Questions related to Interview for Admission in SPJIMR, Mumbai

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CoolAvenue's Interview with:
1st year PGDM Students
S. P. Jain Institute Of Management & Research, Mumbai.

1. General Questions
2. Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
3. Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise
4. Interview-related Questions
5. After Joining MBA

Q. How did you prepare for the interview?
A. I kept myself updated on the latest happenings and current affairs. I tried to read as many opinion columns and editorials as possible, in order to develop a perspective on Indian and global affairs. I also tried to understand and get a brief insight into the areas and subjects covered in Business education. In an interview, usually, the toughest questions to answer are the ones dealing with the understanding of yourself, your goals, strengths and weaknesses, etc. It is important to spend some time on this.

Q. How many interview calls did you get and from which institutes? How many and which ones of these could you actually convert to a Final Call?
A. I received calls from 2 institutes - Indian School of Business (Hyderabad) and S. P. Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai. I converted SPJIMR.

Q. Date and location of Interview. Were you given the option to choose? Was the interview date fixed or rescheduled couple of times. Was the interview venue changed or scheduled as per your convenience?
A. Date of interview: 22-3-2009
Location: IIM Bangalore
We could choose our date of interview, location of the interview and the time slot within the choices given. There was no change in the interview slot which we chose. SPJIMR strictly asked us to choose as per our convenience in the beginning as there would be no change in that. However there were a few cases where the candidate was permitted to change his interview slot, only if the candidate has substantial reason to change

Q. Can you tell us about the panel that interviewed you?
A. We had two rounds of group interview; the first round was conducted by Prof. Virender Shukla who specializes in areas like HR Management and Organisation Behvaiour. Mr. Shukla has professional experience of 30 years in India and abroad and has worked with leading Business Houses like Mahindra, The Mehta Group, RPG and the Aditya Birla Group at various levels. Mr. Virendra Shukla is an alumnus of TISS (MA).
My second round of group interview was conducted by Prof. Parimal Merchant; who is the chairperson of Family Managed Business (FMB) program at SPJIMR. Mr. Merchant has twenty-four years experience in industry, consultancy and capital markets.

Q. How long was your interview?
A. The admission process includes two group interviews, each lasting for about half an hour to forty-five minutes.

Q. What kind of questions were you asked? Were they specific to any particular area?
A. I was quizzed more with the intension of assessing my focus towards doing an MBA and the area of specialization chosen(is it backed with proper reasoning).

Q. What was the first question? The most interesting question? The most difficult question?
A. The first question that was asked in my interview was 'Tell me about yourself'. It was a group interview with eight of us and all the eight had to speak about themselves for a minute or so.
The most interesting question that was put to me was when I had completed my answer for 'Why Finance'. One of the panellists remarked in a jovial manner 'U have answered in a very professional manner. But I expected something else. Don U want the big bucks a finance job would give?
The toughest questions for me was when the panellists wanted exact figures for the current SLR, repo rate and reverse repo rates as I was not sure of the exact no's but only knew what they were.

Q. While facing the panel, were you confident, did you feel prepared?
A. Since, I was very well aware of the Premium that an MBA from a prestigious institute like SPJIMR commands, I accordingly had put in sincere and directed efforts towards ensuring that i kept myself up to date with the latest and most relevant happenings in the Business world and in Indian/world economy in general. Further, since I had applied for Financial management as my specialisation, hence I had rigorously worked on brushing up my basics from Graduation and expanding on my understanding of other Financial general issues.
Hence, I was confident while facing the panel, simply because I knew that I had prepared in the Best way I could have.

Q. Write a brief about your Interview experience.
A. The interview process of SPJIMR is one of the most unique and challenging Selection Techniques adopted by any other B-School in India. Two rounds of Group interviews which may have a wide variety of inbuilt screening Process like a small GD, extempore etc are the trademarks of unpredictability that the process encompasses .While the First Round is essentially to do with screening the Right Candidates, the second Round focuses on selecting the Most appropriate future managers.
My Group interview - 1 was conducted with six other interviewees, and the First common question put forth to all of us, was "tell us something about yourself", followed by an individual Question to each of the participants depending on what they stated about themselves. A small GD on the Topic: Does Management as a discipline have a role to play in the current global scenario?
The Group Interview- 2 was more general in nature. The questions were subjective and opinion driven all the while trying to identify the makings of a future manager in an Individual's way of thinking.

Q. Was any feedback given to you? What feedback did you receive from the panel at the end of session?
A. No, I was not given any feedback.

Q. How would you rate your performance in the Interview?
A. I would rate my performance a 7 on 10 in the first round which was the elimination round and a 8 on 10 in the second round of group interview.

Q. Areas where you could have performed better in your Group interview?
A. In my first round of Group Interview I was asked to describe the most challenging phase in my life. I spoke about an incident in my life however I got very emotional about the incident which could have been avoided. Also in my second round when we had to discuss the topic "Is History Fact or Fiction", I touched upon a lot of complex points when simplicity should have sufficed. Also I was quiet stubborn in putting across my point of view. I should have put forward more ideas and thoughts in the discussion.

Q. Give some handy tips regarding interview that would be of great help to MBA aspirants.
A. The most important thing to be kept in mind while attending an interview is to be yourself and to be honest. It is essential that you know yourself better so that you can be confident about every little thing that might seem insignificant but may still be important to the panel.

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