Interview Experience - IIM A

Name :- Aviral Bhatnagar

Source :- PG

My IIM Ahmedabad Interview Experience.

It was a dream, still feels like one.

CAT 2013:

Aggregate 99.99
Verbal: 100.00
Quant: 99.44

Profile:

Acads
X ICSE 2008 (95.00)
XII Maharashtra Board HSC (Science) 2010 (84.7)

Undergrad Stream:

BTech Engineering Physics IIT Bombay 2014 (85.4)

Work-Ex:0

Extra-curricular: National Business Plan Competition winner, Startup core team Member, Institute Literary Arts Secretary with Organisational Color, National Level Quiz winner, International Quiz participant, Case Competition national runner up.

Interview & Essay 

Venue: The Orchid, Mumbai
Date : 10.02.2014

WAT

There was a case-comprehension and a WAT, given 30 minutes for both together.

Case: A long essay on how the environment and economy are at loggerheads, and the bodies responsible for it.

Questions of the case: Who is the unholy struggle between? Who do you think the author blames for this unholy struggle? Do you agree with the author’s opinion and why?

Brief Snapshot: Did okay I believe, answered all quite satisfactorily.

Topic: Write about a teacher who has had an indelible impact on your life, how that teacher is different from the others who have taught you and really stands out.
Brief Snapshot of the attempt: Wrote decently well, talked about how one of my teachers helped me improve as a person, better myself academically, topped because of her and so on and so forth.

Rate your preparation(0-5): 2
Rate your performance(0-5): 4

PI:

Panel Members: One young gentleman (P1) and another older gentleman (P2) . The young gentleman was on the left and I think he was an alumni of IIT Bombay (he knew about where the lake was etc.)

Walk in, P2 is at the door and takes me inside. I take my seat, I was quite peaceful, had chit chatted with them a little bit before the PI. I was the first person of my panel (and I think the first person to be interviewed by IIM Ahmedabad)

P1 : So you seem to have run out of space for the essay on your teacher, do you want to add something else? It looks like you ran out of space

Me : No sir, I just overshot a bit, I don’t have anything to add.

P1 : Are you sure?

Me : Yes sir.

P1 rummaging through my file. I see he needs help.

Me : Sir, can I take out my certificates.

P1 : Please do so

I take out my certificate along with the magazine made by our startup, and give to them

P2 : How do you think you did on them? Do you want to discuss something more, or should we move on?

Me : No sir, I think I wrote decently well enough

P2 : Okay, so do you know anything about such problems (with reference to the case) in present day India?

Me : No sir, I can’t think of any. But I am aware of this one. (Pause, so I continue). Sir there was this issue concerning Vedanta (wasn’t there in the case) trying to get a captive bauxite mine.

P2 : So where was this?

Me : Sir it was in Odisha, and the tribals opposed the move. It was given as a verbal confirmation by the government, and Vedanta invested a lot of money in it. But this issue cropped up and the tribals the MoEF opposed it, so it was disallowed

P1 : Okay, so you’re from IIT Bombay, what is your favorite place?

Me : Sir Lakeside (Powai Lake) and Hillside (Sameer Hill)

P1 : Which lake Powai or Vihar?

Me : Sir Powai Lake Sir

P1 : Why not Vihar? You’re in which hostel?

Me: Sir Hostel 4

P1 : So isn’t there a road near Hostel 4 to Vihar Lake (Here is where I guessed he is an alum)

Me: Yes Sir, but it’s restricted now

P1 : Hmm, so where do you get potable water from in IIT?

Me: Sir, there is pipeline that passes by my hostel, I am not sure if it carries potable water from Vihar

P1 : Hmm, so how does Mumbai get potable water? What are the other lakes?

Me : Sir I know of these two and Vasai Lake (which is tiny, couldn’t think of anything else)

P1 : Okay, so you’re from Pune, where does Pune get its water from?

Me : (Damn!) Sir, there is water carried by tankers from the Mulshi Dam area

P1 : So what about Khadakvasla?

Me : (Using sense to come up with something which couldn’t be verified) Sir my area gets it from Mulshi, the other area of the city gets it from Khadakvasla. (Which is sort of true)

P1 : Okay, so you stay in Viman Nagar, what are the landmarks there?

Me : Sir, there are a lot of hotels that have come up recently, it’s become like a hotel road. Malls, and the air force base

P1 : Okay, so you join IIM A and want to get in to hospitality, what are the parameters that you will use to judge a restaurant? (Placements case prep FTW!)

Me : Sir (using paper) footfall (Was going to add more stuff)

P1 : Okay, tell me about hotels

Me : Sir, occupancy in peak season and off season, sir the number of professional engagements like this one organized by IIM A (chuckle in the head)

P2 : (Interrupts) Okay. So you talk about your chemistry teacher who had an impression on you. Why the change from Physics to Chemistry?

Me : Sir, I did both Chemistry and Physics for JEE

P2 : Right, right. But you chose Physics right, what was the reason?

Me : Sir, nowadays Physics has become the node of major understanding of a sciences. Even Chemistry has become more of Physics and more of Chemistry. Sir, I was seeing this interview with the Bharat Ratna CNR Rao on Walk the Talk with Shekhar Gupta. Shekhar Gupta enters this lab and says “where are the Bunsen burners?” and CNR Rao says that we now do more of Physics, Quantum Physics and Schrodinger’s equation. So Sir, Chemistry has become more about manipulation of molecules understanding their effects on a quantum level and so on and so forth

P1: Hmm. So I am layman who thinks Physics and Chemistry are different. Can you give me an example of where they are being used together?

