Which is your Current B-School?
IIM Calcutta
B-School To Which The Interview Experience Pertains?
IIM Bangalore
Please Share A Brief About Your Profile
(a) Academic Profile - 10th (Maharashtra State Board) 96%, 12th (Maharashtra State Board) 92%, BSC (Mumbai University) 91.48%, BA Bharatanatyam.
(b) CAT %ile - 98.89%ile
Please Share Your Interview Experience
3 Panelists - 2 male professors and 1 alum (P1, P2, P3)
Duration - 25 - 30 min interview
1) P1: Tell us why MBA and how did your interest develop?
Me: Told
2) P1: Give an example where a bio innovation did not reach the market?
Me: Said I know 2 but would give you the Indian example - Florida Tilton's biofilm inhibitor and how it gestated for about 5 years before her company got a grant to productize the innovation.
3) P1: So you are saying that these ideas gestate for some years but eventually make it to the market right?
Me: Said that it is not true with all novel innovations and gave example of what R.T.Krishnan, IIM Bangalore director had said in 2004 conference and also how IIM B had helped such bio innovations to scale up their businesses in 2020.
4) P2: So what is biofilm?
Me: Answered
5) P2: If I ask you to sell it to Apollo hospital, how will you do it?
Me: Said that Apollo won't be new to this problem as it is faced by every healthcare facility so I won't need to convince much as it is a novel product.
6) P2: But still how will you do it?
Me: Said that as I am a microbiologist, I would show them through an experiment wherein I will take a used catheter, swab, and plate the microorganisms from it and analyze how many pathogenic and virulent organisms are present on it as well as other instruments. The data will speak for itself.
7) P2: What problems are you likely to face if you have to sell the biofilm?
Me: Told about the price and if there is a competitor who has used cheaper ingredients and has a better product then I will have to improve my product.
8) P1: What is CAGR?
Me: Told the full form
9) P1: How is it different from the growth rate?
Me: Told the layman meaning first with their permission and then gave the textbook definition.
10) P2: How do you calculate it?
Me: Told how to derive the formula through rearrangement of the terms in Compound Interest.
11) P2: Gave me a sum and said if you know then okay, else leave it.
Me: Said I don't know Sir.
12) P2: You have mentioned Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Kalpana Saroj. So are they both on the board?
Me: Told how Kiran Shaw was before but now Dr.Shetty is there in her place and Kalpana Saroj continues to be on the governing board.
13) P2: Why did you mention Kalpana Saroj, she is not a bio entrepreneur?
Me: Told how her background inspired me as she went through a lot of hardships in her life and helped Kamani tubes reach success.
14) P2: What is synthetic biology?
Me: Answered.
15) P2: Why is it called 'Synthetic' biology?
Me: Gave a generic answer.
16) P2: No...why do you think it is called 'synthetic'?
Me: Told how we are engineering something which isn't natural but man-made through biological means.
17) P2: Good. So that means it makes humans God?
Me: Said No....it is a popular debate surrounding stem cell research but we are far from it and it does not make us God as we are not even close to success.
18) P2: So you have stated Zymergen. Any other genetic engineering-related discovery you know?
Me: Said no.
19) P2: I will give you a hint - Insulin.
Me: Yes Sir. Explained the full process of how DNA from pigs is used and E.coli plasmid is used as E.coli replicates faster and we can mass-produce insulin in a short span of time.
20) P2: Have you heard about homulin?
Me: No Sir.
21) P1: Tell me about the stages of vaccine production.
Me: Explained 3 stages and even stage 0 and why do we perform them. (P2 joked about how I am talking about vaccines only and asked me to say insulin in place of vaccines as insulin was his favorite.)
22) P1: Tell me in detail. Science answers should be precise.
Me: Told which people do we select for the phases and how are they divided. Also talked about the double-blind study.
23) P2: Asked me about some specific terms.
Me: I said I don't know.
P1: You have studied pharmacology right?
Me: Said no Sir, I haven't I know all this due to my interest but I haven't studied as a part of the syllabus.
24) P1: So what do you do apart from your study?
Me: Told about Bharatnatyam, teaching, and cultural committee.
25) P2: So you must have joined the NGO a few months back so you can have something to talk about in the interview right?
Me: No Sir, I have been volunteering for a year now and my mother used to work for that NGO and they were in need of a teacher so I joined them as well.
26) P2: How did you get admission to your college?
Me: Asked if he wanted to know how my interest developed or what was the process?
P2: No, on what basis do you get admission?
Me: Told 12th HSC marks.
P2: You have 92%, so you must not have faced a problem getting admission anyways.
Me: I said yes Sir 91.54 % and I smiled.
27) P2: I don't know where your college is? Why this college?
Me: Answered both
28) P2: What after PGP?
Me: Told
29) P2: You have mentioned a hangover cure so what do you think can be the difficulties if I want to sell it?
Me: Told about how the higher price would make it affordable to the upper-middle class and high-income groups only but as the demand rises, the cost can be brought down. Also, mentioned how some people would harbor some misconceptions or fear about probiotics.
30) P2: Have you heard of Thermon company?
Me: No Sir
31) P3: Tell me about how major countries handled corona. How they could have done better?
Me: Talked about America, India, China, and while I was explaining how China should have informed the world beforehand....P3 cut me and said this is from the news.
32) Tell us from the biology perspective.
Me: Said that honestly, the big countries did not do that well as compared to smaller countries like New Zealand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even some African countries - I explained their methods and what they did better. I also said that as African countries have had an experience of handling Ebola, they fared better than expected. I even added that as they are poorer, the population has been exposed to much more pathogenic organisms and has a better immune response.
33) P3 - Is there a scientific basis for that claim?
Me: Told about the ASTREC study FROM TATA Memorial Hospital and how they proved the same about the Dharavi slum.
34) P3 - What is the mRNA vaccine and how is it different. Why is there so much buzz around it calling it a novel method?
Me: Started explaining how t differs from traditional vaccines and mentioned how difficult it is to find and study the exact sequence responsible for the spike protein formation and how storing mRNA is another major hurdle. I also mentioned how HGP was a relatively recent event and we are yet to learn a lot more.
35) P3 - How can you say HGP is recent?
Me: Told how from a biology point of view, HGP - 2011 is relatively recent as it took 9 years to improvise upon that and discover the Crispr-Cas9 system even though we had the genome sequenced.
Do you have any questions for us? (No Sir) Thank you. You can log off now.
Final Verdict?
Couldn't Convert