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Before joining IIM Indore in July 2004 I have attended 9 real GD/PIs. I am able to convert 3 of them. There were lots of key takeaways from all these experiences. This post aims to throw some light in what works best in a GD/PI and what can make one a failure in GD/PI.

GD

- Reading: many people say that for a good GD performance reading a lot is sine-qua-non. Well, I would say more than reading you need to have an opinion on diverse topics. This need not always come from reading. You can gain a POV on hazaar things by watching TV, chatting with friends (basically arguing), surfing, and more importantly using your gray cells. So even if you are not a very avid reader there is no point worrying about it now. In whatever little time you have try to gain an opinion on most of issues in most of the areas.

- Structuring your thoughts: many of us would feel often “shucks, I forgot to say about this point in the GD”. Well, my dear friend you are not alone. I felt the same way after at least 7 of those 9 GDs. The key to beat this is to structure our thoughts. Through out our schooling/college teachers constantly bombarded us about reading and doing. But no one told us how to think. I guess this is the reason why some of us fail to objectively analyze the issue before us in GDs. There are some very good websites where you can get some basic guidelines on how to structure your thoughts.

- Going to new places: What do we think an evaluator does in the GD? By no means he/she can remember the whole 20 mins of discussion happening in the room. Also many a times memorizing the entire 20 mins discussion wouldn’t help him/her in judging the people. One of the things they look in a GD is “who is going to new places?” by new places I mean taking the risk of thinking in new directions and channeling the discussion in those directions. It is not always easy to think in new directions. Especially when you lack in point no 2. One best way to do this could be negation. Whatever the speaker is saying you can think of the opposite and sometimes it yields good results. Also sometimes the discussion moves towards a cul-de-sac and group loiters there without any purpose. At this time if you can take the role of moving the group from there you get the brownie points.

- Listening: I cannot tell you how much this is important for you in a GD.

- Gaining groups support and airtime: there are at least 1001 ways of gaining support/airtime by being rude or noisy. But most of them suck. Some of you might be feeling that no matter what you do in the GD you don’t get a chance to speak. Try this next time. Get an eye contact with the person who is speaking. Smile gently at the person. Nod your head and pay attention to him. At one point or other he also smiles back. Snatch the opportunity and speak. You can find such body language tips in your GD material or websites.

- Optimism: All said and done, if you don’t have belief in yourself no tip, no amount of training can help you in cracking a GD. It takes a lot of guts to come out in public and speak and make sense. So don’t feel belittled if you are not very good at that right now. Rather persist and you will have your day soon.

Interviews

- Know thyself: If there is anything that the interviewer doesn’t know very well and you know way too much, it is YOU. So the best way to start preparation is to start knowing yourself. Prepare a killer CV. Know more about your family, hometown, college, hobbies, friends, job, education etc. gather some interesting trivia about the above listed items and if the chance comes tell them to the interviewer. He/she will definitely be impressed.

- Acads/Job: You know what to do.

- Admit your mistakes: many people feel that if they admit a mistake their interview is screwed. In MBA jargon we call in escalation of commitment. Believe me there is nothing like admitting your mistakes and going back to comfort zones.

Some of the key mistakes you can avoid in GD/PIs

- Dumbness: no matter what happens in a GD try speaking. Don’t complaint about the GD becoming a fish market. If it is a fish market you be a part of it or better still try making it more sensible than staying silent. I did this mistake in my IIM B Interview and lost it.

- Ignorance: prepare well for the interview. Don’t take it too casually. Staying cool interview doesn’t mean staying uniformed about the key areas. For example I was grilled on probability/statistics/queuing in IIT SOM interview. I dint prepare much in that area despite it being a course I did in graduation and highly relevant to my field (comp sci). I failed to convert the interview

- Lack of Passion: Sometime if everything is worse in you and if you still have the kick ass passion to make it to the school then you might get selected. All you need to do is display your passion and why you want to join the school through out the interview. But passion isolated to PI is not going to work. You need to display in the SOP, GD and other stages as well.

- Running away from reality: B schools also like people with high levels of creativity. But that doesn’t mean that you should move away from reality. Suppose if the interviewer asks where do you want to be 10 years after MBA and if you say something like I want to be a project manager or CEO of an MNC it doesn’t work. Try to be more sensible and realistic in your answers.

Well, that is all I can think of now.

All the Very Best for GD/PI 2005.

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hmm… was thinking of posting my current winamp playlist here with some comments each title for quite sometime. This list wakes me up almost everyday. Here it goes.

Bulla Ki Jana, Rabbi Shergill - Awesome lyrics, real catchy
Fana, Yuva - Any doubts, cult ARR
Its the time to disco, KHNH - Awesome music
Ek ho gaye hum aur tum, Bombay - ARR
Chandralekha, Chor Chor - ARR
Khallas, Company - Psychadelic
Koi Kahe, DCH - Awesome dance music, arrogant lyrics
Oh Mariya, Dil Hi Dil Mein - ARR
Hello Doctor, Duniya Dilwalon Ki - ARR, Any Doubt?
Columbus, Jeans - ARR Again
Ek Pal Ka Jeena, KNPH - Cool music, Lucky Ali to back it
Aisa Jadoo, Khaki - Beat
Tez Dhaar, Musafir - Some how i like his voice, listen Aye Shivani, you will know why.
Tanha, Tanha, Rangeela - ARR Rocks
Yun Hi Chala, Swades - Read Above
O Humdum Suniyo Re, Saathiya - ARR is GOD

As you can see I am big time ARR fan. That is one reason I listen to the same set of songs more or less.

