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Date: 07 March 2021
Venue: VCNow, Madhapur, Hyderabad
I reached around 7:30 am. IIM Ahmedabad was the only IIM to conduct in-center interviews this year. We were supposed to go to the center, give our AWT and then attend our interview via video conference.
Post my Aadhaar verification, I was asked to sit in a room with 10 odd other aspirants. The AWT was supposed to begin at 8:00 am. Other students from my panel were yet to come. Meanwhile, I had memorized some names of the students in my panel from the Aadhaar verification process. So I spent the next 20 minutes analyzing their profiles on Linkedin. I realized I was the only fresher there and got extremely intimidated.
Now, it’s about 7:55 am when a 45-ish professor enters the room and says something on the lines of, “Your AWT will begin in 5 mins. I will let you know when you’ll have to put your phones aside. Put your phones on silent. Any sound will lead to your instant disqualification.” AWT lasted for around 20 mins and I believe I had written a well-structured answer.
I was the 3rd on my panel. So, I spent the next 25 odd minutes, timing the students who went prior to me, judging their reactions with no conclusions whatsoever.
And finally, my turn did come. I went in pretty calm. The setup was a conference room, where the student would be sitting at one end of a big round table and there will be two GIANT screens put up side-to-side on the other end, the left one had the interviewee and the right one had the interviewers.
My panel had 2 professors. P1 was a 50-ish male and P2 was a 35-ish female. Both were extremely welcoming and friendly. We exchanged usual pleasantries and began the interview.
P1: (I hadn’t yet removed my mask, I had just taken my seat) It’s absolutely your choice to keep or remove your mask. (I removed my mask).
P1: So, Bhavani or Susmitha?
Me: Anything will do, Sir.
P1: Ok, we’ll call you Sushmita. So, Bhavani, Susmitha, what’s the connection?
Me: (I gave the elaborate backstory behind my name which turned out to be a 1-minute monologue. They heard it patiently. It ended with how Susmitha broken down is, Su-good and Smitha-smile.)
P2: Yes, you indeed have a good smile.
Me: Thank you, Ma'am.
P1: So, Sushmita, Why MBA?
Me: (I gave my well-prepared answer. It included some personal reasons involving my father.)
P1: (countered my answers for a good 5 minutes.)
Me: (answered all of them pretty confidently. He seemed convinced at the end.)
P1: Sushmita, are you good at Maths?
Me: (didn’t want to be grilled on the topic, so answered in the negative) I wouldn’t say it’s my strongest point, Sir. I used to be very good at Maths. In fact, it was Maths that I had scored the highest during my JEE. But, Engineering Maths has proved it otherwise.
P1: But you are an engineer, that too an IITian. How can you not be good in Maths? Do you know that MBA does have a lot of Maths in it?
Me: (answered on the grounds that the Maths in MBA doesn’t go beyond calculus and statistics. And how I knew of what I was signing up for.)
P1: (asks me a few questions on Continuity, Differentiation, Limits and Quadratic Equations)
Me: (answered all of them)
P1: Do you follow politics?
Me: Not really, Sir.
P1: Can you make an educated guess and tell me which all states will be having their elections in the coming 2 months?
Me: (Luckily, I knew the answer to this question as I was well versed with the politics of all the states with an IIM because of preparing for their respective interviews.)
P1: Tell me the political parties prevalent in West Bengal.
Me: (answered with TMC, BJP, and INC)
P1: Do you know the full form of TMC?
Me: (absolutely knew the answer, but my stupid brain blacked out for some inexplicable reason. I literally said, “Yes, Sir.” and went silent.
I asked for a moment, suddenly remembered, and yelled, “Trinamool, YES, TRINAMOOL CONGRESS,” like I was Archimedes from his Eureka moment.)
P1: (laughing at this point. THANKFULLY.) Can you tell us about the political scenario in West Bengal?
Me: (answered what I remembered from the preparation for IIM Calcutta interview (11th February 2021) in a structural format.)
(P1 asked me some cross-questions. I tried answering all of them. We were having a healthy conversation at this point. But I realized I couldn’t afford to let my interview run in this direction since I didn’t have good knowledge in it and was running out of content from the interview I had prepared for, almost a month ago. Had it been Gujarat’s politics, I could have answered so much better. So, I ultimately decided to be honest and resorted to the good old, “I am sorry, Sir. I do not have a good idea about this. I need to look into it.”)
P1: Okay, no problem. Do you know the richest person today?
Me: Yes, Sir, last I checked it was Elon Musk.
P1: Are you sure? Is he the richest person today?
Me: I didn’t check it today, Sir. I’m sorry I don’t know.
P1: Make an educated guess.
Me: It must be Jeff Bezos, Sir. (It was. But I wanted to flaunt my knowledge of the top 10 richest people. So, I went ahead and named 5–6 other top richest people. )
P2: Yes, it is Jeff Bezos. Do you know Elon Musk?
Me: Yes, Mam.
P2: What’s he in news for these days?
Me: (answered with the Bitcoin fiasco that was trending those days. Also with how his single tweet had caused Signal to boom.)
P2: So, he is not an MBA. And yet a CEO. He’s recently said, “MBAs do nothing but work on spreadsheets.” Do you agree with his statement?
Me: I absolutely do not. MBAs have so much more to do than that. Some of the world’s leading CEOs today have an MBA degree. And even if they don’t, they have a team of MBAs from reputed institutes. (Gave an example of how the successor of Amazon is an MBA. Mentioned how Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai are MBAs too. And gave a list of about 5–7 other CEOs who were MBAs)
P1: Sundar Pichai is an IITian, no?
Me: Yes, Sir. But Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai also have MBA degrees from Chicago Booth and Wharton respectively.
P1: (sounds surprised) So, tell me about your final year Project.
Me: (answers in detail)
P1: (asks for how it is relevant)
Me: (answers)
(P1 asks for a few more technicalities. I answered all of them.)
P1: So, Sushmita, I can see exponential growth in your undergraduate academics. We usually see most engineers, especially IITians, go through a decreasing curve. Can you tell me about it? (I had started with a 7.0 in the first semester and ended at 9.6)
Me: (tells them about my journey.)
P1: good, good. We need academically oriented students here. So, are you placed currently?
Me: No, Sir. I didn’t sit for placements as this was my primary focus. I didn’t want to hog on another person’s job.
P1: But, you do need to have a backup, no?
Me: Yes, Sir. My interviews end on April 2. My college conducts its placements till the end of May. I will seriously attend for my placements then. I have already dropped a year for JEE. I can not afford to lose another year. So, I will try seriously for a job and prepare for CAT again this year, in case things don’t according to my expectations. (I did eventually get decently placed in college.)
P1: (seems satisfied) asks if I have any questions.
I ask. P1 answers.
P1: Please take a toffee from the bowl.
I take a candy from the bowl and leave.