response). Sir can i explain this with a real-time example.

P2 : Ohh please please go ahead

M : Described the incidents about the problem of "shadow resources" during a foreign clients project which is unethical but moral (Working professionals would understand this practically).

P2 : seemed satisfied

P2 : Looked towards P3

P3 : So Mitesh , Why do you want to do an MBA ?

M : Explained the reasons (I had prepared this pretty good)

P2 : What after MBA , companies you are targeting and general stereotype questions.

M : Had them quite good

P1 Interrupted

P1 : You have mentioned that you have entrepreneurial plans in future ? Can you explain ?

M : Sir if you notice it in detail , there is an 'IF' at the starting point. So if the conditions are met and if life goes according to my plans , then i WOULD think of it as I have worked in start-ups and i can see a lot of benefits on all the front.

P1 : What kind of benefits ?

M : I  knew he wanted to hear something related to society. So i started with that it provides more job opportunities for fellow citizens , helps in building the economy , reverses brain-drain and stopping students from leaving india just due to lucrative packages as startups in india are cash flows if they go good. And ater all you have enough money at the end of cycle. Described about www.Onlineprasad.com as i had experience as a content writer in it.

P1 : seemed satisfies and smiled.

A silence prevailed for 4-5 seconds and all of them looked to one another.

 P2 : Thanks Mitesh and all the best for your future.

M : Thank You SIR. Smiled. :)

Came out of the room with a positive feeling.

While I was leaving the center , I passed P2 while he was having a smoke. Stopped there are he asked me about my personal details. Told about Junagadh , my father , my business. I politely questioned him about the quality of interview. He smiled and said "Hope positive beta".

Results : In March .

:)