Handling Failure: This Is Not The End; Keep Your Hopes High!

I believe in one mantra, ‘if you want to go someplace, you have to raise yourself to the level of that place’. Acing the exam will get you an admission into a B-School, where you’ll become a manager. Don’t get into the illusion that a B-School is a place where a normal person goes and comes out as a manager; No. Quite the opposite happens here. If incompetent or less skilled managers enter a B-School and when they leave this place, they become better than what they were 2 years ago. So, moral of the story: Be a manager; behave like one. Orient yourself such that you learn maximum from your job, enjoy it. And, when you think that you have grown too big for the organization or your learning has saturated, then aim for CAT. And trust me, you will have better goal clarity. You’ll be able to crack the exam this time because now you know why you want to go there; at this stage, you’ll be able to make strategies for the exam which will help you clear it.

There’s a risk involved here. You have just given the exam and you take the defeat personally. What will happen is that you’ll enter into the job just because you don’t want any gaps in your career and you can fill in the work-experience number in the form. You stop focusing on your job, and this is the time when you are inducted into the organization, you begin to connect with the company and the people. And if during this time you resume your preparation, you will isolate yourself from the organization which you have just joined. As a result, you’ll not be bonded with people and you wouldn’t even gain the trust of your supervisors. Now, if the result is positive, well and good; your gamble paid off. But if it didn't, you’ll be stuck with the same people whom you have given a hard time while preparing for the exam. Just imagine the predicament you’ll be in. So play safe and wait for at least one year after going in for a job to resume preparing for the exam.

Leaving your job for preparing for the exam is not recommended at all, it will haunt you forever. If however you have already left your job and failed to get into a B-School this time, it is strongly recommended to get another job without further ado. You need to understand the gravity of your decision and need to further introspect into it. You need to learn more and raise your level more before you give another exam attempt.