“Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kada Chana”
Do your duty without expecting the fruits of your labour, said Lord Krishna to Arjuna during the Kurukshetra war, something that we MBA aspirants can never follow as we toil away, giving innumerable mocks and juggling those quant formulas, only to join one of the premier B-schools. Oh yes, we unapologetically expect our rewards or to put them in fancy terms, ‘Return Of Investment’.
My school and college life was filled with me keeping myself busy throughout, organising technical and cultural events while managing to perform decently in academics. I loved engaging in activities that required planning and a lot of networking. It was my third year of engineering when I enrolled myself for CAT coaching at Trivandrum, already envisioning myself walking through the crowded hall of IIM A on my convocation.
Little did I know that life takes unexpected turns when we least expect it to. I regularly attended my classes initially but as the much-awaited placement season approached, I didn't think twice when I got completely immersed in preparing for the same, like most engineering students of India unknowingly being pressured into getting placed for a stable and secure future. I was spiralling around the storm centre, CAT 2019, emanating into distance each month till I almost went off the tangent of focus to the extent that realisation hit me hard only a couple of months earlier. VA-RC was my strength. Quant, I could catch up. But DI-LR was my weak point.
One mistake I repeatedly committed was neglecting it and focusing more on the areas I felt more confident about. I gave many mocks without proper analysis and tried solving as many questions as I could. I drifted away from the golden rule ‘
mock assessment and improvement’. I panicked and I ended up resorting to hard work instead of smart work. Disappointment enveloped around me in its truest form when I scored just 89 percentile. Having realised that I couldn't quite bell the CAT in this attempt, I was determined to redeem myself by acing other MBA exams. I wrote IIFT, SNAP, MICA and TISS but couldn't clear the cutoffs.
XAT was my final shot and I decided to give it my best after a month of rigorous preparation and defining a new learning curve altogether, incorporating GK and Decision Making. My key takeaways from XAT preparation are:
1. Decision making requires a lot of practice. Solving the last ten years’ papers will help a lot in understanding the pattern.
2. General Knowledge is important. Try keeping a notebook for current affairs and significant facts. GK helps a lot in interviews and GDs , so make sure you read the newspaper on a daily basis, starting atleast from a year before all the exams start.
3. Although this point is a given, mock assessment is the road to improvement. Create an Excel sheet, updating every mock test scores and analyse the areas that require improvement and work on the same.
But alas, 94 percentile stared me in the face as I viewed my XAT result.
Devastated, I was at the verge of losing all hope when I received my only interview call letter that year, from XLRI!
It was my only chance to pursue management from a stellar MBA institute and I wasn't going to let it go! Bouncing back to my energetic form, I spent every day preparing for interviews and group discussions, attending mock interviews, working on the feedback and updating myself on business jargons. All those state and college level PORs and co curriculars came handy for a decent resume. I regularly watched motivational and GK videos on various platforms. I talked to a number of seniors and graduates, connected with them on Linkedin. This helped me to cultivate a professional outlook. For confident boosts, I didn't need any external source, as my family, especially my sister, graciously played that role. I took every screening level seriously, be it the self profile assessment or asynchronous video interview, carefully framing answers and getting them reviewed by seniors.
THE D-DAY
I distinctly remember sitting outside my interview room, as I was surrounded by candidates with 98+ percentiles, ample work experience or having completed graduation in commerce/management-related fields, feeling that my chances of conversion were subservient to theirs. GD went well but my interview was grilling, covering everything from my internships and extracurriculars to global affairs. I was asked about the meaning of my name and
it escalated to Indian mythology.My interview took the shape of a discussion. One of the panelists was glued to my file containing my resume and certificates. I had mixed feelings about the whole experience. The words
‘low percentile’ and
‘rare chances’ were ringing in my ears sometime before I decided to consider my second attempt at CAT, crystal clear that no deterrent will stop me this time.
Covid-19 stole the thunder, locking us all in our homes and I eventually forgot about my XLRI interview. The results were declared a couple of months later and to my surprise, I got a direct convert, without even being waitlisted! A fresher from an engineering background with a mere 94.04 percentile was called to be a part of a 180-students batch, at Asia’s best institute for HRM and Indias oldest B school with excellent pedagogy, XLRI Jamshedpur! Joy knew no bounds as I kept refreshing the portal to make sure I wasn't dreaming. My advice to you would be that if you’re a call getter with a low percentile it's really not the end of the world, as your academic and extracurricular profile along with strong self-determination will speak for itself.
So utilise your time effectively, building up a good profile and working on your GDPI skill sets along with targeting a good percentile. It's never too late to begin.