After my Bangalore interview went good, I had a discontinuity of 27 days in my interviews. Looking at people getting done with all their interviews and chilling out, it all felt so sad! I was desperate for my interviews to get over soon. I had so much free time, I even tried to figure out the pattern behind interview schedules and cursed my 'luck' for having my interviews so late! I wasn't studying the whole time. There was still lots to be done, but my engineering instincts got the better of me and I decided to chill out. So, most of the remaining days were spent having fun and I did very less preparation.
My interview was on 30th and having studied whatever I could, I decided to give a mock on 29th. Well, the mock went good, quite good actually! I was asked tough Maths questions and gave a reasonable answer to all the questions. The interviewer was impressed! Going through my previous mock interviews' feedback, he was praising me like anything, about how much I had grown since the starting of my preparation and how ready I was to crack the real interviews and stuff. And then I realized that I had done a blunder! I am the kind who stays anxious up until the interview, but take everything in a very relaxed manner just before the exam. I was hoping that after the mock, I will probably find some new topics to study, thus there will be some anxiety and as a result, I will be able to give a finishing touch to my preparation. Instead, the mock totally bounced back at me. It boosted my already high confidence just too much! After coming back home, I watched series the whole day- the second time I was doing so, a day before any exam. Since the first time was before CAT which I cracked, I was not so afraid this time. HAHAHAHA!! Probably this is the way He was laughing at me when I thought so...
Institute: Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta
Date: 30th March 2012
Venue: Golconda Hotel, Hyderabad
The screening process was exactly similar to IIM-L's. Our topic for essay and GD was suggest some measures to make the youth of our country more politically active and make them vote in the elections. We had an informal discussion on this topic briefly during my birthday party, so I had a couple of points on my mind. I wrote the essay decently well, probably a 4/5.
Before the GD was about to start, I had a great punch line in my mind, I could imagine the impact that this line would create. But I could not gather the confidence to start, it was a GD after all. I suck at GDs, I really do! So I let some random person start, but he was just saying anything, stuttering and did not even have a concrete thought. I couldn't tolerate that, so with a sudden impulse, I cut him short and start saying we are talking about youth, WE are the youth of India, so first we should ask ourselves this question that why we are not voting in the elections? Personally, I am from Haryana, staying here in Hyderabad because of better opportunities, and it is impossible for me to go home everytime there are elections in Haryana. This created the impact I was expecting it to and the discussion went in a good direction and overall, the GD went good.
After the GD, each one of us was to summarise and/or add new ideas to the discussion. From Pagalguy, I had inferred that they usually go in the order of who spoke the least to the person who spoke the most. And I HAD TO BE PICKED FIRST!! That was shattering! I spoke something, thanks again to the notes I took during the GD. But at the back of my mind, I was just thinking about one thing, they can't be possibly doing this! I practically started the GD with a punch, had good inputs throughout and THIS WAS THE BEST GD THAT I HAD GIVEN TILL NOW! I certainly couldn't possibly be the best, but the worst! And that too in a GD, I believe to be my best, that was mean! Well, I pulled myself together and observed the order in which they were picking guys. It seemed totally random. The guys who I thought did quite well were asked to summarise before some guys who were totally silent. Could it be that the interviewer was just picking guys randomly? No, even completely random thoughts have some order to them, and I HAD to find that order.
I talked to a few people after the GD and everybody seemed to have the opinion that they went from the person with best inputs to the worst. I was so glad!! :D
There were 3 people on my interview panel. From left to right, p1, p2 who talked the most and p3.
p2 starts by asking why did I leave Microsoft?
me: Sir, I was given repetitive kind of work which was not challenging and thus I switched.
p2: no no, don't give any stupid reasons, just agree that you switched for money.
me: (a little startled by the bluntness) No Sir, I was given web development kind of work, and the work was very repetitive, there was no challenge in it and there was nothing new to learn. I even talked to my manager to see if he could do something about it, but he couldn't and that is why I had to switch.
p1: How much time did you spend there?
me: Sir, 10 months.
p2: Just 10 months? If you got bored of your work at Microsoft in just 10 months, you will get bored of your studies at IIM-Calcutta in 1 day..what will you do then?
me: Sir, studying is different. Like at BITS, BITS was the place where I was learning stuff. (p2 just drew an analogy between Microsoft and IIM-C, and I had to justify that what he was saying was wrong, and to do that spontaneously did seem a little tricky at that time). It was the place where I was getting to learn stuff which I will be able to apply in my professional life, same will be the case with IIM-C, so there is no way I can get bored while learning things. At Microsoft, initially it was a great experience, I got to know how search engines work, and what makes a search engine great and things related to that, but those were the initial few months. After that, when my work started, it was all related to writing html and css, which was not challenging at all and more importantly, I wasn't getting new to learn there.
