Six days of madness - part 5

Day 5: March 30, 2010
Call: SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai

I had to drag myself out of bed at 6.30 a.m to get ready for my SP Jain interview, after an exhausting day earlier. This was going to be an interesting one, since there was no GD, no essay - but two rounds of group interviews (two if you clear round 1 i.e). And, traditionally, no technical questions asked, so I fancied my chances here slightly. As I reached the institute campus, I was instantly disappointed - it was hardly even a campus, just one building, not very impressive. The campus is actually shared with the likes of Bhavan's college and SP CoE. Anyway, after registering inside, we were asked to complete a psychometric test - a bunch of statements about ourselves that we had to strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with. This was to play a part in the second round of interviews, if we made it there i.e! We were then called for our first round of interview.

There were 7 members in our group for the first round, and 4 panelists (two faculty, a head of Marketing at Kingfisher Airlines, and an executive from Tata group). This was a very general interview round. It started off with each one of us giving the standard "tell-me-about-yourself" answer, followed by one unique strength or characteristic about us. I mentioned my leadership/organisational experiences and how I could become an effective leader. We were then given a situation where we were to get sponsors for the Force India Formula1 team, and were asked how we would go about selling the team and the sport to the sponsors. We mentioned various USPs including the idea of India on the world stage, the "Green" concept, using promotional events to increase the popularity of the sport etc. Quite decent, overall. And that was it for the first round.

Four members from our group, including me, were selected for the second round. The groups were then shuffled and different panels allocated for the second round. This time, there were 6 members in my group, and 2 panelists, both faculty. We once again introduced ourselves in the oh-so-familiar way. We were then asked one dream that we possessed, apart from our MBA and our career after that. People gave varied answers, from wanting to play for Manchester United, to doing something novel in education, lots of stuff. I said I wanted to buy Liverpool Football Club sometime in the future :). One of the panelists asked me about someone already wanting to buy it, and I nodded, speaking about Anil Ambani and his reported interest in the club. The next sequence of questions was based on our psychometric test. The panelists picked out one statement from our psychometric forms and grilled each one of us on it. Here's how mine went:

Panelists P1, P2 and Me
P2: So, "I always worry about my shortcomings" - you strongly disagree. Would you like to elaborate?
Me: Obliged....told how I instead work on them to improve them so they wouldn't be shortcomings anymore...etc..
P2: Tell me one thing....why do you work on your shortcomings when you could instead work on your strengths?
Me: Blah..
P1: Ok let's consider this situation....there are two children, one weak in Maths and Science and good at Arts.....the other good at Maths and Science but weak at Arts.....what would you advise them to do, work on their strength or their weakness?
Me: Said I'd ask the children what they wanted to do and what really interested them....if the child who's weak in Arts has an interest in it, I'd advise him to work hard at it rather than telling him you can't be an artist 'cos you're weak at it...etc etc
P2: But isn't a lot of talent in our country being wasted because they're doing things they're naturally not skilled in?
Me: Some more blah...
P1: But we'd see a lot more success if people were encouraged to focus on what they're good at, isnt it?
Me: (idea!) Sir, have you read Andre Agassi's autobiography?
P1: No...why?
Me: If you read even the first page of his book, sir, you'll notice he says "I hate tennis....have always hated it and will continue to hate it".....he talks about how he was forced into tennis by his father, made to attend a rigorous, hellish tennis camp just because he seemed to possess a natural penchant for it......he never wanted to play tennis, and was never happy with it......he may seem a huge tennis star and highly successful to us, but if you ask him, he would never say he is successful, quite simply because it wasnt something he wanted to do......(i don't remember what else I said exactly, but continued along this line.......simply put, I had never ever given a more convincing answer in my life...and don't think I ever will!!! Once I was done, both panelists were speechless....dumbstruck......they had no answer......they set out to take my case, but ended up having their own cases taken! The expressions on their faces gave me immense pleasure, and that one moment completely made up for all the horrors I endured in the interviews before this one!!)

They rounded off by asking how I had worked at my shortcomings and how I had improved them......I gave an example of how I wasn't really good at marketing and didn't do a very good job of getting sponsors for our college festival in my initial years (blabbered, but convincingly enough!) and then how I improved on it. We were each then asked to compare ourselves with an animal.....I said cheetah, 'cos I'm a quick learner and adapt quickly to situations (again, blabbered!) And that was it.......for the first time, I walked out of an interview room with a smile on my face! This was quite good.....and I knew one thing.....I had either clinched it, or guaranteed myself a rejection.....depends on how sporting the panelists were!!