My Interview Experience At SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

I appeared for the Personal Interview (PI) round for admission to the Master of Business Administration Program at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay on 4th March 2022. Due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, the interview process was conducted online through Gather platform. This provided a completely different experience as compared to rest of the B-Schools which were conducting their interviews via Zoom or MS Teams. The Gather platform enabled us to experience the whole process virtually. We were assigned different tables on the basis of our interview panel and needed to enter different rooms for the interview and document verification by controlling a customizable 2D avatar. We all were assigned a buddy who guided us through the entire process. 

Coming to the interview, my interview panel consisted of one professor and one alum. It started with a brief introduction, the why MBA question and strengths and weaknesses. Since I am from Lucknow, I was asked to name all the Prime Ministers of India from Uttar Pradesh. There was a brief discussion about the upcoming UP Legislative Assembly elections, followed by a couple of behavioural questions. The interview then gravitated towards my work experience and I was asked technical questions related to the same, followed by questions about industries positively and negatively affected by the Covid pandemic. In the end, I was asked about my role model, why I related to him and how I sought inspiration from him. The panellists were very accommodating and gave enough time to gather my thoughts and it felt more of a conversation rather than an interview.