MBA PERSONAL INTERVIEW- TOPICS FOR PREPARATION

MBA PERSONAL INTERVIEW- TOPICS FOR PREPARATION

The journey to the top B-schools in the country starts from the preparation of the CAT examination but does not end with it. The next round consisting of WAT/GD and PI (Personal Interview) will make or break the deal, accounting for more than 50% (ranging 30-50% across institutions) of the weightage for the last and final selection of the deserving candidates, if they want to convert there IIM calls. (You get a call on the basis of your CAT score)

IMPORTANCE

The PI round is the final and perhaps the most important one as well. It is advisable for students to start preparing for the PI round as soon as they are done with their CAT exam. This round tests your emotional intelligence, your inter personal skills in communication and interaction, logical reasoning, patience and composure. It tests your stress management skill, ability to work under pressure and decisive skills. There have been several cases where brilliant students with 90+ percentile have but got in, because of their poor performance in the personal interview round. Your admission to the top B-schools depends highly in your interview performance.

WHAT DOES PI CONSIST OF?

The interview panel usually consists of three or four business experts, who might even turn to be your future professors if you nail the interview round.

•       Duration- 15-20 minutes

•       Subject matter- About yourself, about your educational details, national politics, even your hobbies, interests, etc.

The ‘About yourself’ question is very important since this question mainly decides what and how the next 15 minutes of your interview will proceed.

  

MBA PI TIPS

•       Stay calm, confident and greet the panelists with a warm welcoming smile.

•       If you are not sure about an answer, be humble and tell them that you don’t know the answer. Being humble and to the point goes a long way in interviews.

•       Always sport a smile and do not excessively defend your point of view. Respecting others’ views and showing your point will win you points in the PI round.

•       When talking to the panelists, always maintain eye-to-eye contact.

TOPICS TO PREPARE

•       So, (your name), tell us something about yourself

•       Why this institute? You could have applied to others.

•       Tell us about your biggest achievement and why is it so?

•       What do you consider to be your strengths? Weaknesses?

•       According to you, what are your long term goals?

•       Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

•       Why MBA? What do you want to do after an MBA?

•       Why did you choose Marketing/Finance/Human Resource?

•       Tell us about your work experience and what did you learn there.

•       Tell us about your failures, and how do you cope with them?

•       Any hobbies or interests?

•       How will you define your personality?

•       As a leader, what would you advise to your fellow team members?

•       What is the difference between an employer and a leader?

•       What were your favourite subjects during graduation?

•       What made you choose an MBA after graduating from (your field) background?

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

•       Your personal take and views on Social Media

•       Views on climate and environmental change

•       NRC/CAA

•       Covid-19 Crisis and related.

•       Indian Economy

•       Questions on your graduation subjects.

•       Most pressing issues at present

•       News, issues and views on the most heated topic of discussion in your city/town.

This is not an exhaustive list. Further research is expected to be done by the student, going through articles, improving their communication skills, and learning how to keep their composure in the most stressful situations during the interview. The one who overcomes and masters all the above, will be able to convert their B-school calls.

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pele

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SOCIAL MEDIA- A MARKETING TOOL IN TODAY’S WORLD

SOCIAL MEDIA- A MARKETING TOOL IN TODAY’S WORLD

-      Aastha Jaiswal

The whole model of the Science of Marketing is attracting potential reliable customers and satisfying the existing customers.  Every industry has its own competition, driving the cost of marketing. Hence, in most cases, marketing can be expensive.

For small business owners, who have been recently funded, marketing costs can take a huge chunk of their original budget, which they cannot afford to lose. They have to take care of production investments and machinery costs. For them, ideally, social media can be an effective tool for marketing their products. Individual start-ups, small organisations and businesses with a good background of media marketing can benefit from social media. This is a very cost-effective tool to showcase their products and services. In the beginning of this new field, now known as Social Media Marketing (SMM), small new businesses took part and employed their campaigns with social media giants like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

With the advancement and success of SMM and its promising results, companies like Uber, Zomato and Airbnb started promoting their products and services over social media.

Uber employed Facebook and Twitter to receive negative as well as positive feedbacks and Instagram for revealing new deals, offers, updates on the application and exclusive discounts.

Airbnb has made its marketing skills go to the personal level by asking its customers to post Instagram stories about their experience and stay at the company’s residences and by reposting their homestay pictures. This is a remarkably smart strategy used by Airbnb since people believe in originality and what they see. These strategies have made Airbnb a home-made name in the hospitality industry.

