Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (2014 - 15)

Process
The process of selection at IIM C consists of a Written Ability Test and then Personal Interviews.
Feedback- Written Ability Test
Average Duration: 30 min.
Words: 200
No. of Panelists: 2
  • Young people are spending less and less time reading books. Examine the reasons behind this trend. What can be the negative consequences arising out of this?
  • Reasons for disproportionately low number of women in top managerial positions, and how this issue can be solved.
  • Very few women are at Top Management in Companies, your views. Reasons and suggestions.
Feedback - Personal Interview
Average Duration: 15-30 min.
No. of Panelists: 2-3 mins
  • Excerpts From Interview 1: (A 99.93 percentiler in CAT with academic profile as 94%in 10th , 94.4% in 12th and 7.66 CGPA in Graduation) Which is your favorite band? Why? Do you listen to Indian music? Okay. So why don't you tell me 3 differences between Geeta Dutt and Noorjahan? In your form, you have written your short term career goal and the long term career goal. You have not mentioned anything about your intermediate career goal. Why? Please take a min and tell us about your intermediate career goal. The midterm goal. Do you remember your career goals? Tell me. Now tell us your intermediate career goal. Okay, tell us the timelines. After how many years, you see yourself achieving your short-term goal and your long-term goal. So where do you work? Give me your background. So you work in Market Research. What are the different things done in Market Research? So tell me what is conjoint? Why do we do conjoint? What is the need? Okay. So what do you work on? So, let's say I give you a set of X values and a set of Y values and keeping it simple, let's take the linear regression line to be - Y = A + BX. Tell me how will you estimate A and B. No need to give me the exact value. Tell me the equations. There seems to be a minor mistake in your second equation. Give the notepad to me. (Looked closely at the notepad) Asked me about my approach. So who is our Finance Minister? When is he going to deliver the Union budget? So why is our Railway budget different from our Union budget? Tell me 3 similarities and 3 differences between Leander Paes and Sivamani. (I had written my hobbies as playing Lawn tennis and playing drums) So we are done. Your interview is over. Any question you would like to ask us?
  • Excerpts from Interview 2: (A 99.70 %ile in CAT with profile as 94% in 10th, 91.4%in 12th and 82% in Graduation and 6 month work-ex) Which college. IP University is state or central? Did you study Operation Research? Name a few topics. What is transportation model? Linear or non-linear? Equation y=5x + 4.Compute values at x=2 and x=4. I doubled x but y did not double, why? According to what you said, transportation is linear. Leaving hotel for home, you encounter a red light. What is the probability that it is Red when you reach? Which calendars do you trade in? I meant type? Any other you aware of? Heard of Lunar calendar? No curiosity? Why does year have 12 months? Why 365 days? Do you read newspapers? Since when? Can you tell me about Indian Economics? What is GDP of India? How does it grow? You are only regrouping it. Automobile freak. Heard of BMW? Give me full form. Why Bavarian? Meaning of Volkswagen. OK, why are oil prices falling? There is this news of a political conspiracy by US. Know about it? I will tell you. US wants to hurt two countries by dragging prices down. Can you name them? Why Russia? Why out of G-8? Which part? Any Questions?
  • Excerpts from Interview 3: (A 99.97 %ile in CAT with profile as 81.8% in 10th , 87.66% in 12th and 82.66% in graduation and 18 month work-ex in Banking Industry) How has been your day till now?. So, why here for MBA? You should have become a researcher. Why you didn't go for M.Sc? First tell me whether joining B. Sc Physics course was your choice or your parents? So, this means that you will do the same after MBA. High chance that you will leave industry after 10 years. You look fickle minded, having no vision of what you want to do in life. Why have you removed your French beard ? Do you read newspaper? There was a 2 page long article in mint a couple of days back. Any idea? You should have told without taking any help. So you know about E-commerce. Tell me why ecommerce companies are generating more revenues from tier II and III cities in comparison to Tier 1. Any comment about future of ecommerce. Let's talk about math. What are AM, GM? Condition when AM = GM. Prove AM > GM. Prove it using 2 Numbers. No, another method turn the page on which you solved AM = GM. shocking that you aren't able to prove. I will tell you.4 people in a room, no. of handshakes. Explain the process. Assume 100 people, no. of handshakes. Okay. You are working as a marketing officer. Let's test your knowledge here. 4 P's of marketing. What does place mean? What is marketing mix? E commerce has no place, it has space; comment. Why Jayalalitha resigned? But why these leaders still enjoy popularity among people.
