00:00Nearly 200,000 students appear for CAP examination every single year to get into top management
00:08institutions in the country including the IIMs. Of the 200,000 students, the students who will
00:16actually get into the IIM system would be close to around 2,000. One of the prerequisites of
00:22getting into the IIM system is the personal interview and the written analysis. Students
00:28will be shortlisted who achieve a certain percentile. Usually the percentile ranges anywhere between
00:34100 percentile and about 95th percentile to be the minimum criteria for qualifying for
00:40personal interview and written analysis. Now what is required in the personal interview?
00:45I just wanted to communicate and talk to all those who are preparing for the personal interview
00:51for the IIM system. A few important things in the personal interview are one, one of the
00:57most frequently asked questions is, tell me about yourself. And the common answer which
01:02the students usually provide for such a question is that they start talking about their educational
01:09background and their family backgrounds. Now it is important that students don't talk about
01:14their family backgrounds and their educational backgrounds per se because that is available
01:19with the interviewer. They should be talking about some of the extraordinary things, some of the things that they
01:25are done uniquely which qualifies them for a place in the top management institution such as IIMs.
01:31It could be an experience, it could be a study, it could be participation in some venture.
01:37All those things would possibly assist in making a stronger statement in a personal interview.
01:41Second thing is information about current affairs. Current affairs play a very, very important role
01:48because in personal interview, a lot of panels will ask questions about the current affairs.
01:54It is required that students stay on top of current affairs particularly in the domain of management,
02:00business and international business. Third, it is anticipated that any participant in IIM system is well-rounded and for being well-rounded,
02:10the individual should have engaged in some extracurricular or curricular activities.
02:17It would be useful that during the interview process if the candidate highlights the extracurricular
02:23or co-curricular activities in which he or she has engaged. This is a very, very important point.
02:29Finally, business world looks at business leaders. IIMs pride themselves at producing business leaders.
02:38Consequently, students should try and highlight any achievement in their life where they have exhibited
02:45team skills, leadership skills, some management skills. It could be in the form of a case, it could be in the
02:51form of a paper, it could be a form of leading a particular team, it could be a form of creating an activity,
02:58it could be a form of organizing an event. Any of these things would be very, very useful for students to
03:04highlight their achievements in the domain of teamwork, leadership and management skills.
03:10I believe overall, if I were to summarize, number one, highlighting your uniqueness, number two,
03:18talking about current affairs, number three, talking about extracurricular and co-curricular activities,
03:25number four, talking about team leadership skills would be highly useful for individuals to succeed
03:33in qualifying to get into one of the top IIMs in our country. Thank you very much and I wish you all the best.
Comments