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 âTell us something about yourselfâ, âWhy do you want to pursue MBAâ and so on are safe, uninteresting and sound similar to each other.
This becomes even more pronounced since the IIM Personal interview panel is normally engaged in interviews across days, weeks, and in many cases, even across years. While playing safe may appear fine to you, it is almost certainly boring and repetitive for the panel.
This is again, in contrast, to the first stage of your CAT coaching journey, wherein finally you get success depending on what option you picked as correct and not necessarily on how you reached that answer (it is another matter that how you reached that answer would likely have impacted how much time you took to get there!)
So, saying âI really love reading Roald Dahlâ is much better than âI like to read Roald Dahlâ. Or even worse âmy hobby is readingâ, which is not only plain but also passive and diluted.
Think about why all successful advertisements try and arouse an emotional response and not a logical one. Why the âluxuryâ of a Mercedes or the âsafetyâ of a Volvo means you do not compare it on 100 features with some other brand. Why is Sony Bravia or an Apple âexpected and acceptedâ to be costlier than some other TV or phone with a better set of features/specs. Itâs because of how it is positioned in our minds; and how we react to it emotionally. And that anchoring happens because of âhowâ these brands communicate with us and make us feel.
Bring that emotion into play when you appear for your interview. That connects us more as humans than even words or languages do.
Remember how you say it, is almost always as important, and sometimes more so, than what you say. One, it tells something more about you as a person. Two, the interview panel becomes more engaged. And that, dear, increases your chances of success drastically.
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 thatâs 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 