The “make it large” ad for a liquor brand is aspirational in nature. Everyone wants to make it big! But very few do. And till you make it big, what do you intend to do? The question is as pertinent to your CAT exam Preparation as it is to any other aspiration that you nurture. Do...Read More

Any Top B-School/IIM personal interview panel normally interviews 10-12 Candidates in a single day, one after the other. Most answers from most aspirants to usual questions like “Tell us something about yourself”, “Why do you want to pursue MBA” and so on are safe, uninteresting and sound similar to each other. This becomes even more...Read More

One of the major drag-downs on success in any field, including CAT preparation, is the tendency to take a lot of pressure. For most of us ordinary mortals, pressure has a negative impact on performance. It takes away a lot of energy, it can cause a brain-freeze at crucial times, and it doesn’t help us improve....Read More

Preparation for a Top B-School/IIM Personal Interview is a little different from the prep for CAT. At times you might find yourself getting slightly different inputs from different mentors about the same question. So, Shiv sir or Joginder sir for example may have a slightly different view from what Rajat sir or I may think...Read More

I tend to relate a lot of cricketing stuff with CAT Prep. Tendulkar was really good when he was just 14 years of age. He was smashing school records and dominating the best bowlers in the Mumbai circuit. He wasn’t a novice when he played against a formidable Pakistan pace bowling attack as a 16-year old...Read More

My IIM Bangalore personal interview was a breeze. It was as if I had scripted it. A friendly panel, questions from my comfort areas, a very positive and pleasant interaction. I wasn’t surprised when IIM B made me the final selection offer a few weeks later. My IIM Calcutta personal interview was a completely different...Read More

Imagine this: You are a B.Com. graduate from DU(SOL) aiming to undertake the arduous CAT prep journey. You then did your fashion designing from Pearl Academy. You’ve been working for a while and are out of touch with academics. You do not have exceptional academics. Your initial SWOT shows QA as a major weakness. What...Read More

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...Read More

February beginning is a good time to review, recommit and restart. It is a good checkpoint for your CAT Prep. So, it is the perfect time for you to take a good, hard look at the status and progress of your CAT preparation. CAT-26 is almost 300 days away now. 300 days could be a...Read More

It was March 2001, if my memory serves me right. It was the day of my IIM Cal PI. The IIM Placement reports had just come in and a couple of days old Times of India front page carried the headlines of an IIM Cal student getting a 1 crore per annum package! Yes, this...Read More