Vivek Agarwal scored 93.4 percentile in CAT 2023 and is creating this page as a reference for future applicants who will clear the CAT exam or any other major exam in the future and want to prepare for GD PI or WAT but do not have many resources or a network that can help them prepare like Vivek does.
Vivek says, “I didn’t have many resources, but I prepared with whatever information I could find online. Later, I realized that applicants like me share their interview experiences in groups, and edtech giants use them to discern the trends of questions asked in interviews. Hence, I decided to share those experiences on this website, which could help you understand the pattern of questions asked in interviews and design your preparation plan accordingly. One request: if you find this helpful, please consider sharing the website and refrain from copying and sharing it elsewhere.
Keep these five things in your hand, as what experience says:
- Current affairs (Refer it through business and economics)
- Knowledge about your state and city. (videos on internet)
- Civics (politics) and position holders name
- Academics
- General HR
Click here to explore those interviews
The MBA interview, a pivotal moment in the application process, serves as a platform for candidates to showcase their potential beyond their written credentials. It’s a dynamic exchange where intellect, ambition, and personality intertwine. Candidates must articulate their career aspirations, demonstrate a deep understanding of their chosen field, and convey how an MBA aligns with their goals. Beyond the academic and professional journey, interviewers often seek glimpses of leadership, adaptability, and problem-solving skills. The interview is not just about answering questions but also about forging a connection, presenting oneself authentically, and leaving a lasting impression that distinguishes the candidate from the rest.
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The interview experience is listed down:
1.SCMHRD- 07-02-2024
Background- chemistry graduate with workex in Sun Pharma
GE- 7 members
A case was given where in we had to increase the market share of a hair transplant company. Three solutions to be provided
1. How will you increase the online presence
2. How will you provide tailored solutions to customers
3. how will you make business more eco friendly and sustainable
PI- 2 members, 1M 1F both around 40 YO
F- Tell me in brief about yourself
Follow up on same
F- why do you want to pursue MBA
F- Two key learnings you got from working with Sun Pharma
F- Two major differences between US drug market and Indian Drug market
M- why not PhD why MBA, give differences between the courses and reasoning
M- tell us any instance of out of the box thinking and how you managed that
F- Asked about impact of US elections on India
F- Asked about budget, what I feel about it and any two elements of the budget
Guesstimate- Give the percent decrease in the demand of commercial office spaces in India due to telecommunication
Overall a very conversational interview, not grilling but they had a lot of follow up questions
2.NMIMS
Morning slot 8am entry
Wat started at 9:29 (20min type in the google form)
Topic: ways governments can utilise the full potential of youth to boost the economy and increase employment.(not exact statement)
Watson: completed within 20mins (gave it half sleepy)
Then breakfast(wada and biscuits, tea and coffee)
PI:
P1:
Q1. Tell me about yourself
Q2. What project did u handle alone
Q3. What is data mining, follow up how did u do it.
Q4. What is your hobby? Name 2 novels u read?
What was intriguing about that book?
P2:
Q1. You’ve mentioned a quote in your sop, which book is it from?
Q2. Why mba at NM?
Q3. Area of specialization?
I mentioned marketing so follow up que…
How will u increase sales in your retail shop in the era of ecommerce?
P1 again…
Why marketing?
Follow up que….what is branding and what is the purpose of branding?
END
3.NMIMS PI Experience 2024
Bcom (Hons) 9/8/8 Fresher
NMAT – 250
WAT – Paragraph about what are prompt engineers in AI and what qualities one needs to have to be successful in that field. Then the question was ‘Why are educational institutions not able to produce more prompt engineers’
Panelists – M1 and F1 (Both late 40s)
M1 – TMAY
M1 – Tell me about your internship experience at EY. cross questioning on that for about 4 minutes.
M1 – What is a Balance Sheet
M1 – I am not a commerce graduate. How can I understand and use a balance sheet for my benefit easily?
F1 – Tell me about your other internship experience (In the financial brokerage field). Cross questioning for about 2 minutes.
F1 – What was your project in the Research Methodology subject?
F1 – what was your hypothesis and findings, both qualitative and quantitative
F1 – As a fresher, how will you contribute to the class where there are people with 2-3 years of workex?
Overall lasted for about 10mins. Did not grill or cut me too much.
