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How I Cracked CAT In Four Months With A Job | Ft. Avik Majumdar, MDI Gurgaon '22

Comments
 

Anubhab Saha

First of all I would like to Thank You for writing such a beautiful article, not only it was informative but also eye opening. I feel I am in a similar situation and would love to have your views, my profile is as follows- ICSE= 82.67% ISC= 71% DGPA= 7.59 (Graduated in July 2020) I am a GEM candidate and I did my Engineering from Future Institute of Engineering and Management, Kolkata I currently have a offer from CTS and the profile is CIS Engineer trainee (Servise Desk sort off) My question to you is should I now try getting a better job to improve my profile (which is hard given the pandemic situation as there are hardly any offcampuses happening and our placement team is also of no use) or will a service desk profile hold weightage and also given my average academic track record should I gain some work experience to get the added advantage on my profile or try CAT 2020. I would love and really looking forward to your opinion. Please help out a younger brother.

5 Aug 2020, 01.40 PM

+Read Replies (2)

Avik Majumdar

Thank you Anubhab. I would suggest you to get some work experience in order to boost your profile. You may accept the offer that you currently have. The thing that matters is that you have a full time work experience of some relevant duration (often work experience in the range of 18-30 months is given the maximum marks by most b-schools). In the interview, you need to explain the things that you have learnt while you were on your job. It will also make your perception clearer about professional and corporate life and give you more ideas. As far as CAT 2020 is concerned, you can write the exam. There is no harm and it will also help you assess your level of preparedness. If you manage to get your desired score, then you can focus your attention towards converting your best calls. If you feel that your score is not great, then you can write CAT 2021 (we usually get to know our raw CAT score in the first week of december and can guess our expected percentile). Having relevant full time work experience will definitely boost your profile and improve your chances of getting calls and converting them. I hope that I have been able to answer your query. Do let me know in case of any concern.

5 Aug 2020, 02.50 PM |

Anubhab Saha

Thank you so much, you are such an inspiration and not only that you cleared all my doubt. And once again Congratulations for MDI

5 Aug 2020, 07.18 PM |

Akrishti Jain

i wish to ask, why you advised to not appear for CAT if work ex is more than 3 years. What can be the shortcomings related to that? As of today's date I have work ex of 36 months and have appeared for the exam twice but couldn't get any good converts. I really found your preparation story motivational. Thanks in advance.

5 Aug 2020, 07.23 PM

+Read Replies (3)

Avik Majumdar

Thank you Akrishti for your question. I would like to point out that is nothing wrong in appearing for CAT if one has work experience of more than 3 years. I have some of my batch mates with similar work experience. The point that I wanted to highlight was that the opportunity cost increases as one has greater experience. With over 3 years of work experience (depending upon his or her current designation), I feel that the options of b-schools for most aspirants get limited to only the top 10-15 colleges in India in order to have a more meaningful career transition (unless someone really wants to change his or her career path at any cost by pursuing an MBA). So with over 3 years of work experience, there is a greater risk involved and also the number of points offered in the selection process by different b-schools to the work-ex parameter usually tends to decrease after 36 months of work experience. One also gets closer to having the option for pursuing an executive MBA with greater amount of work experience. Having said all these, I would also like to highlight the last point that I made in the article - if someone is really confident about getting admit from his or her dream b-school by reappearing, then he or she should definitely take another shot. I hope that I have been able to clear your doubt to a certain extent. Do let me know if there is any query.

5 Aug 2020, 07.41 PM |

Akrishti Jain

Thank you Avik for replying and clearing my query. I have just one more question. Is it good that I leave my job and prepare as my work ex would be limited to max 40 months ? Also, I had looked for executive MBA options but most colleges require more than 5 years work ex, and I really don't want to wait for that much time in my current job profile and so decided to appear for CAT. Thanks in advance.

5 Aug 2020, 08.52 PM |

Avik Majumdar

Given the uncertainty at the present time, I feel that leaving the job and preparing for CAT might not be the best choice to make. It is always better to have backup in these uncertain times. If you attempt CAT 2020 with 36 months work-ex (for IIMs and some other B-schools, work-ex is usually calculated till 31st july i.e the same data that you fill in the CAT application form) or even CAT 2021 with 48 months or less work ex, it might not make a huge difference in terms of the marks you will get for work ex. Also, you need to make sure that you can give proper explanation to the interview panel about the gap and why you decided to quit your job. There is a trade-off here and you need to decide depending upon your risk appetite. My personal suggestion - do not leave the job as getting your dream b-school admit is a multi-stage process and you need to perform well in all the stages to secure it. Sometimes, most of those things might not even be in your control and may depend on luck to a certain extent. So, having a backup is always a safer option. Hope it helps. Do let me know in case of further doubts.

