Here is my Group discussion and Personal Interview experience.
CAT score
CAT OA Score: 98.47
Section 1: 96.45
Section 2: 98.0
Profile
X: 82.92%
XII: 94.15%
Undergrad Major – Chemical Engineering GPA/%age: 67.64%
Work-Ex (number of months): Evalueserve, Gurgaon – Sr. Business Analyst (23 months), Family business – Business Development (7 months)
Sector: Business Research (Evalueserve), Food Processing (Family business)
Experience
Venue: HMATC Dadar (Mumbai)
Slot: Morning
Panel No: 5
GD Details
Topic: Is the government really serious about bringing back black money?
Number of People present: 10 out of 12 candidates were present.
WAT Details:
We had to write about the proceedings of the GD i.e how we thought the GD went.
Time: We were given around 10 minutes to discuss the topic and about 2 minutes to write the proceedings of the GD later.
Other Salient Details: Decent GD. I pitched in 4-5 times with points related to black money with respect to funding political parties, about how government needs to do more and a few other things. At the end the 2 minutes for WAT, it didn’t really feel like 2 minutes. The panelists had take away the papers of some of the candidates forcefully. Thankfully, I had completed writing.
PI Details:
Panel Members Intro:
P1 – Prof. J.N.Godinho (Associate Professor, Marketing) – He was the one who asked most of the questions.
P2 – Prof. D.P. Goyal (Professor, Information Management) – He was silently observing for the majority part of the interview. At the end he asked a couple of questions related to GK
Interview experience:
Me: Good morning sir. (to both of them)
P1: So Vibhor, tell me who do you think was the weakest candidate in the GD?
Me: Candidate number 8, I think he remained silent for most of the GD.
P1: What is the problem in remaining silent? It’s better to keep quiet rather than say something that doesn’t make sense right?
Me: No sir, I mean I noticed that he had something to say, but he didn’t try hard enough.
P1: Alright, so you have been working in XXXX now..what did you do for 2 years after college?
Me: Yes sir, I am working for my family business right now. For 2 years previously, I worked with Evalueserve in Gurgaon.
P1: So what is your role in your current organization?
Me: Sir, I am working as a Business Development Officer. Since, it’s a relatively small company the responsibilities aren’t well defined but I work closely with the various departments. (I then described a project that I had worked on)
P1: OK, what are the various distribution channels in your organization?
Me: Sir, in the downstream we have our Sales representatives. We have our distributors and then we have the retailers.
P2: OK what about your previous organization? What did you do there?
Me: Sir, I was working with a business research team on short term research assignment and our client was one of the top 3 management consulting companies.
P1: Tell me what you think about the land acquisition bill?
Me: Sir, I think it’s inevitable to go through with it since without the bill, we won’t be able to develop the necessary infrastructure which would form the backbone of our development as a nation. At the same time, I also feel that it’s implementation is of extreme importance. No point in having a pro-farmer land acquisition bill just for the namesake. Proper compensation should be provided to the people who are displaced.
P1: But they are saying that they are going to provide 2-3 times the compensation right?
Me: Yes sir, they are saying so but, after the ordinance was passed last year, there was a case in Haryana where the government couldn’t provide even 1.5 times the compensation to the farmers. If the implementation is taken care of, then it would great for us.
P2: Tell me the complete name of our Vice president?
Me: Mohd. Hamid Ansari
P2: What is his role? (Then he got busy on a phone call)
Me: Sir he will be the acting president in case of the demise of the President.
P1: What else? Do you think he gets highly paid just for that?
Me: Sir, I am not able to recall right now. Can I guess?
P1: Yes, go ahead.
Me: Sir, may be he shares some responsibilities related to
governance of states (Which proved out to be true to some extent indirectly as
the Vice-president is the ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the council
of states)
P1: Okay Vibhor, now if I say that you are selected and since
you are going to work in your family business anyway, and since I am closely
involved with the placement process at MDI, what if we don’t allow you to sit
for placements will you still join MDI?
Me: Sir, ideally I would like to sit for placements interview. I want
to work in one of the MNCs for a short term, learn how the various business
processes are professionally organized, and then implement it in my
business. But if it is mandatory that I cannot sit for placements, I still
think it would be a good investment in the long term as the kind of exposure I
would have at MDI with the esteemed faculty and students from various
industries, I think it will help me. It will help me think of scale,
possibilities I would not know if I don’t go for an MBA.
P1: Vibhor, we saw this even in the GD and now a couple of
times during the course of this interview, you know you are so diplomatic, you
should have become a politician.
(Then we all started laughing)
P2: Ok Vibhor, we are done. All the best ?
Me: Thank you so much sir ?
Final
verdict: PGPM convert in the first list!