My BITSoM experience, in short, was the most conversational and breezy interview experience I’ve had till date. There were two panellists, one from the admissions team at BITSoM and the other was an alumnus of BITS Pilani. They covered profile based questions along with behavioral questions and a little deep dive into my work. It was an extremely seamless interview, even though it was online on zoom.
Questions that were asked:
1. Please tell us something about yourself.
Hello, My name is Avi Jain. I was born in the beautiful state of Rajasthan and spent about half of my life there after which I moved to the technology hub of Hyderabad and have been living there for about 12 years now. My father is a businessman and my mom is a homemaker. I have a younger sister who wants to make it to the movies. I graduated as a computer science engineer in 2021 from G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Science. Post which I worked at Darwinbox as a content marketing associate curating content for their official blogs around HR and HR Tech, social media content, sales collaterals and case studies.
After this, I spoke about my creative pursuits in detail followed by what kind of atmosphere I like to foster in teams, things I care about as well the extracurriculars I’ve taken part in my life so far and what I learnt from them.
2. Why do you want to pursue an MBA after engineering?
Well for me, MBA was always on the cards. I understood its importance more so after I had attended the HPAIR conference by Harvard in 2021. One of the speakers, Adam Cheyer, the founder of Siri, mentioned in his speech about the combination of strategic and systems thinking. These two, when couple make an individual and all-rounder. Having done my engineering I was equipped with systems thinking and an MBA would be the route to strategic thinking which would ultimately make me an all rounded individual.
Also, since I grew up in a business-oriented family and was always intrigued by the connection between technology and business. MBA should therefore help me in exploring the amalgamation of these two fields and how they can solve bigger problems.
3. Why BITSoM?
Apart from being located in the financial capital of the country, Mumbai, BITSoM amazed me by the choice of its world class faculty that it draws from the best business schools across the globe, its unique block teaching methodology, and the fact that it considered applications via not just CAT but also globally accepted GRE and GMAT exams which opened up doors for a wide range of applicants. Being a part of BITSoM would be like building a start-up with like-minded individuals which would enable a supreme learning experience.
4. You have done a lot of extra-curricular activities in your undergrad, how did you manage time?
I realized it quite early that since I couldn’t make it to the IITs, I’ll have to put in extra hours here at my college to be at par with students of the premium institutes. The goal, from day 1, thus had been to take part in as many activities and events, in an outside of college, as possible. Initially it was exhausting but as it became rewarding in terms of the network and knowledge I was gaining, I became more invested in it. All it took was some extra hours in studies, listening attentively in classes during college hours and an optimum use of time at hand.
5. You seem to read a lot of books, tell us about one of your favourite books.
My favorite book is Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. It is quite a lengthy one and it could be really easy to drift off while reading, but it didn’t happen for once when I was reading it. As I began reading, things were pretty confusing, and stayed that way till more than half of the book. It was as though I was solving a puzzle and as I was proceeding, I was jumbling it more and more. This is where the beauty of the book lies. It confuses the reader, makes the reader think way too much but the reader doesn’t abandon the book and never gives up.
The two entirely different lives of a 15-year-old kid and a 60-year-old man unfold parallelly in alternate chapters. Personally, it was quite tough for me to keep track of so many things happening at the same time. The character description in the book is beyond beautiful. It literally feels as though you are living in that world with those very characters, watching them do things, experiencing the out-of-the-world happenings like leeches and fishes falling from the sky, a man killing cats to make flute out of their souls, people conversing with other worldly creatures, two soldiers who never aged since World War II and so on.
Also, you should know that Murakami has a thing for cats. They will be everywhere. One word for the book is - Unpredictable. Not once could I predict what was about to happen.
6. As mentioned in your CV, you’ve written quite a lot of articles and blogs, could you run us through the process you follow while writing any piece of content. It would be great if we could see some of your work online.
This is where I took them through some of my book reviews, articles on my food blog and a few of my most favorite articles from work. They asked me some technical SEO questions that I was able to answer and also asked to show how my articles ranked on google search.
A few of my articles that I shared:
1. The Ultimate Guide to Human Resources, a complete guide for anyone interested in learning the fundamentals of human resources.
2. The 101 Best Welcome Messages for New Employees, this article has been consistently ranking on top on google.
3. The complete guide to UAEs New labour laws, a very critical resource for HR in the UAE, post the reforms made to the labour laws.
7. How was the transition to marketing coming from an engineering background?
It definitely wasn’t a joy ride. Especially when you are the only fresher in your team with absolutely no domain experience. All I had in my favour was my flair and love for writing, which again was only because I had written a lot of informal content previously. The initial few days were heavily invested into training at writing formally and technically, about marketing along with all about the company. I consider myself fortunate to have had some fantastic colleagues and a manager who were always willing to assist. Although difficult, the transition taught me resilience and perseverance.
8. Is there anything that we may have not asked you but you would like for us to know?
This is where I started talking about Jainism, how I liked to learn about various religions. Both the panellists seemed extremely interested so there were a lot of follow up questions regarding the same. They even asked me to share some resources from YouTube that I had mentioned in my answer.
Some more questions that were asked:
1. Tell us about a time when you had to manage a large team and what kind of a leader you are.
2. Is there some procedure that you follow when you write your articles? Tell us more about it.
3. Why do you want to pursue an MBA now and not later?
It was a no-stress interview and they were genuinely interested in knowing about me as a person, the experiences I’ve had in my life thus far, my family and all such details and nuances. All in all, they are trying to gauge if you would be a good fit for a global business school in the making.
I chose BITSoM over Singapore Management University (MiM program) given the myriad of pros the BITSoM MBA offered such as the access to the world class faculty – the global faculty that it draws from the best business schools across the globe, it’s unique block teaching methodology, it’s location in the heart of the financial capital of the country – Mumbai and the fact that it considered applications via
GRE, GMAT along with
CAT.
Speaking about my interview preparation for BITSoM, I did a thorough research and spoke with a bunch of current students at BITSoM, their MBA journey at a new business school and what the interviewers look in a candidate in general for BITSoM. I ensured I was thoroughly prepared with all the possible behavioral questions as well as knew my CV inside out.
BITSoM is unquestionably a business school to watch out for, and I wish everyone who hopes to enrol here the best of success!