p1: (not just ready to give up yet) Ok tell me if you agree with this. In today's scenario, it will be atleast 2 years before you can understand your work completely and start giving back to the organisation you are working for. 2 years is the least that you will have to spend in order to understand the work completely.
me: Yes sir, I agree with that (like I had any other choice), but I would say that it also depends on the kind of work you are getting. So let me tell you in brief about my work. I was part of ...
p2: No, Please don't. We do not have time for this, we can not waste time like this, we have got other candidates also to interview.
me: (with a very small face) Ok Sir.
p2: Explain to me what continuity means.
me: Sir, mathematically...
p2: No, not mathematically, I am a layman, now explain to me what continuity means.
me: (thinking, I draw a graph, if I am not required to lift my pen while drawing the graph, it is continuous, but this is just too old school, there must be a better way to describe this..)
p2: (probably getting impatient) ok, if not in layman terms, explain to me mathematically.
me: Sir, mathematically, a function is continuous in the range if its Left Hand Limit, Right Hand Limit and the function value the point, all three are equal.
p2: Ok. What is Sin(x)?
me: Sir, it is a continuous function.
p2: How can you say?
me: Sir, its expanded form is something like x-(x3/6) + (x5/120)... Since it is made up of polynomial functions, which are continuous, Sin(x) is also continuous.
p2: What is the value of Sin(x)?
me: (at this time, the interviewer was getting a little difficult to understand, he had a different context in mind and I was taking his questions correlating them to the context we were talking about) Sir, the value lies between -1 and 1.
p2: Tell me the value of Sin(0).
me: Sir, it is 0. (probably he could not hear me).
p2: What does Sin measure?
me: Sir, in a right angled triangle, it is the measure of perpendicular over hypotenuse.
p2,3: I asked you the same question three times and why didn't you give me this answer before?
me: I am sorry sir, but I was thinking along the lines of graphs, I wasn't thinking in function terms.
p1-3: looking at each other's faces and probably out of questions.
p2: says to p3: please ask him a question for my sake.
p3 about to ask a question, but p2 interrupts, and urges to ask a question himself. p3 asks him to go ahead.
p2: There was a time in 1990s, I think around 1994, when all the faculty of IIM-C got a laptop computer from the institute. I clearly remember that it had an x86 architecture CPU. What does this mean?
me: Sir, the x86 denoted the Intel family of processors starting from 8086, which was the first processor.
p3: (catching me on this), What did you say? What was 8086 famous for?
me: (realising my mistake) Sir, 8086 was the first processor which got famous, I am not sure why that was so. This was the first processor which was taught to us.
p3: Ohh, so you were not taught any processor which was before this?
me: No Sir.
p3: Ok, so let me tell you why 8086 was famous. It was because this was the first CPU with 16 bit data buses.
me: Ohh, Ok sir. I wasn't aware of this. (In retrospect, I do realise that it was told sometime during our Mup classes)
p1-3: Ok. Thank you.
me: Thank you Sirs.
I come out.
The entire interview lasted about 8 minutes and it felt like they didn't even give me a proper chance to explain myself. After an awesome GD, the interview performance was quite disappointing.
Verdict: Rejected!
Institute: Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta
Date: 30th March 2012
Venue: Golconda Hotel, Hyderabad
The screening process was exactly similar to IIM-L's. Our topic for essay and GD was suggest some measures to make the youth of our country more politically active and make them vote in the elections. We had an informal discussion on this topic briefly during my birthday party, so I had a couple of points on my mind. I wrote the essay decently well, probably a 4/5.
Before the GD was about to start, I had a great punch line in my mind, I could imagine the impact that this line would create. But I could not gather the confidence to start, it was a GD after all. I suck at GDs, I really do! So I let some random person start, but he was just saying anything, stuttering and did not even have a concrete thought. I couldn't tolerate that, so with a sudden impulse, I cut him short and start saying we are talking about youth, WE are the youth of India, so first we should ask ourselves this question that why we are not voting in the elections? Personally, I am from Haryana, staying here in Hyderabad because of better opportunities, and it is impossible for me to go home everytime there are elections in Haryana. This created the impact I was expecting it to and the discussion went in a good direction and overall, the GD went good.
After the GD, each one of us was to summarise and/or add new ideas to the discussion. From Pagalguy, I had inferred that they usually go in the order of who spoke the least to the person who spoke the most. And I HAD TO BE PICKED FIRST!! That was shattering! I spoke something, thanks again to the notes I took during the GD. But at the back of my mind, I was just thinking about one thing, they can't be possibly doing this! I practically started the GD with a punch, had good inputs throughout and THIS WAS THE BEST GD THAT I HAD GIVEN TILL NOW! I certainly couldn't possibly be the best, but the worst! And that too in a GD, I believe to be my best, that was mean! Well, I pulled myself together and observed the order in which they were picking guys. It seemed totally random. The guys who I thought did quite well were asked to summarise before some guys who were totally silent. Could it be that the interviewer was just picking guys randomly? No, even completely random thoughts have some order to them, and I HAD to find that order.
