A personal Interview or just an Interaction?

A personal Interview is, first and foremost, an interaction. When you meet someone for the first time, your first takeaway is an impression from that interaction. The impression is usually qualitative – good, bad or umm.. unremarkable.

Unlike the first stage of the selection process, wherein your CAT preparation results in some tangible numbers and percentiles as an objective result of how well you do on the exam, the assessment during the interview stage works differently.

Just like that interaction, the crux of an interview too is an impression. If you make a positive impression, you’ve almost nailed it. The impression isn’t formed by the number of questions you answer correctly or answer with a “I don’t know”. It is the overall ‘genuineness’ that comes through. It’s a qualitative assessment before it gets translated into any number.

If you are coherent and honest for most part, your chances of making a positive impression are far higher. Any rating on any parameter thereafter is that more likely to be higher.
Just see the interview as an interaction that allows you to make an impression. And you need to get your story right and stay positive to make that impression positive.

An easy way to make your answers in an interview/interaction more pleasant and help you stand out is to use your experiences and examples wherever possible (and logical of course).
Your journey, your background, your successes, your failures, your hobbies, your experiences have all been unique in how, when and where they have happened to you and what they mean to you.

The moment you stop being generic and bring more of yourself into your answers, not only do you arouse interest in those interacting with you but you also give them points that trigger more questions that are more likely to be in your comfort zone.

So, think of instances and examples that become a part of YOUR answers. Right from the city you were born in, to the school you went to, to your first experience on stage, to your making it to your school team, to your failure and bounce-back and so on … each such experience gives you several opportunities to stand out and be interesting.

Avoid generic stuff, avoid big sounding words, avoid copy-paste goals and why MBA!
Make it about you, and see the magic unfold 🙂

About the author: Deekshant has sleep-walked through several 100 and 99.9 %iles in practically every section of the CAT. That he is a cricket fan and he writes okay is evident from most of his posts. 1000s of our students swear that he can motivate almost anyone to double his/her percentile through very simple yet powerful inputs. And that’s why every MBAGuru student has direct access to him via mail and Telegram. Oddly, he somehow also finds the time to write songs professionally. And yes … almost missed this … he is an alumnus of IIT Delhi & IIM Cal