Zomato, the restaurant aggregator and food delivery giant has revolutionised the food network through its social media strategies. They believe in customer to customer relationship and ‘content is king’. Their ‘Yummy Yatra’ campaigns, and ‘Foodie Friday’ contests have generated a lot of response on social media, making their marketing  strategies- 10/10

SMM works because all your potential customers are on social media, and are found to be more responsive to your advertisements on this platform, as it shows a completely different side of your company. Customer to customer reach has been completely possible due to the presence of social media, its cost-effective nature and the wide base of interaction that it offers to the company and its potential customers.

Social Media Marketing in the true sense also results in the increase of a company’s inbound traffic. Every piece of content posted brings a new set of viewers to your page, giving you the opportunity and the possibility of converting them into your customers.

Lastly, the most important feature of social media is the knowledge of the functionality of its different platforms-

FACEBOOK- What you won’t find anywhere, you will find it on Facebook. It offers you a very wide range of audience cover from all strata and hence one should start their SMM from this platform. It is here where you get the majority of the customers through Direct Response Advertising, Detailed Audience Analysis and Social Posting.

INSTAGRAM- One of the most rapidly growing social media platforms, Instagram has been used by company giants to increase the appeal, visibility, connection and reach of their business. Over 800 million users are active on Instagram, 60 million photos are posted and 1.6 billion likes are generated on a daily basis. This clearly showcases the social media connection value of this platform. Creating Instagram product stories, using business profiles, partnering with influencers for better reach, and sponsoring advertisements can help in increasing your customer reach.

TWITTER- The American blogging and social media giant makes its users operate through ‘tweets’ and allows you to enter company names, brands, topics through a search engine. According to Twitter, 1.6 billion unique visitors see tweets, corresponding to 500 million tweets per day! Hence, it is safe to say that Twitter offers you a realistic platform to increase your business and gets public messages accessible easily to you. This platform may be used for feedbacks on services, latest reveals and announcements.

The true power of Social Media should never be underestimated. In the right hands, with the right marketing skills, a company can make its mark in the business world.


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INEQUALITY IN PAY BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN… EXISTS OR A MYTH?

INEQUALITY IN PAY BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN… EXISTS OR A MYTH?

Ever since our early days at education and in real life, we have been well acquainted and accustomed to the word ‘Equality’. We reason and associate with this word so frequently and often out of range and meaning, that we forget how diligently this word and its concept should be examined.

Gender Pay Gap is the overall average difference between the remuneration provided to the working men and working women. According to some critics, it has been observed that this concept is a myth and is frequently used by women in the name of feminism and old age oppression which no longer exists.  However, this is not true. There are various factors solely decided by women that contribute to the Gender Pay Gap. Wage differences between men and women provide a deeper insight into dimensions such as education, occupation, working hours, shifts, etc.

For example, in the case of the narrowing of the Gender Pay Gap index, keeping in mind the consideration of more educated people to have high earnings, we can say that women have levelled up same to men in areas of educational attainment, particularly in years of schooling.

With respect to differences in education contributing to differences in wages, we come to unadjusted and adjusted pay differences. Raw or Unadjusted Pay Gap occurs when the differences in wages between both men and women is calculated without keeping in consideration the differences in worker characteristics. Adjusted Pay Gap results when the complete process takes place with consideration of differences in education, experience, other factors, etc.

From an Indian perspective, there are two things to be kept in mind-

1.   No gender discrimination occurs during campus placements. All are offered equal pay, excluding the criteria of which city they are placed in. (City Tier Allowance)

2.   No gender discrimination in government jobs. All are offered the same pay, apart from the work experience criteria.

Both the genders, men and women, have their own setbacks when it comes to payment for work done. Both deserve equal respect and opportunities. However, the only difference that should be made is on the basis of the kind of work the individual presents to the firm. In the Bollywood industry, actresses have been found complaining about their pay regardless of them having the same talents as the actors. This is highly contradictory since all depends on what you bring to the table, that is, the kind of perfection and proficiency you bring to the table (the actress’s star value, the support of the people and the fan following). The scale of demand and supply affects the work industry as well. There’s no payment without work, and had women been cheaper to hire, the companies in general would have had more female employees than male. But since this is not the case, instead of equalizing pay on the basis of gender, one should focus to reach high levels of success and achievement.

Do share your opinion

AVERAGE MARKS ARE NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

Marks are just an index of what one was successful enough to produce during the examination. Examinations could indirectly be termed memory tests where what is being measured is the students' capacity to memorize points and reproduce it in the paper, than the true potential of the student. Stressing yourself over a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on them is hence foolish. For this fact alone, judging a student based on his or her marks is meaningless and derogatory.

Given the fact that your marks don't matter to a large extent, the way it is being propagated on social media is downright stupid.