I talked to a few people after the GD and everybody seemed to have the opinion that they went from the person with best inputs to the worst. I was so glad!! :D
There were 3 people on my interview panel. From left to right, p1, p2 who talked the most and p3.
p2 starts by asking why did I leave Microsoft?
me: Sir, I was given repetitive kind of work which was not challenging and thus I switched.
p2: no no, don't give any stupid reasons, just agree that you switched for money.
me: (a little startled by the bluntness) No Sir, I was given web development kind of work, and the work was very repetitive, there was no challenge in it and there was nothing new to learn. I even talked to my manager to see if he could do something about it, but he couldn't and that is why I had to switch.
p1: How much time did you spend there?
me: Sir, 10 months.
p2: Just 10 months? If you got bored of your work at Microsoft in just 10 months, you will get bored of your studies at IIM-Calcutta in 1 day..what will you do then?
me: Sir, studying is different. Like at BITS, BITS was the place where I was learning stuff. (p2 just drew an analogy between Microsoft and IIM-C, and I had to justify that what he was saying was wrong, and to do that spontaneously did seem a little tricky at that time). It was the place where I was getting to learn stuff which I will be able to apply in my professional life, same will be the case with IIM-C, so there is no way I can get bored while learning things. At Microsoft, initially it was a great experience, I got to know how search engines work, and what makes a search engine great and things related to that, but those were the initial few months. After that, when my work started, it was all related to writing html and css, which was not challenging at all and more importantly, I wasn't getting new to learn there.
p1: (not just ready to give up yet) Ok tell me if you agree with this. In today's scenario, it will be atleast 2 years before you can understand your work completely and start giving back to the organisation you are working for. 2 years is the least that you will have to spend in order to understand the work completely.
me: Yes sir, I agree with that (like I had any other choice), but I would say that it also depends on the kind of work you are getting. So let me tell you in brief about my work. I was part of ...
p2: No, Please don't. We do not have time for this, we can not waste time like this, we have got other candidates also to interview.
me: (with a very small face) Ok Sir.
p2: Explain to me what continuity means.
me: Sir, mathematically...
p2: No, not mathematically, I am a layman, now explain to me what continuity means.
me: (thinking, I draw a graph, if I am not required to lift my pen while drawing the graph, it is continuous, but this is just too old school, there must be a better way to describe this..)
p2: (probably getting impatient) ok, if not in layman terms, explain to me mathematically.
me: Sir, mathematically, a function is continuous in the range if its Left Hand Limit, Right Hand Limit and the function value the point, all three are equal.
p2: Ok. What is Sin(x)?
me: Sir, it is a continuous function.
p2: How can you say?
me: Sir, its expanded form is something like x-(x3/6) + (x5/120)... Since it is made up of polynomial functions, which are continuous, Sin(x) is also continuous.
p2: What is the value of Sin(x)?
me: (at this time, the interviewer was getting a little difficult to understand, he had a different context in mind and I was taking his questions correlating them to the context we were talking about) Sir, the value lies between -1 and 1.
p2: Tell me the value of Sin(0).
me: Sir, it is 0. (probably he could not hear me).
p2: What does Sin measure?
me: Sir, in a right angled triangle, it is the measure of perpendicular over hypotenuse.
p2,3: I asked you the same question three times and why didn't you give me this answer before?
me: I am sorry sir, but I was thinking along the lines of graphs, I wasn't thinking in function terms.
p1-3: looking at each other's faces and probably out of questions.
p2: says to p3: please ask him a question for my sake.
p3 about to ask a question, but p2 interrupts, and urges to ask a question himself. p3 asks him to go ahead.
p2: There was a time in 1990s, I think around 1994, when all the faculty of IIM-C got a laptop computer from the institute. I clearly remember that it had an x86 architecture CPU. What does this mean?
me: Sir, the x86 denoted the Intel family of processors starting from 8086, which was the first processor.
p3: (catching me on this), What did you say? What was 8086 famous for?
me: (realising my mistake) Sir, 8086 was the first processor which got famous, I am not sure why that was so. This was the first processor which was taught to us.
p3: Ohh, so you were not taught any processor which was before this?
me: No Sir.
p3: Ok, so let me tell you why 8086 was famous. It was because this was the first CPU with 16 bit data buses.
me: Ohh, Ok sir. I wasn't aware of this. (In retrospect, I do realise that it was told sometime during our Mup classes)
p1-3: Ok. Thank you.
me: Thank you Sirs.
I come out.
The entire interview lasted about 8 minutes and it felt like they didn't even give me a proper chance to explain myself. After an awesome GD, the interview performance was quite disappointing.
Verdict: Rejected!
Comments
Post a Comment