7 Feb 2024 Afternoon slot
WAT = Gig economy, recommendations for betterment of workers
PI = 3rd in Group, 3:00 pm
Panel – 1F (Mid 30’s) , 1M (50’s)
Said Good Morning upon entering due to Nervousness
*Corrected*
Advised to be Calm and treat both of the panelists as friends
F = 1)When and where I Graduated (Answered)
2) Subjects (Told)
3) 4 P’s of Marketing (Answered)
4) What is the most important P for Amazon? (Answered- Product and explained)
5) Why is Amazon a marketplace (Answered, did not seem to be impressed by the answer)
6)What is a Market? (Answered)
7) Economies of Scale (Answered)
8) About Family Business (Answered)
Short discussion on Impact of Covid
9) Supply Chain of Business (Answered)
M (Intervened in Between)
1) What do you do when Inventory is piled up and not getting sold?
(Not a convincing answer from my end)
2) Methods to valuate inventory
(Couldn’t answer, slight grilling here)
3) Interests apart from Business
(Mentioned Cricket)
Rapid Fire Scenario starts
4) Vvs Laxman state?(Didn’t knew)
5) Highest score by Vvs Laxman?(Forgot)
6) Mohammed Shami state?(Answered)
7) Nightwatchman who scored a century?(Didn’t knew)
8)Mecca of Cricket?(Answered)
9) Role Model (Ms Dhoni)
10) Life story of Ms Dhoni (Told)
11) Capital of Assam?(Didn’t Knew)
Finally said I have very poor knowledge of GK and Cricket which u say is an area of your interest
12) Why should we select u?(Answered)
13) Any other programme u know about from Nmims?
(Told Family Business programme)
He told me that program will be better for me
I disagreed and explained but did not seem to be convinced
Done
All answers were very short and hence a lot many questions
Duration: About 15 mins
4.NMIMS – 7th Feb
Acads – 9/9/8
Profile – BCom (Hons.) , 20 months work ex
WAT Topic- Gig economy and recommendations to grow gig economy
2 panelists – 1 male (60+) and 1 female (40+)
NO TMAY, GK or current affairs questions
-Tell us about your work ex
-Was your first job through campus placement?
-BCom Hons is more finance heavy so why marketing
-When did you realise you had an interest in marketing
-How does having a finance based academic background help you in your marketing job
-Why do you want to leave your job in Marico and do MBA
-Do you recall anyone with a similar last name like yours? ( My last name is Biyani and he was looking for Kishor Biyani’s name)
-Are you related to him? (jokingly)
-What happened to him? There were books written on him and now he is no more in headlines(Reliance x Future group deal fell apart)
-What is your father’s business?
-Why dont you go and support him in the business than do MBA?
-Who will take it ahead? Do you have siblings? (very weird)
-Since you work in a big FMCG org, what knowledge do your have of org structures?
-Asked me to elaborate on collaborations w diff departments in my team
-What do you plan to do in the future – stick to digital marketing or explore more roles?
-What have you heard about MBA courses?
Ended pretty abruptly. A lot of to and fro on questions related to why should I or should I not do MBA (job ones and father’s business) but otherwise decent
5.NMIMS MUMBAI (MBA)
Mode: WAT/Watson Glaser/PI Offline*
Date: 06th February 2024
Profile
Hotel management
89/72/75/ 7 mon Work Ex as Shift Manager in Paradise Biryani/97.28%ile
Documents : call letter
WAT TOPIC :
Should B-School play a role in building ethics and moral compass of future business leaders.
P1: Male, around 50s
P2: Female, around 30s
P1: Introduce yourself.
P1: You want to be a brand manager, and you did internship from Hilton Jaipur. What would you do as a brand manager of Hilton to differentiate and improve your brand image.
P1 : Tell me what is yield management.
P1 : what is the difference between a brand and product
P2 : What problem did you face as shift manager during your job?
P2 : Asked about the research project made during UG. What was it about.
P1 & P2 : That’s it. You can leave.
Both panellists were calm, smiling and the interview was conversational.
6.IIM Rohtak interview transcript
Afternoon session
Grad- mechanical engineering
Cat -92.57%
Work ex-25months( 1 year private teacher and 1 year PSB)
2 panelist both male (40 yrs around)
Basic document verification
Extempore – Bank frauds reasons and remedies
Qn- 2 troke and 4 stroke engine why not 3 stroke engine?
Qn- what is piston and what is its use?
Qn- future of engines after 2 and 4 strokes?
Qn – what are types of screws?
Qn -Tell us about alwar ?( no clue why they asked this i am from jaipur not from
alwar)
Qn- who built hawamahal?
Qn- who is Rbi governor?
Qn – why recession and what rbi can do ?
Overall Chill panel, no grilling
Ps:- I waited for 2.5 hrs for interview
7.IMT G
Morning slot
CT : Central and State elections to be conducted at the same time:
Pipe dream or reality?
