Nearly 200,000 students from different walks of life and varied academic backgrounds take the CAT every year. As an aspirant, you want the best score that gets you to your dream B-school, and you wish to make CAT your first and only priority. However, as a working professional, a large part of your time is already taken up by meetings, targets, and deadlines. Naturally, you must be wondering: Can I crack the CAT while also doing justice to a full-time job? Should I quit my job to prepare for CAT? How to prepare for CAT while working? Read on to find out!
I am a Chartered Accountant. While preparing for CAT, I was also working in the statutory audit practice of KPMG. The job was demanding, and I used to worry about not being able to devote sufficient time to CAT preparation. I joined the weekend batch of TIME and watched concept video lectures on the weekends. I was lucky enough to be granted a leave for 2 months for CAT preparation, which I spent by solving practice questions and attempting and analyzing mock tests. With this, I managed to score 99.08 percentile.
Is It Possible To Ace CAT With A Full-time Job?
Short answer- YES! A big number of students crack the CAT while managing a job every year (including one 100 percentile scorer). About half of the students at top B-schools have some amount of work experience. Naturally, many of these students would have taken the CAT with a job. As a working professional, you must tweak your strategy to achieve your goal. Also, remember that work experience gives your profile an added advantage and improves your chances of converting your dream B-school!
Why Do Some Aspirants Quit Their Job To Prepare For CAT?
Aspirants quit their jobs for a variety of reasons, some of which could be:
- Work hours that are terrible (think 14-hour work days, no weekends off), and they simply cannot find time (or simply cannot muster the energy) to prepare for CAT.
- The job is so dreadful that they cannot wait for MBA to make that change.
- They attempted CAT in the past, and now want to go all in.
- They believe that along with CAT, they can engage in activities more relevant to MBA like online courses and internships to build their personality (and their profile).
The point is, every individual is different, their nature and comfort are different. Make your choice based on what you feel you are comfortable with.
Is It Necessary To Take A Leave For Preparation?
While getting a leave will help you be more relaxed during your CAT preparation, not everyone’s managers will grant it. While some aspirants (like me) get long leaves of 2 months or more, many others have managed with leaves of about 2 weeks, and in some cases, none at all. The best strategy would be to assess how much leave you are able to get and modify your study plan accordingly. Given that CAT is an aptitude test, there is really no different last day preparation to do; however, being on leave (even a short one) will certainly help you relax and focus on the exam.
How To Make A Study Plan For CAT With A Job?
Now that you have chosen to attempt the CAT while managing your job, the first thing to do is make a realistic plan while avoiding a burnout. It is very important to compartmentalize your work and study times, so that you aren’t doing one and worrying about the other!
Figure out:
- When do you get free, effective time during the week which can be used for preparation?
- What timeslots can you allocate to CAT preparation on the weekend?
- How much leave can you get?
Usually, it is suggested that preparation for CAT requires at least 200 hours, although the time will certainly differ for each aspirant. One recommended and manageable study schedule is 2 hours per weekday and 5 hours per weekend, amounting to 20 hours per week.
Based on when you start your preparation, this is how much time you end up getting:
| Number of hours you need |
200 |
300 |
400 |
500 |
| Duration of preparation |
2.5 months |
4 months |
5 months |
6.5 months |
So, as you can see, if planned well, its easily doable! And the earlier you start, the better.
As an example, if you start 5 months before CAT, you could follow this sequence of preparation:
- Cover concepts from all chapters along with basic practice limited to understanding concepts (2 months)
- Extensively practice all chapters with key focus on difficult areas. Preparing a Tips & Tricks book, containing formulae and tricks to refer on the day before the exam (2 months)
- Practice some more for important and difficult areas, analyze past mock tests, and enhance your Tips & Tricks books. Develop your final CAT strategy and take the CAT head on! (1 month)
You can make a similar plan and expand or contract it based on time available. Weekly planning rather than daily planning helps- you can adjust your study plan as per inevitable unexpected work emergencies.
Important note: Attempting and analyzing mock tests simultaneously, right from the beginning, is most crucial, irrespective of the level of preparation.
What Do Working Professionals Need To Do Differently?
As a working professional, it is true that you will have lesser time at your discretion as compared to other students. Rather than worrying about this, here are some tweaks that you can make to your approach:
- Consider coaching: Joining coaching has several benefits- good study material, peer group and availability of faculty members to clear your doubts. It is always up to you which topics to attend, and which topics you can self-study. While not necessary, it can certainly help.
- Smart planning with quality execution: Constantly remind yourself that CAT is an Aptitude test (it is in the name!), and results are not proportionate to the number of hours you put in.
- Set small goals and achieve them: Given lesser time spent per day, your progress will be slow which could cause some stress. Go horizontal first, and vertical later! Having solved 10 questions each from 20 chapters will give you much more comfort than solving 200 questions from one chapter. This will also make your mock test experience more fruitful.
- Consistency is key: Most plans don’t work out the way you intended, and you will often find yourself unable to meet your target for the week. Consistent effort without giving up at such times, is the most important.
- Be calm, and avoid burnout: This is a marathon, not a race! Make sure you are always well-rested and not stressed out, even if that means cutting a few hours of studies. When you cannot study, enjoy!
- Join the community: Join all WhatsApp and Telegram groups you can. Follow great MBA YouTube pages and blogs (start with InsideIIM’s YouTube page!). A lot of information coming from these sources will bring you into the CAT zone- study tips, updates, and lots of motivation. What’s more- this is value addition that happens outside your study plan, so it is an added bonus!
- Hear others out but listen only to yourself: A flipside of joining the community is a lot of negativity and pushing of some ‘mandatory for CAT’ myths. A common example- ‘Reading Hindustan Times editorials is a must for success in VARC’. While that might help, won’t it probably help more to read actual VARC passages from past CAT questions? Rationalize every input you get, and make your own decisions based on what you are comfortable with. Take the positives, ignore the negatives!
In conclusion, you will ace the CAT as a working professional, with a few things done right! All the best! Do reach out to me if you have any queries, I would be happy to help!