Interview @ IIMA

Well I am back after the IIMA interview followed by two days of lazing around in the hostel. So let’s get to the ahd interview. Here is the whole story from the time I woke up at 6 in the morn….

Woke up, shivered in the damned Delhi cold, was amused at the fact that I could wake up at 6, never thought I could do that. Took bath and groomed myself likei was going for a marriage proposal. Read the newspaper and tried to cram up as much of it as I could.

Got to IIFT some 1 hour before the interview….first interview you see, dun think me a geek :P. Talked to some people who had reached before me even, damned geeks :P! Chatted a lil bit with the junta and found out that EVERYONE was an engineer, five from my college itself. The process started exactly at 9 Am sharp and we were taken upstairs to be butchered by hungry IIMA profs.

Names were called out and I was in a batch wid 3 other peeps from my college.So we went in for the case study and were introduce to IIMA by a prof and the case study started.It was absolute globe all the way with people bullshitting excessively.Overall me thinks I did not create any mess at all, tried to keep the group under control a couple of times and tried to earn brownie points by creating a chance to speak for a guy who had a good point but coudnt get a chance.

Out of the room, everyone seemed to agree that case was average at best and group was the same.

Now the all important PI,

I- me , A- acads heavy guy, M- Middle guy, O- Old dood

I enter the room and put my file a lil close to the panel.

M- do u want us to see your file?

I- yes sir

M- why, nething special in it?

I- Sir, since his is a short span of time you may not be able to see all facets of me , this is a glimpse of it.

A- gimme the file.

M- so what were the people outside talking about?

I- arbit chit chat, asking the ppl who’ve alredy had the interview about wats goin on.

M- so what did they say?

I- sirrrr the interview are acads heavy(me smiles and interviewer smiles too, seems he knows that I am one of those engineers who have no idea what they did in the last 4 years.)

M- so what do you expect?

I- Stress interview…

M- what is a stress interview?

I- tells

M- is it a good way?

I- one way of testing pros and cons.

M- ok so how did you prepare for the CAT

I- test series..

M- how did it help

I- helped me in knowing where I stand with respect to others and also got an idea about the paper…

M- what practice for GD ?

I- none sir, we used o do a lot of GDs in the hostel so did not feel any need to do more.

M- but this is the real thing..

I –yes sirrrrr

M- what about interview how did u prepare for that?

I- brushed up acads, reread some of fav books..

M- what kinda books?

I- sir Toffler, biraphies by studs in business

M- Toffler doesn’t write about business…

I- but about society sir and that includes economy

M- what business books?

I – fav is liar’s poker

M- tell me abt it..

I – Sit its about and art history major who goes on to work at salomon brothers, book is on I-banking in the 80s and why salomon brothers fell.

M- which other books?

I- Sculley, Iacocca..

M- who is Iacocca?

I- tell him

M- whats he doin now?

I- dunno bout hium, tho know bout sculley, jobs etc

M- tell me abt sculley

I- talked about the book “From Pepsi to apple”, and about Apple’s culture and quotes the line when steve jobs asked sculley “Do you want to keep selling sugared water or change the world?”

A(Finally waking up)- whoa!dude! dun u think thats arrogant?

I- Sir I think it simply shows his belief in what he is doing and sums up what was going on at apple at that point of time…

A- look at what is happening to apple now!

I- sir apple has now started doing very well after the introduction and massive success of the i-pod and earlier the I-mac

A- what was so special that was happening at Apple at that point of time?

I- sir in the 40 pages or so that have described the environ ment at apple, it is amazing to see the kind of enthusiasm that people like wozniack, Hertzberg had shown.Sometimes we don’t realize what a big part apple has played and how it has touched us.the mouse was designed by wozniack, the drag bar by Hertzberg, its not hard to see how important these thinga re today.Another thing about the apple office then was that it was much like a hostel than a corporate office. No restrictions and total focus on innovation.

A- how do u measure innovation?

M- originality of the idea and its practicality in real life.

A- who judges these parameters?

M- sir since u have asked me about my opinion so I would be the judge.

(somehow the conversation came back to apple and I mentioned how apple had been the first company to be in constant touch with the developer community)

A- so what if tomorrow a company is in contact with the janitors, would that become significant?

M- Sir here the developer community was an integral part of the computer industry and the knew what was going on. Even apart from that apple was the first company to tell the ordinary man that the computer was something that he could use be it for business or for enjoyment and all that at a reasonable price with models like lisa and macintosh.

A- ok, tell me about you final year project

M – sir it is on developing non gaming applications of gaming devices, lemme give u a background on this…..(I go on for some time and end at FFT, which is Fast fourier transform, for the unitiated)

A- wats FFT

M- told and led him to DFT

A- wats DFT

M – told and led to FT

A- wats FT

M- told

A- write the formula

M- writes and forgets the dt in the integral

A- corrects and asks me to draw FT of electricity supply

M- draws and convinces A

A- what are drichlets conditions

M- (happy that he knows the answer) goes on and tells him everything

(Now old guy wakes up)

O- so Rohit, what is this FMCG?

M- fast moving consumer goods

O- name a few companies

M- P&G, HLL, Dabur, Nestle

O- ok so can u tell me what are white goods?

M- sir I am not aware of that.

O- now Rohit something has been bothering me, I see that companies come out with offers such as buy 2 get one free, buy 3 get one free tell me why doesn’t something like this happen with people selling jewelry

M- can I get a second to think sir?

O- sure sure

M(thinks abt question, suddenly Carmen electra pops up in my head and I tellmy self to concentrate on the luxury goods industry)

M- Sir the luxury goods industry caters to a different market segment which is more quality conscious than price, secondly it may not be cost effective in such an industry and third the Indian society ha an affinity for the yellow metal and such giimicks aren’t really necessary

O- Anything else Rohit?

M- that’s all I can think of at the moment sir

The panel indicate that the interview is over and asks me to take a toffee, I take one and thank the panel and walk out of the door, not knowing what just happened.

My interview went on for about 30 minutes and the panel was very nice and put me at ease.I haven’t really been able to judge much of it till now. Do give me you feedback guyz.

Whos I am tired like hell, that’s probably the longest post I have ever written.

Now off to a sumptuous lunch and then prepping towards IIMK on 6^th March.

*Yawns and stretches his body*

ciao

rohit