5 Aug 2020, 09.13 PM |

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Comments
 

Anubhab Saha

First of all I would like to Thank You for writing such a beautiful article, not only it was informative but also eye opening. I feel I am in a similar situation and would love to have your views, my profile is as follows- ICSE= 82.67% ISC= 71% DGPA= 7.59 (Graduated in July 2020) I am a GEM candidate and I did my Engineering from Future Institute of Engineering and Management, Kolkata I currently have a offer from CTS and the profile is CIS Engineer trainee (Servise Desk sort off) My question to you is should I now try getting a better job to improve my profile (which is hard given the pandemic situation as there are hardly any offcampuses happening and our placement team is also of no use) or will a service desk profile hold weightage and also given my average academic track record should I gain some work experience to get the added advantage on my profile or try CAT 2020. I would love and really looking forward to your opinion. Please help out a younger brother.

5 Aug 2020, 01.40 PM

+Read Replies (2)

Avik Majumdar

Thank you Anubhab. I would suggest you to get some work experience in order to boost your profile. You may accept the offer that you currently have. The thing that matters is that you have a full time work experience of some relevant duration (often work experience in the range of 18-30 months is given the maximum marks by most b-schools). In the interview, you need to explain the things that you have learnt while you were on your job. It will also make your perception clearer about professional and corporate life and give you more ideas. As far as CAT 2020 is concerned, you can write the exam. There is no harm and it will also help you assess your level of preparedness. If you manage to get your desired score, then you can focus your attention towards converting your best calls. If you feel that your score is not great, then you can write CAT 2021 (we usually get to know our raw CAT score in the first week of december and can guess our expected percentile). Having relevant full time work experience will definitely boost your profile and improve your chances of getting calls and converting them. I hope that I have been able to answer your query. Do let me know in case of any concern.

5 Aug 2020, 02.50 PM |

Anubhab Saha

Thank you so much, you are such an inspiration and not only that you cleared all my doubt. And once again Congratulations for MDI

5 Aug 2020, 07.18 PM |

Akrishti Jain

i wish to ask, why you advised to not appear for CAT if work ex is more than 3 years. What can be the shortcomings related to that? As of today's date I have work ex of 36 months and have appeared for the exam twice but couldn't get any good converts. I really found your preparation story motivational. Thanks in advance.

5 Aug 2020, 07.23 PM

+Read Replies (3)

Avik Majumdar

Thank you Akrishti for your question. I would like to point out that is nothing wrong in appearing for CAT if one has work experience of more than 3 years. I have some of my batch mates with similar work experience. The point that I wanted to highlight was that the opportunity cost increases as one has greater experience. With over 3 years of work experience (depending upon his or her current designation), I feel that the options of b-schools for most aspirants get limited to only the top 10-15 colleges in India in order to have a more meaningful career transition (unless someone really wants to change his or her career path at any cost by pursuing an MBA). So with over 3 years of work experience, there is a greater risk involved and also the number of points offered in the selection process by different b-schools to the work-ex parameter usually tends to decrease after 36 months of work experience. One also gets closer to having the option for pursuing an executive MBA with greater amount of work experience. Having said all these, I would also like to highlight the last point that I made in the article - if someone is really confident about getting admit from his or her dream b-school by reappearing, then he or she should definitely take another shot. I hope that I have been able to clear your doubt to a certain extent. Do let me know if there is any query.

5 Aug 2020, 07.41 PM |

Akrishti Jain

Thank you Avik for replying and clearing my query. I have just one more question. Is it good that I leave my job and prepare as my work ex would be limited to max 40 months ? Also, I had looked for executive MBA options but most colleges require more than 5 years work ex, and I really don't want to wait for that much time in my current job profile and so decided to appear for CAT. Thanks in advance.

5 Aug 2020, 08.52 PM |

Avik Majumdar

Given the uncertainty at the present time, I feel that leaving the job and preparing for CAT might not be the best choice to make. It is always better to have backup in these uncertain times. If you attempt CAT 2020 with 36 months work-ex (for IIMs and some other B-schools, work-ex is usually calculated till 31st july i.e the same data that you fill in the CAT application form) or even CAT 2021 with 48 months or less work ex, it might not make a huge difference in terms of the marks you will get for work ex. Also, you need to make sure that you can give proper explanation to the interview panel about the gap and why you decided to quit your job. There is a trade-off here and you need to decide depending upon your risk appetite. My personal suggestion - do not leave the job as getting your dream b-school admit is a multi-stage process and you need to perform well in all the stages to secure it. Sometimes, most of those things might not even be in your control and may depend on luck to a certain extent. So, having a backup is always a safer option. Hope it helps. Do let me know in case of further doubts.

5 Aug 2020, 09.13 PM |