By Rochelle D’Souza
A lot of articles have already been written on Group discussion and Personal Interview (GDPI). We thought of adding to the database based on our experience of training students for the last 10 years. The focus of this article is regarding Personal Interviews conducted by DTE for the Maharashtra MBA admissions. The reason we can claim authority over it is due to the fact that we (Patrick D’souza) has an experience of being a DTE panelist for GDPI and also ensuring on an average of 25 students every year get admission to JBIMS. We have quite a few students who have scored 34/34 and there is a marked difference between the way a person who scores 34/34 prepares as compared to the way others prepare. We have also ensured that almost all of our students who have IIM calls convert their calls. We have 100% result of IIM call converts for 4 continuous years.
So is there a difference in the way we prepare for the IIMs GDPI as compared to DTE GDPI? Yes. The basic difference is the interest of the panellist. For the IIMs or the top institutes when the panellist conducts GDPI they are selecting students whom they are going to teach for the next two years. So they are quite interested in the students they interview. For DTE, the students being interviewed most likely will be a student of any of the college and there is no specific interest of the panellist with the student post the interview stage. This makes for a big difference with the way you prepare for GDPI. So what are the key areas to focus on to ensure your success with respect to PI.
The most important part of any Interviews is to be honest. It does not pay to fib. Why is this point so important? You must have heard of a lie detector. The way they (panellists) detect your lie is from your tone, your pitch and the way you speak. What it basically means that the way you speak when you tell the truth is different from the way you speak when you lie. The panellist who takes your interview has taken many interviews before and usually can detect when you tell a lie. Also interview process is a chemistry that is built between the student and the panellist. The chemistry does not get built when you tell a lie. The moment you tell a lie the chemistry breaks and it results in you getting lower marks. When the panellist gets an inkling that you did not speak the truth, they will not believe in whatever other claims that you make even if it is true.
Another important part of an interview is to differentiate yourself from others. When all the students say the same standard answer, then they all get the same standard marks. The panellist tends to give average marks and therefore you see a lot of students get the same range of average marks in the interview. The only way you can get good marks is when you can frame your answer in such a way that you differentiate yourself from others and show to the panellist that you are much better than others. It does not mean that you have to be a national level athlete or a gold medallist or brilliant in academics. We had a student by the name Prachi who was just a B.Com. Graduate from Bedekar college with a year gap and no work experience. She had hardly any extracurricular activities and she did not have any good academic achievements. When we probed her we found out that she had some great qualities which came out from small incidents in her life. We helped her portray the same in her answers and focus on those qualities than on any achievements. This helped her to bring forward her good qualities and she got 17/17 in her interview. Another student of ours who again had an ordinary profile and had got a call from SP Jain. We found it a little difficult to differentiate him as all the students whom he would compete would definitely have a better profile. When we tried to find about his background we realised that he had organised a few events in his locality and taken a lot of initiatives at the local level. We tried to ensure that he focussed on his quality of taking initiative to differentiate him from others. This ensured that he cleared both the rounds of interview at SP Jain. So how do you go about differentiating yourself? Think of all the events that has happened in your life in the past – both good and bad. Think of how you have coped up with the same and try to find a common link throughout your life where you have shown some qualities repeatedly and ensure those are the qualities which the panellist appreciates. The best way to do is to talk to your faculty and tell him about yourself. Have a proper conversation with your faculty so that he can know about you and tell you what it is that you highlight and what you should not. Ensure that you highlight the right quality about yourself. We believe that there is always something about each of the student which is worth highlighting and it will only come out with a proper introspection. Don’t try to copy it from others, which will only ensure that your qualities are the same as others and you will not be able to convince the panellist as the qualities are not yours.
Apart from the quality that you have which you need to highlight another important area to highlight is your knowledge. You need to have very good knowledge of one area which you can portray in the interview. The idea here is to identify a few areas where you can build good knowledge and try to lead the interviewer to those areas. When I had conducted an Interview as a DTE panellist, there was a student who had a thorough knowledge of International markets and how it affects the Indian economy. When I asked a question regarding the same she could explain the reason regarding why the state of US economy was what it was and how this affects the Indian economy as well as the exchange rates. She detailed out the whole analysis. This prompted me to give her 17/17 despite the fact that she could not answer a couple of GK questions. Two things important here is to have a knowledge which is thorough on a couple of areas and to ensure that your answers are framed in such a way that the panellist is lead to ask questions on those areas. The areas need not be management related. One of my students managed to take interview to bodybuilding and ensured that he got 17/17 in interview.
To conclude, focus on these areas: be honest, differentiate yourself, highlight your qualities and be strong in a few areas and direct the interview to those areas. To get these right keep discussing the answers with your mentors. Don’t stop improving your answers till you are done with your interview.