Tada!

• 0 Comments

I always thought that people would love to hide their identity when it comes to online forums/chat rooms/etc. Some mavericks always try to come up with crazy names too. Still some more people hide their identities even in blogs.

When you are a regular user and mod at largest B school student online community in India, you will get a decent chance to see various methods used by people in hiding themselves. Undoubtedly the best of them to hide your real name. Oflate i am seeing a trend where usernames are no longer cryptic but little vulgar, crazy and funny.

Take a look at these names and i bet you would agree with me.

- Ullu Ka Pattha Oh really?
- LifeSucksJobSucksGFDoesnt hehe… must be a jobless software engineer(actually jobless software engineer is a pleonasm)
- $Get a Life$ do i see a pattern here?
- One step to insanity No doubt you registered at pagalguy.com
- brain in drain Where is your keyboard?
- master of all trades Where is the other part?
- jack of all trades Oh!, here you are.
- having identity crisis Hmm… yeah even we are having a problem figuring out who you are…
- definitelymale007 I still doubt you
- andthentherewas1more Good one there
- rascal_one You dont give us a chance to evaluate you. do you?
- Gaurav_the original Where are the other 23 shades dude?

Tada!

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Well, you have seen them all. Cost accounting, management accounting, HR accounting, this accounting, that accounting. But Accounting of Exams??? Well, I guess there is no such concept in existence till now.

Hmm, so something original, you must be thinking. But even if you are remotely aware of the blog title you will remember that this whole rant on accounting is being produced by an engineer. All ye doubting thomuses and teresas, please trust me in my endeavor to explain this brand new accounting concept.

Introduction
There are 11 accounting concepts in the FASB framework of accounting according to Anthony & Reece. But for the sake of simplicity and presentability, we will take only 6 (SIX) of these concepts in explaining the accounting framework of Accounting of Exams.

Each of the following chapters tries to explain what the concept means in financial accounting sense and then in the Accounting of Exams sense.

Entity Concept (EC)
In financial sense, EC means accounts are kept for entities and not their owners. In recording the events in accounting, the important question always is: “How does these events affect the entity?”. How they affect the person who own, operate is irrelevant.

In Accounting of Exams sense, EC means, the exam and the exam taker are 2 separate entities. Any outcome of the exam is totally irrelevant to the taker of the exam. In this way the question asked always is: “When will the exams be over?”.

Going Concern Concept (GCC)
In financial sense, GCC means the entity continues to exist forever. Compare this with the possible alternative of entity(firm) getting liquidated due to cash crunch or something else and you will be able to get hold of the concept.

In Accounting of Exams sense, GCC stands for Gone Concern Concept. This means, you as an exam taker has no concern for the exams. You give up before the exam begins. The underlying concept is, you will continue to live forever no matter what happens to the exams.

Dual-aspect Concept (DC)
In financial sense, an entity’s economic resources are called assets and claims on these resources are called liabilities. Now DC says that Assets=Liabilities.

In Accounting of Exams sense, DC stands for “the amount of resources spent on everything outside exams = the claims on highscores in exams”

Accounting Period Concept (APC)
In financial sense, accounting measures the activities of an entity for a specified interval of time. Typically this interval is one year.

In Accounting of Exams sense, APC means, your activities (academic or otherwise) in an year can never be captured by an exam(s) in that year.

Matching Concept (MC)
In financial sense, MC means, “when a given event affects both revenues and expenses, the effect on each should be recognized in the same accounting period.”

In Accounting of Exams sense, MC means, if you expend sometime preparing for an exam, the revenues (read scores) are never going to come immediately. Hence donot expend too much just because exams are round the corner.

Consistency Concept (CC)
In financial sense, this means you have to follow the same method once you have decided to follow it. (for example a firm may decide to dump 10% of its employees every year, then it should follow it forever. Seriously the CC is more complex than this)

In Accounting of Exams sense, CC means, you have to follow the same pattern of preparation for all events (read exams) for the returns are never reflected by the pattern.

Conclusion
All in all, Accounting of Exams, is a brand new concept. Not many entities (read students) follow it vigorously. Also there is no standardization like FASB. But a core group of individuals (read 2 pointers on a 4.33 scale) in my institute have kick started the process and soon you can expect something like ASS for AFFECTS (stands for Accounting Standard Specification for Accounting Framework For Exams in Colleges and Technical Schools). Till the “ASS for AFFECTS” arrives sit tight and watch this place.

PS: The above article, an origianl production of PHD is protected under copy right laws. Please dont use Microsoft CP Technology in replicating this content elsewhere.

