Most of the questions that one encounters in a B-school personal interview can be classified into the following categories: A – Introductory questions B – Academic and work-experience related questions C – Current affairs and general awareness questions D – Personality-based questions E – Goal-related questions F – Stress questions Let us begin by looking at these types, and the common questions that are asked under each type. Please note that while most interviews begin with introductory questions, no particular order of question types is followed by the panel as regards

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Having looked at the pre-interview preparation in the previous post, we can now focus on what happens in the initial stages of the personal interview. There is one factor of your PI performance that invariably shapes your first impression in the minds of the panellists even before they meet you. Can you imagine what it is? It’s not your CAT score, or your academic scores, or your work-experience, or your hobbies and interests. It is your punctuality. Whether or not you turn up on time for the interview greatly influences not only the panel’s first impression but also your own

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Personal Interview Tips: I must have interviewed at least a few thousand candidates in my time. Every time I feel that I have seen it all and I have met them all, a Higher Power Up There intervenes and restores my humility by presenting a sample that I have never seen before. I share with readers these samples in the (absolutely vain) hope that they will not repeat these cases, and make their own new mistakes so that my life remains exciting. I just pray that you make those new mistakes in the mock interviews and not in the actual ones! Sin No 1: Negative Body language and Attitude: Thi

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In this post I would like to cover some of the basic ideas about personal interviews. Since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will try to be brief. Whom do the interviewers select? The candidate they “like” – so your job is to be “liked” by the panel. Attributes that normal panels like: Honesty Be ruthlessly honest with your answers You should know your subject You should understand your immediate environ Your answering should demonstrate analysis Listen to the words and the body language Answer the question asked Pane

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Let us get something very clear at the start of our discussion on the personal interview round. PI is difficult. Very difficult. This is the first and the last time the college gets to interact with you before they take a call on your candidature. Therefore they will do whatever is necessary – including testing you in ways you simply have not imagined – to ascertain that you are the right candidate for a seat in their college. The greater the competition at a particular institute, the tougher the PI, and the more the unexpected questions. The second factor that complicates the

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When I said in the previous post that you must write at least 100 essays, I was not joking. There are a number of reasons why this must be done. First, writing, unlike speaking or reading, is not a natural process we follow every day. Therefore, when we sit down to write, we are filled with self-doubt. Second, every writer, on most occasions, needs to motivate themselves to write. In the case of a WAT taker, the perceived disincentive for writing a bad essay outweighs the perceived incentive for writing a good essay. In other words, most WAT takers feel that a bad essay can do more damage

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XAT 2019 Answer Key and Candidate Response How to check? Step 1 to check XAT 2019 Answer Key: Go to official XAT website: http://www.xatonline.in/ Step 2 to check XAT 2019 Answer Key: Click on the Login link. Step 3 to check XAT 2019 Answer Key:Enter your XAT User ID and Password in the form that will be given below. Step 4 to check XAT 2019 Answer Key:Once you are logged in, you will see a new tab called "Candidate Response" like the one shown below. Step 5 to check XAT 2019 Answer Key:When you click on Candidate Response you will get an option to generate your r

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If we all had the right guidance, the requisite reference material at hand, and unlimited time to write and revise the essays that we write, quite a few of us would eventually be able to produce satisfactory essays. The same task becomes infinitely more difficult when it is presented in the form of the WAT, which must be accomplished in approximately 15 minutes, and which must be produced entirely from references in one’s memory. When we are ultimately faced with the final WAT assignment and a blank paper, several factors begin to weigh heavy on our minds. There is the complexity of the t

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First thing first, when it comes to essay writing, there could potentially be 700 deadly sins. However, space and time constraints dictate that I resist the perennial, evil temptation of writing another long-winded piece and confine myself to the top seven that lead the line-up. These seven mistakes feature routinely in majority of the essays that I assess, and often a single essay contains all of them in varying degrees. So here I go with the seven deadlies in no particular order of frequency or seriousness. Sin No 1: Irrelevance This one is a two-faced devil and both equally ugly. The

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Over the last few years, most of the top B-schools have switched over from group discussion to writing ability test (WAT). There are compelling reasons why this has happened. It will be prudent to understand them before we begin our preparation for the WAT. The most important reason, I feel, behind this change is that, unlike in GDs, in an essay, it is impossible to borrow the content from anyone else or further develop someone else’s thoughts. You must entirely depend on your own content and reasoning. In fact, GDs are meant to test your ability to assimilate diverse points of view alon

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