Me: Sir, Semiconductors. Sir we understand the behavior of the matter using the Physics, Quantum Physics etc. and choose between various elements depending on the properties of the two.

P1 : You seem to be forcing physical and chemical properties against each other, aren’t you?

Me : No Sir. Sir Physics is the understanding of the behavior of the matter while chemistry is the macroscopic manifestation of this behavior (I have no idea how I came up with this!)

P1 and P2 look at each other

P1 : Hmm, okay. So can you give me an example of materials used in Semiconductors?
Me : Sir, Silicon, Germaninum Arsenic.

P1 : So any new elements or materials?

Me : (Thinking) Sir, some variant using Carbon, I can’t exactly recall. Sir, Graphene. (Phew!)

P1 : Hmm, so can you tell me a semiconductor manufacturing company in India?

Me : (Dafuq!) Sir Texas Instruments?

P1 : But don’t they have only an R&D lab in Bangalore?

Me : (No idea if the manufacturing facility is there) Sir, I think it is there

P1 : A pilot facility of some sort?

Me : Sir yes I think so (No clue!)

P1 : What are the other manufacturing facilities of Texas Instruments?

Me : Sir, the US

P1 : What about Taiwan?

Me : (Facepalm) Yes Sir, yes Taiwan also

P1: So what is this Brain World Cup that you participated in? Is it something like the Olympics? I haven’t heard of it, it should be quite popular shouldn’t it?

Me: Sir, yes it is. Very popular in Japan, but not telecast worldwide. It is a quiz competition that is held inter varsity with participants from Harvard Oxford Stanford etc. It was actually televised before the Olympic games in Japan.

P1 : Hmm, so where did you do your internship?

Me : Sir I was working on developing an equity portfolio allocator at Gravitas, as a risk analyst intern. Gravitas is a risk management and technological co sourcing firm.

P1 : What was the goal of your internship?

Me: My project leader asked me to develop a tool that was targeted at retail investors. So I had to make a tool that was cost effective. I used global data sources such as Yahoo instead of Bloomberg which is a paid data source. Using this I made a tool with a simple intuitive interface coded in VBA with Excel as a front end.

P1 : Okay, so if you had to choose between hedge fund management and this economic policy outlined in the essay, what would you choose?

Me : Sir, firstly I have an inclination towards strategy management consulting and I would like to work there and not a hedge fund

P2 : (I guess I wasn’t clear enough) What does strategy management consulting have to do with this?

Me: Sir, I was saying that I would choose strategy management consulting over the hedge fund and it would be a choice between this and the economic policy. I have got placed at Monitor Deloitte, which is a strategy management consulting firm.

P1: Okay, so elaborate

Me : Sir, I think the environment is very important to us, and so is this policy. I have a few friends working on Energy policy making, so I have had discussions with them. The environment is something that will influence our lives (realizing that I am going too much on the environment thing). Parallely, the economy is also important to drive growth for the country. If we need to progress we need to push our facilities and drive growth for more prosperity

P1 : Hmm, go on

Me: Sir, I think we need to strike a balance between the two through good legislature and policies that are inclusive. (Back to my environment crap) Sir, I think when they say they are saving the earth and saving the world, I think it is more about saving humanity. We as a race are the most affected by environmental changes, and not the earth, which has been through great variations. For example, if we see Shanghai, life has become miserable because of the smog. We must progress along with taking care of how the environment is affected. This will only be possible with a strong policy that takes care of various parameters, sustainably.

P2: Okay, so you talked about Strategy Management Consulting. What is it?

Me: Sir Strategy Management Consulting is the process of providing advice to clients to improve efficiency or performance, taking into account various parameters that are important and defined by them

P1 is looking through the startup’s magazine in the meanwhile. He looked quite interested!

P2: Okay, so what is strategy in simple terms?

Me: Sir, it is the path that you design and follow to reach a certain goal

P2: So what is the application of Engineering Physics to Strategy Management Consulting? You seem to be switching again here?

Me: Sir, actually I learnt a lot. I learnt how to communicate complex ideas in a simple manner. Sir can I show you an example on paper?

P2: Sure

Me: Sir, so in General Theory of Relativity we understood how masses behave at high velocities in the presence of an acceleration or gravitational force. Writing the equation of tensors is quite complex. But this idea can be explained in a simpler manner using the space time fabric and that masses create curvatures in this space time fabric, just like balls on a table cloth. We can understand how light bends, or objects behave quite easily using this. A black hole is like a hole through the cloth, more massive objects create more curvature

P2: Hmm, okay (He nodded his head quite a lot during this)

P2: So in your form you write that you worked where you learnt team spirit and drive and motivation. Can they co exist? Aren’t they contrarian?

Me: Sir, I think team spirit is the framework through which a group of individuals synergize and work to use the power of a multiplying force. Drive and motivation is on an individual level, where each individual is driven or motivated to succeed. A team which has team spirit running through it, along with very driven and motivated individuals in superb.

P1 and P2 look at each other (Bakre ko jaane de?)

P1: So, nice talking to you. Here, have a toffee.

I grasp it say my thank you

P1: How did you rate the interview?

Me: Sir I think it was good

P1 and P2 smile: Okay, you can leave

Me: Should I call the next person in?

P1 : No it’s fine.

Really nice interview. Left me with a great feeling. It was really nice talking to such learned and well aware people!

Rate your preparation(0-5):3

Rate your performance(0-5): 5

Verdict : Converted