Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (2017 - 18)

The selection process at IIM C consists of essay writing (WAT) followed by personal interview round.

Average Duration: 25 minutes
Word Limit: 300 words

Average Duration: 30 minutes
No. of Panelists: 3

Candidate Profile: B. Tech (Mechanical) with work experience at L&T

Do you work with L&T currently? Why did you leave your job? What are your goals? (The candidate mentioned operations analyst/consultant?)What do you mean by operations analyst/consultant? Can’t you get the same in your company? What if you don’t get admission? (The candidate replied he will apply abroad for fall season) Study outside is costly. Can you afford it? Which courses are you looking for? So what is the plan here, 5 years down the line? What are types of gears? Why are they used? What did you do in seminar presentation? Explain what you did? What is 3D printing? What are its types and ISO? Explain 3D printing and how it works? Does L&T use 3D printing? Okay, not your division, then the group as whole, any subsidiary? So, you like movies that teach something about life, tell me one. Did you follow quora and pagalguy for interviews? Any question for us?

Candidate Profile: Fresher, B.Com (Hons.)

What’s your rank in college? So, you have studied accountancy, right? I’ll give you a situation. Let us say, you’re a dairy farmer and you have 50 cows. One of your cows gives birth to a calf. How would you account for it in the books of accounts? How would it appreciate the value of your fixed assets? Can you give me the journal entry for the birth of the calf? So, who was Kirori Mal? (The candidate graduated from the college of the same name) What is an Indifference Curve? (The interviewer hands over a paper, which had two ICs drawn, intersecting each other with 3 points on them, labeled as A, B and C) Can you rank these points in the order of preference for a rational consumer? What is a Giffen good? How is the shape of its demand curve? Any example? What is the substitution effect? You’ve done a module in financial markets, tell me what is SENSEX? How does it act as a representative? What are derivatives? What can be the underlying assets? If price of the commodity doesn’t change, will price of the derivative change? Why do you think so? What is LIBOR? What is risk free rate of return? Do you know the rate prevailing in India, in terms of percentage? So, what has brought you here, why MBA? Do you read newspaper? As an accountant, how’d you highlight the problem in the Nirav Modi case? In 2–3 words? Pin-point what was missing. What is that? Explain. But, if the work of one gets checked by another, wouldn’t this go infinitely? Is there any other body to check this? And what if they also join hands in committing the fraud? Have you read the Cadbury Report on Corporate Governance? Have you read the Birla Report on Corporate Governance? Do you know what it is? Do you read? Which was the last book you read? Tell me one famous line from that book.

Candidate Profile: B. Tech (Mechanical) with work experience at BPCL

Where do you work? Describe a typical day at BPCL. What do you do regularly? Can you give me an instance when you faced this kind of problem? What kind of strategies do you follow in maintaining the plant? So you mentioned a few words here- preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance and breakdown maintenance? What are they? If you were to troubleshoot an equipment, what would you exactly do? So what is this called? Have you heard of the fishbone diagram? So you've been working here for about 19 months. Have you faced any audits? What is the role of maintenance in an audit? But that is a safety audit- Do you know anything about ISO accreditations? What ISO accreditations does your company have? So how long have you worked with the technicians whom you work with? What is the classification of these people- specifically? So how do you handle such senior people? How do you manage to make them work? Why would they listen to you? And all these are Malayalis? So tell me, what works better, formal leadership or informal leadership? Why do you want to do an MBA? Let's assume that you want to start a company. Your fixed cost is 2500000. Your variable cost per unit is Rs. 5. Tell me how you decide your pricing. Make any assumptions as necessary. What if it's a new product? So you've written here that you read a lot. Have you read any news in the last two to three days? What do you like to read? Who wrote it? Tell me something you've read recently. Or anything I can ask you questions about. What did J.K. Rowling do before she wrote Harry Potter? Where? Have you read any news in the last two to three days? (The candidate mentioned about Nirav Modi scam) So what did you learn about the scam? What should PNB do now? What corrective action should it take? You mentioned shareholders. Who owns the shares of PNB? You wrote that you're interested in strategy. What do you understand by strategy? So what would your strategy be as the CEO of the company? You said there are people with a B. Tech working with you. Why would they work at a lesser position? Do you have any questions for us?