Be clear about the purpose and everything else will be taken care of.
CAT is over. So, will other exams will do in a month or so. But this is just a start and not the entirety of MBA journey. The real challenge waiting for you ahead is the Personal Interaction (PI) round, which is going to be a make or break for you. To be more specific, the decisive question in a PI will be “Why MBA?” – which sounds very fundamental yet holds paramount importance in deciding your fate.
So, Why MBA?
It is one of the favourite and frequently asked questions in an interview. I really don’t know why five minutes are elegantly wasted around this question when the interviewers already know the answer (lets’ keep this discussion for some other day!). So, at any point of time in the interview, unexpectedly and out of nowhere, interviewers will shoot this question to you and will expect a so-called genuine answer from you, which actually will not be genuine but will be soothing to their ears and also, convincing their brains. But then there lies catch in this – no matter how genuinely you answer the question, they’ll repeatedly throw a trap on you by counter questioning to your every answer until unless they attain the fifth-level of Maslow’s hierarchy completely.
So, what to do then?
My very simple advice to you is to spend some time with yourself and do introspection. Ask yourself why are you working so hard day and night? What is that you’ll get in a b-school apart from appealing hefty packages?
You ask anyone – your CAT trainers or friends, or check out on MBA preparation websites, they all will say advise you to bake a story. Create a story, decorate it well and sing it in the interview and you’ll sail through it. Believe me, even I was told the same. But then my heart never accepted this approach. Okay, I wanted to make my interview but then what good is a fiction without the flavour of practicality. Narrating any counterfeit story will not help you in cracking the interviews.
So, what I did was that I sat alone for hours and kept asking myself – what is that which has compelled me to pursue MBA? and I used to jot down all the points that came to my mind and collated all. I used to chart out my goals in life and how MBA is going to facilitate me in achieving those goals? After a quite good time of introspection, I was able to see a clear picture emerging out of all the points and the only task now was to articulate the picture in a beautiful way with simple words. That’s how I came up with the answer to Why MBA. And the best part of this answer was that I didn’t have to fake it because it came directly from my heart and so I was darn confident speaking the answer. Also, as I was clear with the purpose of doing MBA, seldom had interviewers caught me in a trap.
So, on the ending note, find some time, a silent place (try at CCD or maybe a garden), think and jot down all and sundry including even minutiae. I hope my words will be helpful to you in articulating the answer to the question which will be definitely thrown at you.
P.S. – I was never overpowered by interviewers in PIs because I speak my heart and not mind.
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