Personal Interview preparation for IIM

PI Rounds are held for MBA admissions to prestigious B-schools like IIMs following the release of the results of the MBA entrance exam. Based on their admission requirements, B-schools choose a small number of applicants and then move on to the Personal Assessment Round, which includes a written aptitude test, a group discussion, and a personal interview. It would be accurate to state that CAT/XAT results are merely utilized to create a shortlist of candidates; the final selection process is carried out by the GD PI round. MBA colleges typically provide invitations to ten applicants for each available admissions slot. So be ready for fierce competition!

Having conducted interviews with over fifty IIM Admission Chairpersons and students, PLANETE has created this special post to assist you in getting ready for the PI. To ace your personal assessment round, keep reading.

Personal Interview (PI)

Before granting you entrance to a course or any job, a personal interview, or PI, is held. The Personal Interview (PI) phase assesses your ability to communicate verbally, your mental stability, and your ability to skillfully persuade the professionals conducting the interview of your points of view and knowledge. The most crucial step in the final selection process for MBA admissions to IIMs and all other B-schools is the personal interview (PI). It is given a lot of weight—between 30 and 50 percent—during the final selection process. All MBA colleges hold a personal interview round for MBA admission following the first round of shortlisting based on written exam results. All the top MBA colleges including 20 IIMS, XLRI, FMS, SPJIMR, MDI among others conduct Personal Interview (PI) round for final selection

How to Get Ready for Personal Interview (PI)

To choose the best teachers for its classes, each B-school has a round of Personal Interviews (PIs). Without a doubt, you must be well-prepared for the barrage of questions to come if you hope to succeed in this round. These are not very difficult or extraordinary questions, but you have an advantage over your peers because of the clever, upbeat, and nuanced way you choose to respond to them. One of the most important strategies for winning the PI round is to remember that the questions that follow come from your responses.

Individual Interview for MBA and IIM Your application may be based on your coursework, professional background, volunteer activity, extracurricular interests, community, or current affairs. A few inquiries about your future goals can also come up. IIMs also question applicants on current business and industry events. These are the best ways to get ready for a personal interview.

Take Care When Writing Your Statement of Purpose:

Panelists in the PI round can benefit from asking you insightful questions about your statement of purpose. Therefore, in addition to engaging in a variety of other activities to get ready for the PI round, you should concentrate on your SOP and prepare your responses to the questions you have answered there.

Stay Current:

Read newspapers and TV news on a regular basis, and make notes on anything you think is significant. You are expected to be completely knowledgeable. The only tactic is to collect as much as you can.

Refresh Your Academic Record:

Carefully review your coursework, making sure to edit any passages that fall within your area of expertise.

Read, get to know, and experience your native place to the fullest:

You need to know everything there is to know about your city, including its history, geography, and notable individuals, locations, and specialties.

Examine Your Work Experience in Depth:

If you have prior job experience, you should be well aware of your responsibilities and the complete system to which you and your team participate.

Recognize yourself:

Examine and practice your advantages and disadvantages. Effectively showcasing your abilities is essential, and you need to be well-prepared for it. Your shortcomings shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that you can’t work hard or get better.

Knowledge of Your Interests and Hobbies:

Be sure to be fully informed on your interests and hobbies as you will be asked about them. At the IIM Calcutta, one of the applicants stated he was interested in playing badminton. The questions covered the past, present, shuttle cock weight, court size, service gallery size, and other topics, and he provided satisfactory answers to each.

Refresh your knowledge of current and historical events:

Reading alone is insufficient; you also need to formulate an opinion. Without a doubt, you need to be well-prepared for the PI round in terms of not just your current general knowledge for the interview but also your business and social knowledge regarding concerns in your community. During the conversation, these general knowledge questions naturally arise from your profile, your statement of purpose, and the interests and activities you listed on the interview form. The general knowledge questions in the personal interview are not very difficult or extraordinary, but you have an advantage if you can accurately answer them in a lighthearted, upbeat, and nuanced way.

Stay Upbeat:

Even if you are entirely against a particular course of action or policy, discuss it in a way that is fair and impartial while keeping an optimistic outlook for the future. Don’t be too harsh on the policies of the government, corporate entities, B-schools, etc. If necessary, you might briefly present any suggestions you may have for improving them.

Can an Average student get into IIM

Best Questions for Personal Interviews

A excellent method to guarantee your success is to prepare ahead of time for the most common PI queries. These are some of the previous rounds of the IIM MBA Personal Interview that included questions on the MBA.

Why MBA:

This is one of the most popular questions for admission in an MBA personal interview that comes up a lot in MBA interviews.

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

Another highly well-liked query that commonly comes up in MBA Personal Interview Questions is this one.

Previous Academic Questions:

One of the main sources of questions asked during the MBA admissions personal interview phase is your academic profile. In the IIM Bangalore Personal Interview stage, Nikhilesh N, who received a 98.44 percentile on the CAT 2020, was questioned about his UG specialization, how his UG background relates to business analytics, and his main areas of academic interest.

Previous Work Experience:

This is the most significant element that makes up the top MBA Personal Interview Questions for Admission, regardless of how long or short your work experience is. Shuktisindhu Mondal, an IIM Ahmedabad student with a 93.26 percentile CAT 2019 result, has 41 months of professional experience. He says, “Questions that I faced were based on my work experience and current affairs.” He was asked a lot of questions about the nature of his profession. Because of this, you should be prepared with a few of these important questions in order to ace the personal interview.

Your query about the City/State:

Interviewers are trying to find out if you are sympathetic to your heritage. Thus, some crucial MBA personal interview questions are also centered on your country of origin.

Why this B-school?

One of the best questions for an MBA personal interview is this one. It is one of the most important questions to prepare for a personal interview if you plan to participate in the IIM Personal Interview round. You will come across negatively if you can’t respond in a direct and understandable manner.

Which Specialty and Why?

Certain B-schools require their students to have a clearly defined post-MBA employment decision. In your second year, they also want you to be clear about the specialization you will choose and why. If you are applying for a Specialized MBA program, this is a question you will definitely be asked during the IIM Personal Interview phase.

Current Affairs Events and Your Views:

Given the number of changes occurring on a national and worldwide scale, one of the main topics you will undoubtedly be asked about in the IIM Personal Interview round is your current understanding of current events and your opinions on them. Nikita Agarwal, whose CAT 2019 score was 99.22 percentile

Questions on Extracurricular Activities:

The IIM MBA Interview Questions will also center on your achievements in sports, modeling, or other extracurricular activities. When asked how a business model centered around swimming may be created, Tanishq Diddee, a national medallist in swimming, a participant in triathlons and marathons, and someone who scored in the 99.70 percentile in the CAT 2019—converted to IIM Ahmedabad., How is India going to win the POK? Why do Kenyan marathon runners perform well?

Preparing for an IIM Interview: The importance of PI

Every older IIM has its unique admissions procedure after the CAT exam. Conversely, a Common Admission Process (CAP) has been instituted by nine IIMs to standardize the selection procedure. The final score, which is used to reveal the final merit lists, is calculated using the results of the PI and WAT rounds in addition to additional variables. For every IIM, the weight of PI in the final score is provided.

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