P1 (Male)
1. Where are you joining from?
2. How did you join your current company? Was it campus placement?
3. Tell me more about the hybrid project you have worked on.
4. How is a hybrid vehicle a better alternative?
5. If these are the advantages of hybrid, then why are hybrid
vehicles so few in the market?
P2 (female)
1. Which specialization will you choose if you join IMT?
2. What roles does a product manager play?
3. What is the difference between an operations manager and a product
manager?
4. Who has a higher responsibility, prod manager or ops manager?
5. I see that you are working in a good company. Why do you want to
leave that and do an MBA?
6. Do you follow national and international news?
7. What is the name of Google’s AI that is competing with ChatGPT?
8. What are the differences between ChatGPT and Bard?
Extremely chill.
Lasted for around 15 mins
8.05/02/24 SPJIMR-Finance
WAT topic- should multinational corporations be taxed higher?(something on these lines)
GI-1: 1) Introduction 2) What do you think is the biggest challenge in finance.
3) What is the business model of zepto4) Why MBA and why this specialisation. Why as a fresher?
(Had a lot of cross questioning on this)5) How is AI being used in investment decisions.
6) HDFC issue
9.SPJIMR interview
My profile: CAT 98.60 percentile, 2 yrs of work experience in impact consulting
WAT topic: Relationships take time and effort to build. List 3 things that can make or break a relationship. (not exactly worded like this but this is the gist).
GI 1 (2 panelists):
My takeaway: Focus of GI 1 is checking your clarity about your post-MBA goals and why is SPJIMR MBA the best path to lead there. Plus, you need strong knowledge in your current domain.
Interview started with a round of introductions.
Questions asked of me:
1) What rating would you give to India’s current CSR regime out of 10?
2) You have already worked in a reputed organization. Why MBA? Why MBA over courses focusing more on social impact?
3) Can you name some companies in impact investing? (asked as my post MBA goal is impact investing)
4) Why did the government of India launch schemes like Ayushman Bharat if NGOs have substantially improved the healthcare situation since the launch of CSR?
GI2 (2 panelists): Each question was directed to the whole group
1) What do you think is the purpose of GI2?
2) How are you aligned to the values of SPJIMR?
3) (pointed at me) Do you think there is a conflict between pursuing profits and social impact?
4) (Taking from my response that there is no conflict because you can take socially conscious decisions even as a manager of a for-profit enterprise) If you already know all this, then why MBA?
5) Between SPJIMR and IIM A / B / C, which one will you choose and why?
6) When have you hit rock-bottom in your life?
7) Rapid fire question: We had to say the first word that came to our mind about the prompt that the interviewer said.
Prompts were: 1) India 2) SPJIMR 3) Parents 4) Cloud
8) Who is your role model?
10.Gem 9/8/8 SPJIMR(Finance)
Gi1All 5 finance
1)Basic Intro-answered
2)What’s blockchain-answered
3)What’s the difference between hashing and encryption-Couldn’t answer
4)How do you decide to invest-Told many ratios
5)Explain P/E ratio and its significance-answered
6)How will you decide a stock is overvalued or undervalued-answered that using valuation methods, can find intrinsic value using DCF valuation
7)Tools for capital budgeting-answered
8)NPV vs IRR-what will you choose and why-answered
All 5 qualifiedGi2
1)Comment on the role Aamir Khan played in Tare Zameen Par vs his role as parent in Dangal
2)What would fulfil you?
3)Why do you want lose weight?
4)Why is Virat Kohli your model?
5)One word what are you afraid of?
6)One word on why Spjain?
7)Best thing about today?
8)What alternate profession would you chose if you have made a lot of money already?
9)ABC vs SP Jain what will you choose?
#IMT HYDERABAD (campus specific)Profile 9/8/8 B.A , CAT: 90.81
Work ex -5 yrs teaching
Date -6th feb
#WAT: investigate the vulnerabilities of our global supply chain during events like pandemic. Give strategies to increase the resilience of global supply chain (30min ,300 words)
2 panelists 1M ,1F both under 40
M1)
1.tell me something not in your application2.what is management?
2.what is supply chain3.differentiate between supply chain resilience and responsiveness4.which among the two amazon or flipkart has resilient supply chains5.who heads department of atomic energy and space
6.who is the finance minister
F1).
1. Since my background is teaching she asked me if have any aspirations for phd2.arent management institutes just train for workers rather than entrepreneurs
3. Since i prepared for upsc ,did you see 12th fail4.why IMT hyd specifically?
5.why did you leave upsc preparation?
Hardly 12-15 min
Overall very chill and no counter questioning.
Click here to explore more interview experiences #9