  • Excerpts from Interview 4: (A 99.91 %iler in CAT with profile as 90%in 10th, 92% in 12th, IIT Delhi graduate in Electrical Engineering with 7.4 GPA, 18 month work ex in a Data Analytics firm) 5-10 mins were mostly on regression analysis. How do you use it, what insights can you generate, how is it useful? Goldman Sachs did a regression analysis study to predict the GDPs of China, India and other countries. What was in it? Have you heard about it? If not then no issues we will go ahead. If we talk about banks, how can regression analysis help banks? Ok, coming to the question of GDP again, if you were to predict the GDP of India, what factors would you consider? And what will be the confidence interval for your prediction? Then a little discussion about what if no data, have you heard about securitization? What do you like in Mathematics. Can you derive d/dx by first principles? What if function is x? What of x can take any values? What if we redefine x!. ..1.5!=1.5*0.5 We were not asking for continuity. You were too eager to tell all of it...you should be aware of what is asked and what is required. You are electrical or electronics?
  • Excerpts from Interview 5: (Profile as 84.0% in 10th, 91.8% in 12th, 75.92% in BE Hons: Mechanical Engineering) So, what are you up to now-a-days? Explain further. He was reading through the research paper on tidal power plants I had written with 2 of my classmates. So talk about this paper of yours. Explain it to me. Do you know about time lag? Can you observe such a concept in the 2 curves here? Talk about the rationale behind the duration of time lag. Tell me the names of leagues you follow. There should be around 40-45 of them. Said you are an 'avid follower’ you should know the exact number. Difference between biography and autobiography? You say that you have developed 'project management' skills. Tell me about it. Your opinion on Narendra Modi. Better question, we are the panelists who have to award the Nobel Peace Prize and Modi has hired you to give a pitch in his favor. You have a minute.
  • Excerpts from Interview 6: (94.5% in 10th, 87.2% in 12th, (CGPA: 5.411 and 7.3014  in B. Tech and M. Tech (Dual Degree) in Chemical Engineering , Work-Ex: 7 months) Which engineering would you have chosen had you had the whole choice? Become a salesman then. Why do you want to do MBA? Asked about my work experience at cafe. Joked about bringing a sample from bakery.. Asked about low CGPA. They all said that if it is hidden till now, it’s not a good thing. What’s the price of your Kiwi cake for 1 kg? What’s the relation between Kg and Pound? Told them I didn’t remember but a little over 2 pounds. How do you manage cake inventory? Wastage? Do you have any unique code for every cake? You have stated x profit out of y turnover. Do you take this much money out of your business. Do you give Income tax? Advanced tax? He asked about shelf life and how do we deal with it? You have done job and business together. Isn't this unethical? Then your boss is also unethical. Do you have any document to support this? You will get booted for this bootstrapping. This is wrong. Intention doesn't matter in murder. What if your chef does the same? After your shift at cafe, he goes to work at your competitor; will you be okay with that? “No sir I won’t be if he working with my competitor because he is harming my business in some way, which is not the case here”. Why does it matter? Market is so big that you and your competitor both can sell cakes without harming each other. He wants to support his family. Isn't two jobs justified? In America, people do 10 jobs together. Why can’t your chef? The panelist who was looking closely at my portfolio till then, added that the cafe is under the name of his mother. And he has taken the head position. It doesn’t matter to us what you have done in cafe. You are an unethical person. You can leave.
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