Interviewer: Dr Rav Singh
Toppers: Ansh (Cognizant) & Shivika (Fresher)
Dr Rav Singh: Moving to the interview phase, were you asked tough questions about your gap year or lack of work experience?
Shivika: Luckily, no. I was asked about like why I chose to do an MBA and everything. So my major reason was that I have done my BMS in HR and I wanted to change my specialization to sales and marketing, which is why I decided to do an MBA. So I was mostly asked questions about that and then about my hobbies and everything and like any recent skills that I have learned during that year. So luckily like I was doing a course on stock market. So some part of my interview was driven towards stock market and then there were questions related to like why are you changing to marketing and everything. So there were questions related to that.
Dr Rav Singh: This is one good part of SCMHRD. They don’t grill about what you don’t have; they focus on what you have. Ansh, what was your interview revolving around?
Ansh: My interview revolved around my work as in technical consultant. They asked about what work you do and why you choose that company after having a good score in your electrical engineering. My whole interview revolved around those things only. You’re about work ex, you live in Pune about Pune and all. They asked about my academics and I also play Kabaddi at a high level so they asked question about why I left Kabaddi and go for IT company and all. So it revolves around myself only. There are no technical question as such in the interviews.
Dr Rav Singh: The main problem is that they give very little time for the interview preparation—calls come and within two to three weeks you have to give the interview. What did Shivika do in those two weeks?
Shivika: Okay, so like what I did is after I got my call letter and everything, I focused mainly on everything related to me like my background, my education and like why I want to do an MBA. I made sure I was very sure about those HR questions and mainly about the general knowledge like what is happening in current affairs, because you really need those things sometimes in an interview and in your GE process as well. Luckily I was following the admissions and PR page of SCMHRD, so they have this campaign called APR weekly. That helped me in keeping track of the current affairs and I remember there were some questions related to that as well.
Dr Rav Singh: What is Ansh‘s advice for the first step of preparation?
Ansh: Advice is to prepare yourself first. Your CV major pointers (education, hobbies, work X) must be clear. Every question you should be able to tackle in the interview. You must have reasoning for everything you are doing or have done in the past. After your introduction in the interview, all the questions, majority of the questions, will revolve around your introduction.
Dr Rav Singh: What is the best way to practice interviews?
Ansh: I used to prepare with my friends. They ask me random questions in the interview and for preparation of GE/PI, I used to prepare with my elder brother and all. So they prepared me very well for that.
Dr Rav Singh: And now with ChatGPT, what do you recommend?
Ansh: I recommend everyone to have their CV ready, upload the CV to ChatGPT, and ask it to give 100 questions or 50 questions based on my CV. That will help more. In fact, every person is different. If you talk to your dad, he will ask a different set of questions. A friend will ask a different set of questions. So you can interact and collect as much experience as possible. All the best!