God Bless.

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well… I have been luring my visitors about the happenings here. let me acutally put them down.

like a condom advertisement which exaggerates the excitement to exorbitant levels,you might find this a dud of a post. lets try.

Man!-I-Fuss-Too
Well, come january its election time at I. yours truly contested for Secretary, Media & public relations committee. After some worthless campaigning and slogan shouting the final round of manifesto presentation came. It all started at 10:20 pm on one fine night. with the enthusiasm of a school kid seeing the elephant safari for the first time, Govar dragged me to the mess where the presentations are going. well, for the first 2 presentations or so we are all ears to listen the promises. then all of a sudden when we lifted our heads to check the survivor count the number present is worse than Strategic Planning attendence levels. Only those contesting and waiting for their round of Man-I-Fuss-Too presentation are there. may be an odd insomniac or fun lover trying to mock the presenter is also there. all in all not more than 80 legs are present in the room.

After sitting tight for almost 2 hours my turn for the manifestation came. Well, 5 mins of rant and promises and its all over. Election started at around 3:30 am. Results came at 4 am. and yours truly lost.

SWACed
The student body of the IIM Indore is called as SWAC. Earlier i was trying to become a secretary of one of the parts of SWAC. After the election failure I thought several times before filing the nomination for the member post. (apart from secy, there will be 2 members in Media Com.) this time it was dumb luck. From the entire batch, Media com recieved only 2 nominations, one from me and another from anoop (my project groupmate). Thus I became a member of SWAC 2005-2006.

Summer Project
I got my summer project details in the last week. When the company asked for preference sometime in december I said marketing. Finally I got a project in the same area. I will be in Mumbai during those 2 months with a possibility of travel.

Right Now
We have a big party tonight. First party of the term3. people are already tired with routine for the last 10 or sodays. so expecting a lot of noice and movement on the dance floor tonight

Tada!

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Created a couple of pages on my site for UtsAHA fotos. please go through them for a visual treat

- UtsAHA Album 1
- UtsAHA Album 2
- UtsAHA Album 3
- All fotos at one place

Tada!

• 0 Comments

Well, it is not a T-shirt caption. Rather it is about the current term in the 2 year course i want to blog. When term3 kick started 10 days ago, I thought it would be another 30% content and 70% global term with more fundaes on various areas of management and understanding people. I couldnt be more mistaken than this. 10 days into the term and i am already in love with most of the courses. some of the courses/class room discussions are nothing short of “ideas…infinite”, throwing myriad perspectives and options for each decision issue. Let me take you through the courses one by one.

Corp Fin.: Deals with making investment decisions using the fundaes gathered in MAC and FIN1. Rotates around Cashflows and decision making rather than analysis. Prof. is very systematic in his approach. Interesting readings and cases. Overall this course is giving me second thoughts about chucking Fin as a career option.

Marketing 2: Again deals with decision making for areas like marketing strategy, service offerings, brand positioning and overall marketing plans. Uses the fundaes gathered in OB, BTO, Marketing 1. A very enthusiastic prof. from IIM K is teaching us. Cases are lenghty as of now, but cover a gamut of decision issues and behavioural aspects. No doubt this course will help us in dealing the summer training better.

Organizational Analysis: One the unique courses of this place. No other B school in India offers this course. The mere fact that the course is handled by my favourite prof. made me sit tight in the class in last 3 sessions. Overall the course aims to use OB, BTO and HR concepts to analyse organizations. At macro level this course is a step towards making us general managers/consultants. Wonderful pedagogy.

Quant Techniques 3: Aimed at application of advansed statistical techniques like cluster/conjoint analyses using software tools and understanding of underlying concepts. Basically this course is a tool for us to make effective decisions.

Operations & Prod Management2: Mostly revolves around SCM/Logistics. Lacks the engineering glamour of OM1. But definetly worth working on a couple of cases.

Managing HR: Course outline suggests something like developing HR perspective for Non-HR managers(which we are supposed to become). But agian the last 3 sessions suggest otherwise. Some concepts like involving HR at strategic level are still debatable. Overall just another “try to get a B or C and forget” course for me.

Developments in Indian & World Economies: This course tries to build upon the macroeconomic frameworks/concepts discussed in the term2. For me it might be just another avoidable course. But going by the material given for this 2 credit course (half the weightage of normal courses) it looks like i need to slog atleast to make out what is necessary and what is not.

Strategic Planning: well, another General Management course focussing majorly at top management decision areas/issues. Wonderful concept. somehow the classroom learning is not up to the mark. Well, even i am a part of it, so i am not cribbing

Managing IT: a 4 credit course on IT finally. Well, this course would be a stepping stone for IT specialization in the year 2. But otherwise i am banking on this course for some good grades (a gloating comp. sci. engineer you see)

Apart from the above list there is one course dedicated to a research project in marketing area where we will do a 6 week project on some marketing problem. But the course would start only after mid-term. so i cannot comment on it.

Well, that is all for this post. Will post more tonight on some of the interesting happenings offlate.

Tada!

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