Grades are secondary, given you are really talented. But extraordinarily talented students are rare gems. In the season of CBSE results, parents, teachers, friends, stand-up comedians might lecture on how grades are not important, but that's mostly because most of them don't want to dishearten you. In an ideal world, where we'd like to live, your marks won't matter. But in the real world, your marks do matter. Marks are the fruit of the labour for students who had put in great hard work and is not something that should be denied by patronizing social media updates.
Your marks do matter but don't let them define your future. Believing that marks are everything and will decide your career, your growth, your life is not true. The essential truth is somewhere in between. Marks are your entry ticket to the platforms where you get to showcase your skills. Top colleges in India provide you that platform. Getting good grades matter in that context.

There are a lot of successful people couldn't make it to top colleges but most students who went there went on to become successful in their lives. In this context, it is better to rephrase, "marks don't matter", to "average grades is not the end of the world."

Average grades is not be the end of the world, if you are successful enough to navigate through this difficult world. So, it may be fair to say - if you have average or low grades you are required to be smart, extremely hard working, nimble and self learning, risk-taker, and hard-shelled to be successful.

Every coin has two sides. There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that you were not capable to score up to your expectations but the good news is that there are more important battles and examinations ahead. As someone had said, failure is the stepping stone to success. Someone who hasn't failed in some tiny battles early on in their life, someone who hasn't reached the rock bottom, will never know how to win the war later.



So never lose heart 


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Why career mentor is important for successful career?

Why career mentor is important for successful career?

A mentor is someone who can guide you in your career paths to reap out success in your endeavours. A mentor provides the right direction and channelizes ones progress. Every ambitious person needs someone who is a confidential advisor who can objectively help you to overcome your professional hurdles in order to meet your goals.

For this, find your vision of where you think you want to be in your career, the urge to get there, and the confidence to seek counsel from whomever you deem inspirational and credible enough to help you.
The next step will be to assess your network and circle to find someone whom you can entrust your career with. Mentors are people who have "been there" and "done that." They could therefore be a guide in telling what's right and what's wrong.
They support and encourage their mentees by offering suggestions and knowledge, both general and specific. The goal is to help mentees improve their skills and, hopefully, advance their careers.
Career mentorship is necessary throughout one's career, whether it be early on in the fresher state or later in life, at the professional state. A career guide keeps you grounded and can provide you the right steps in climbing your professional ladder, which your co-workers or superiors may fail to render.

 Career mentoring at rightful time enhances professional socialization and personal support to steer you to success. He might even give you necessary insights on what to be done to put your skills and calibre to right use to get ahead of the mediocre crowd. He should show willingness to share skills, knowledge, and expertise to his mentee and should respect the state of professional development of the mentee.

One might not always have answers for all the challenges of our own daily jobs. A mentor proves as a guide star in problems with co-workers, potential career-growth opportunities that are presented to you, they can help you improve upon your soft-skills (communication, networking, decision making), offer up ideas around strategy and oftentimes provide advice around career progression and promotion. 

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Working in Small firm

Why You Should Think Small

Most candidates seeking employment often ignore smaller employers and focus their efforts on larger firms. 

That could be a big mistake: Small firms may be in a better position to hire you, and there are more of them. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses represent more than 99.7 percent of all employers. They also employ more than half of all private-sector employees, pay 44.5 percent of the total U.S. private payroll, and generate about 75 percent of net new jobs annually.

Small companies tend to have business plans progressive enough that they can succeed regardless of how the economy is doing. They tend to be nimble and excel at finding their niche, regardless of the field. Also, small firms usually don't have large overhead that is burdened by big companies with fancy addresses and designer lobbies. 

Here are some benefits of working for a small company compared to a large business:

1. Learning different aspects of the business

Many workers are hungry for hands-on experience and eager to gain practical skills. Small business owners can emphasize the advantages of working closely with senior-level managers and potentially gaining a first-hand view of many aspects of running a business.

2. Opportunity to advance

At a small business, workers are the proverbial big fish in a small pond.  That means employees have high visibility from their first day and their creative ideas and hard work will be seen by the people at the top.

3. Flexibility

Some corporate environments are known for offering substantial flexibility in workplace or scheduling. Those are highly valued benefits, especially to working parents. But a small business can offer flexibility, too, and many savvy small business owners dangle perks such as flexible scheduling and telecommuting opportunities to highly qualified workers to make up for lower salaries or smaller bonuses.

4. Workplace culture

Many corporations pride themselves on their strong workplace culture, an important differentiator for job applicants. But a small business’ culture can be a powerful draw for new employees as well.

5. Creative bonuses

Small businesses generally cannot afford large bonuses. But they can be creative and, because they have less red tape, they may be able to customize their extra fringe benefits to a greater extent. That could mean rewarding a prized employee with a day off for a kayaking trip or a luxurious spa visit. That personal attention can go a long way in making an employee feel satisfied working for a small business.

