IIM Kozhikode Interview

I know it’s a stale event by now but one has to do one’s duty towards the blog.

The interview panel comprised of two senior gentlemen – one with a really really long hair cut and a beard to match and another pretty decent looking normal chap. The one overwhelmingly obvious difference between them being their hairstyle we will call them Long Hair (LH) and Short Hair (SH). It turns out that SH is a PhD in economics (I found this out after the interview from the website.) I will go by the name of Poor Candidate (PC)

PC: Good afternoon, Sirs.

LH & SH: Good afternoon. Take a seat.

SH: Are you tired? You have been waiting for quite some time now.

PC: No sir.

LH: Aditya, we have been asking everyone to tell us something about themselves, family etc. Why don’t you tell us something about yourself.

PC: Some fundas about how great I am ….something about the family

LH: What is graphology? (I had mentioned it)

PC: Handwriting analysis, etc…..controversial subject….

SH: Can you analyze my handwriting for me? I will write down something….

PC: Sure sir.

SH: (writes down a few sentences) Here it is

PC: Talk about a few traits I could notice

LH: Why have your results gone down since 10^th standard?

PC: I talk about relative performance etc.

LH: You like to surf the internet….Have you heard of pagal guy?

SH: (To LH) What? What is it?

LH: Why don’t you tell him about it?

PC: Website for MBA aspirants, etc. …..more than 50K members…

LH: Have you studied anything about accounting?

PC: No sir

LH: Any subject related to economics?

PC: Sir, we had economics and business management.

LH: Business management, eh? Hmm….Did you study anything about motivation?

PC: No sir

SH: How do you think we can increase worker productivity?

PC: Something about imparting skills, better work environment, better salaries

LH: Have you read the Gita?

PC: No sir. The only thing I know about it is what I have seen in the Mahabharat televison serial.

SH: (Smiling)..Aaah…That was all about arrows flying from here to there…

PC: (Smiling broadly)…Yes of course, sir…I don’t have any philosophical insights into it…

LH: Do you think it’s a philosophical or a religious text?

PC: I haven’t read it so wouldn’t be able to say anything…

LH: (cuts me short) But still you can say something..

PC: I think it’s a little bit of both…

SH: It’s a nice thing you have done the French language course. In this globalised world knowing a foreign language will be helpful to you…

PC: Thank you sir

SH: We have an exchange program with European School of Business, Paris wherein six students from our institute go there and an equal number come here….

LH: We are asking everyone to speak a few minutes about any topic…You can choose a topic if you want to…Okay, we will give you one…Speak on “How can India win more medals at the Olympics”

PC: touch a few points about professionalizing sports bodies, infrastructure and support for players…give a few examples about problems of nepotism etc…and fail to mention obvious things about changing our perception towards sports as a career, etc…

LH: What do you think about the group discussion today?

PC: (relunctantly) It was a nice GD..

LH: Do you think you had direction?

PC: (Smiling) Sir, we had only a few points and were just trying to say the same things in different ways

LH: (Smiling) Maybe you lacked wisdom…(Laughs)….(The topic of the GD was “Seek wisdom, not knowledge.)

LH & SH: Thank You and Best of Luck.

I understand that the above is a skewed view of how the interview unfolded as I have not given my answers in detail….but I am feeling too lazy to think about what I spoke exactly and type it out….