As the CAT drew to a close, MBA aspirants are caught up with preparing for Group Discussions and Personal Interviews.
GD’s and PI’s are an integral part of any B-school’s admission procedure. Here are some tips to keep in mind when appearing for a Group Discussion with any of the B-school where you have applied.
- First and foremost, you should be as natural with your ideas as much as you can. One common mistake students do is trying hard to be someone who they are not Thus, they key here is to be natural.
- Group discussion gives the student an opportunity to be vocal about his/her thoughts and ideas. The evaluator will be judging how you speak and what you speak.
- Thus, it goes without saying that you should first take some time for organizing your ideas and thoughts. You need to collect your thoughts and decide what you will say during the discussion.
- Before the group discussion commences, you can always speak to the evaluator or the administrator about any doubts that you have regarding the subject of the discussion.
- You should not start talking unless you have completely analyzed and understood the given subject.
- To introduce your point of view to the audience and the participants, you should think of using different strategies to introduce your opinion. You can either start a new discussion or agree with what someone else has said previously and then take the opinion forward with your own views.
- If you think that by initiating the discussion, you will attract the evaluator’s attention, then you are certainly mistaken. Even as the discussion progresses, the evaluator will judge whether you are providing valuable inputs and insights and giving the subject new angles or dimensions.
- Remember that when you are putting your point across, the evaluator is also closely watching your body language. Your mannerisms and gestures are reflecting your attitude more than what you are speaking during the discussion.
Once you clear the group discussions, you should be gearing up for a personal interview which usually the B-school faculty will be conducting. For any interview of a B-school, the focus could be detailed questions about your expected job as well as generic discussions on any other subject.
- When you are preparing for a personal interview, you should not be approaching it as a question-answer round but rather as a conversation that you want to enjoy.
- In the days leading up to the personal interview, you need to do your groundwork and homework well. Many interviewers are likely to ask questions like ‘What are your strengths’ , ‘what are your weaknesses’ and many more. Many B-schools also want to know from the aspirants why they think a specific program is appropriate for you or why they want to study at a specific business school.
Thus, these are some of the tips you can keep in mind when you prepare for personal interviews and group discussions once you have applied for CAT and got a decent score.