The Pros of Working for a Small Company

Being employed by a small-size company offers many benefits to your career: 

·        More visibility

Work roles at small companies are often less specialized than at large firms. Plus, in a smaller organization, it's easy to interact with c-suite executives and the decision-makers. Because employees have more visibility, it is often easier to advance in a smaller organization.

·        Experience in a Variety of Areas

Because you're wearing many hats, you're likely to gain knowledge and insight beyond your role. Small company employees often gain multiple skills and areas of expertise to enhance their resume. 

·        Increased Flexibility

Small firms may also have more flexibility when it comes to considering alternative work arrangements such as flex time and job sharing. The dress code may also be more relaxed. 

·        Your Co-Workers May Be Your Friends

At smaller companies, it's common to form deep bonds with your colleagues. Collaboration opportunities abound since employees are so likely to do work that goes beyond their job description.  

·        It Offers an Entry-Point to the Industry

Working for a small company can be a good stepping-stone to a larger employer in the same field.

The Cons of Working for a Small Company

But it's not all rosy. Here are some potential downsides to employment at small companies: 

·        There May Not Be Many Career-Building Perks

Small firms may have fewer formal training programs, and their benefits packages can be more limited. Some HR processes (like maternity leave policy, for instance) may not be set up, which can be challenging. 

·        Sometimes, Your Growth Will Be Limited

The option to transfer to other departments may be limited or non-existent. You may also encounter less opportunity for growth and promotion at a small firm, and most likely, there will be fewer people who can serve as mentors. Plus, at a smaller company, if you do not get along with your co-workers, avoiding them may be difficult.  

·        Smaller Companies Can Be Unknown Entities

A large company often comes with known workplace culture and reputation. That can be helpful when you apply to your next role — recruiters and hiring managers will be familiar with your current company. With smaller companies, you may find yourself spending time in your interview explaining the company, rather than talking about your accomplishments. 

In general, if you prefer structure ahead of flexibility, a larger company may be a better fit.  


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Foreign language benefits in life

Foreign language benefits

We live in a hyper connected, fast-paced world, and things aren’t changing anytime soon. As our world becomes more and more connected through technological advances, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that learning another language is beneficial for many reasons. One main advantage of learning a foreign language in India is bilinguals are better at prioritizing tasks, problem-solvers, multitasking, and tend to make more rational decisions. The brains of bilingual people operate differently than single language speakers, and these differences offer several mental benefits. In a globalized world, where mobility is facilitated, learning a language is a wonderful benefit. Not only does it help when traveling, it is also a great advantage for studying in general and for career prospects abroad. However, people who begin language study in their adult lives can still achieve the same levels of fluency as a young learner, and still reap the same mental benefits, too.

Benefits of learning foreign language:

·        Meet new people

One of the most phenomenal benefits of learning a new language? Doors are opened to you, around the world. If you’re learning in a group setting, you immediately have new friends to share your new language with. If not, then once you go somewhere and are actually able to employ what you’ve learned, you’ll be surprised how open people are when you speak their mother tongue.

·        You become smarter

Speaking a foreign language improves the functionality of your brain by challenging it to recognise, negotiate meaning, and communicate in different language systems. This skill boosts your ability to negotiate meaning in other problem-solving tasks as well.

·      Boosts Brain Power

A foreign language is a whole new intricate system of rules, structures, and lexis. Learning a new language means your brain has to cope with complexity as it makes sense of and absorbs new patterns. As our brains work out the meaning, endeavouring to communicate, we develop key learning skills such as cognitive thinking and problem-solving. Highly developed critical thinking skills are a significant benefit both personally and professionally.

·        It’s becoming essential

Many would argue that bilingualism is becoming a progressively necessary and essential skill for anyone who wants to keep up with today’s rapidly increasing global economy. As more and more people recognize the importance of learning an additional language, those who only speak one language will begin to get left behind in our shift towards a more integrated and connected global society.

·        It’s great for traveling

Knowing more than one language opens up your vacation destination possibilities. Traveling through a foreign country becomes much easier if you can speak the language of that country. Fluency isn’t required. It shows a greater level of respect and is an easy way to meet new people. Also, getting to a comfortable speaking level in a foreign language is a great motivator to get you out there and practicing your new language in a new country.

·        It boosts your creativity

Learning a foreign language improves not only your ability to solve problems and to think more logically, it also makes you experiment with new words and phrases. It improves your skills in divergent thinking, which is the ability to identify multiple solutions to a single problem.

·        It builds up your self-confidence

Confidence increases when a new skill is mastered, and learning a foreign language is no different. It increases your self-confidence. And let’s face it: confident people are more interesting than those who are unsure of themselves. The techniques you use to develop a second tongue result in a greater sense of open-mindedness.

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