A lot of articles have already been written on Group discussion and Personal Interview (GDPI). We thought of adding to the database based on our experience of training students for the last 10 years. The focus of this article is regarding Personal Interviews conducted by DTE for the Maharashtra MBA admissions. The reason we can claim authority over it is due to the fact that we (Patrick D’souza) has an experience of being a DTE panelist for GDPI and also ensuring on an average of 25 students every year get admission to JBIMS. We have quite a few students who have scored 34/34 and there is a marked difference between the way a person who scores 34/34 prepares as compared to the way others prepare. We have also ensured that almost all of our students who have IIM calls convert their calls. We have 100% result of IIM call converts for 4 continuous years.
So is there a difference in the way we prepare for the IIMs GDPI as compared to DTE GDPI? Yes. The basic difference is the interest of the panellist. For the IIMs or the top institutes when the panellist conducts GDPI they are selecting students whom they are going to teach for the next two years. So they are quite interested in the students they interview. For DTE, the students being interviewed most likely will be a student of any of the college and there is no specific interest of the panellist with the student post the interview stage. This makes for a big difference with the way you prepare for GDPI. So what are the key areas to focus on to ensure your success with respect to PI.
The most important part of any Interviews is to be honest. It does not pay to fib. Why is this point so important? You must have heard of a lie detector. The way they (panellists) detect your lie is from your tone, your pitch and the way you speak. What it basically means that the way you speak when you tell the truth is different from the way you speak when you lie. The panellist who takes your interview has taken many interviews before and usually can detect when you tell a lie. Also interview process is a chemistry that is built between the student and the panellist. The chemistry does not get built when you tell a lie. The moment you tell a lie the chemistry breaks and it results in you getting lower marks. When the panellist gets an inkling that you did not speak the truth, they will not believe in whatever other claims that you make even if it is true.
Another important part of an interview is to differentiate yourself from others. When all the students say the same standard answer, then they all get the same standard marks. The panellist tends to give average marks and therefore you see a lot of students get the same range of average marks in the interview. The only way you can get good marks is when you can frame your answer in such a way that you differentiate yourself from others and show to the panellist that you are much better than others. It does not mean that you have to be a national level athlete or a gold medallist or brilliant in academics. We had a student by the name Prachi who was just a B.Com. Graduate from Bedekar college with a year gap and no work experience. She had hardly any extracurricular activities and she did not have any good academic achievements. When we probed her we found out that she had some great qualities which came out from small incidents in her life. We helped her portray the same in her answers and focus on those qualities than on any achievements. This helped her to bring forward her good qualities and she got 17/17 in her interview. Another student of ours who again had an ordinary profile and had got a call from SP Jain. We found it a little difficult to differentiate him as all the students whom he would compete would definitely have a better profile. When we tried to find about his background we realised that he had organised a few events in his locality and taken a lot of initiatives at the local level. We tried to ensure that he focussed on his quality of taking initiative to differentiate him from others. This ensured that he cleared both the rounds of interview at SP Jain. So how do you go about differentiating yourself? Think of all the events that has happened in your life in the past – both good and bad. Think of how you have coped up with the same and try to find a common link throughout your life where you have shown some qualities repeatedly and ensure those are the qualities which the panellist appreciates. The best way to do is to talk to your faculty and tell him about yourself. Have a proper conversation with your faculty so that he can know about you and tell you what it is that you highlight and what you should not. Ensure that you highlight the right quality about yourself. We believe that there is always something about each of the student which is worth highlighting and it will only come out with a proper introspection. Don’t try to copy it from others, which will only ensure that your qualities are the same as others and you will not be able to convince the panellist as the qualities are not yours.
Apart from the quality that you have which you need to highlight another important area to highlight is your knowledge. You need to have very good knowledge of one area which you can portray in the interview. The idea here is to identify a few areas where you can build good knowledge and try to lead the interviewer to those areas. When I had conducted an Interview as a DTE panellist, there was a student who had a thorough knowledge of International markets and how it affects the Indian economy. When I asked a question regarding the same she could explain the reason regarding why the state of US economy was what it was and how this affects the Indian economy as well as the exchange rates. She detailed out the whole analysis. This prompted me to give her 17/17 despite the fact that she could not answer a couple of GK questions. Two things important here is to have a knowledge which is thorough on a couple of areas and to ensure that your answers are framed in such a way that the panellist is lead to ask questions on those areas. The areas need not be management related. One of my students managed to take interview to bodybuilding and ensured that he got 17/17 in interview.
To conclude, focus on these areas: be honest, differentiate yourself, highlight your qualities and be strong in a few areas and direct the interview to those areas. To get these right keep discussing the answers with your mentors. Don’t stop improving your answers till you are done with your interview.
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