The interviews are all about knowing how much you know about yourself alumnus

…..says Jatin Bhagat, a BE (ICE) from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. He has worked as a Software Engineer at ibibo Web Pvt Ltd for 36 months. In conversation with Reshma Majithia, he talks of his journey to IIM K, his hobbies, which include solving sudoku, playing tennis, cricket, reading novels (classics, philosophy, etc) and blogging.

Your journey from your BE (ICE) days to an MBA at IIM Kozhikode…
The journey from NSIT to IIM Kozhikode has been extremely enriching and most importantly, a planned and well-informed one. The engineering degree from NSIT in instrumentation and control was extremely technical, fun filled and multi-dimensional. I was really fascinated with technology at that time and wanted to apply the academic learning to real world settings. I joined a start-up in the Internet domain, which was an informed decision.
ibibo.com gave me the opportunity to work on diverse activities such as recruiting engineers to infuse talent in the organisation, mentoring new joiners, planning projects, creating high-level design for project implementation and many more. These activities exposed me to the top management in the organisation and their perspective of the organisation and its working. This made me realise the interest in the kind of work they were doing and re-evaluated my career goals aligning my interest with general management and strategy.
My belief that IIM Kozhikode would help me achieve these goals by not only providing the essential technical grounding through its well-designed curriculum, but also offers an opportunity to benefit from its world renowned faculty and talented peer group has led me to pursue an MBA at IIM Kozhikode.

Why did you choose IIM Kozhikode?
The question of which B-school always haunts the MBA aspirants and I was no different. It is a commonly accepted notion that one learns most from his/her peers than anyone else in a B-school. So, apart from placements, which is certainly an important criteria in evaluating B-schools; in my perspective the kind of students a B-School admits is certainly one of the most important criteria to judge a B-school.
From this year, IIM Kozhikode has undertaken a strategic shift in admitting students, ie giving high importance to the overall personality apart from the CAT score while giving interview calls. So, I have extremely high regard for IIM Kozhikode as an institution, which goes an extra yard to know an individual through his experiences and his learning from such experiences. Also, IIM Kozhikode is known for its socially conscious stand that ensures that it has courses that are aimed at building socially conscious managers and a mandatory project that makes budding managers work for the betterment of society.

When did the idea of doing the CAT come about and did you face any hurdles in your preparation and how did you overcome that?
Well, as I already mentioned earlier, I thought of giving CAT after working for a year and a half with ibibo.com. As I have written the CAT earlier during the final year of my graduation, I was familiar with the format of the exam and somewhat familiar with the content of the exam as well. As with almost all the engineers, I was sure of my quantitative and logical reasoning section for CAT. The only section that was a cause of concern for me was verbal ability. I knew it is impossible to learn a subject if you feel it is not logical. So, the first thing that I did was to make sure that I dispel such a notion by practicing a lot of questions and trying to solve them logically. It took me a month and by solving questions from official guide to GMAT and constantly understanding their reasoning to solutions, I was able to dispel that notion.

Apart from that I made a list of 25 novels especially old classics belonging to almost all genres (philosophy, sociology, psychology, politics, etc), which I read during my preparations. I followed a rule of one novel a week and it helped me immensely and armed me with faster and better comprehension. Apart from that I cultivated an extremely enriching hobby of reading novels.

The moment I was sure that the verbal ability is the logical subject, I was almost certain that cracking CAT is indeed possible. But to my dismay, I was not able to perform as expected on the D-day, I got 90 percentile above in all sections but my overall percentile was a touch above 97 and didn’t receive a single call from any of the IIMs.

I tried the CAT the next year, armed with the learnings of last year’s preparation and perhaps a cooler temperament. Practicing on the same lines as last year and tweaking my exam-taking pattern, I was able to get a good value for time during exam. I feel this was a major difference from last year’s preparation and I was fairly confident this time as I was consistently scoring in the range of 99-99.7 during mocks. And the D-day was no different but even better than my best mock.

Did you appear for the final rounds of selection at any other Institute? How was your experience in each of those?
Yes, I appeared for IIM Lucknow, Indore, SP Jain and NITIE’s final rounds of selection. Well, I must say the experience was quite different for each of the B-school though the methodology remains almost the same. IIM Lucknow’s interview was a short one and I was not able to answer some questions related to my graduation. They asked a few questions regarding my work experience, which I was able to answer with considerable ease. But, in the end I was not able to make it to the final list. My IIM Indore interview was by far the best, with questions primarily on technical aspect of my engineering and learnings in each phase of life. I was waitlisted in IIM Indore, before final conversion. NITIE’s interview was again quite technical and work experience centric and it went well for me. I was able to convert the interview call. SP Jain takes group interviews and it has two rounds of group interviews, one has to clear the first round of group interview to move to second round. The process of group interview of SP Jain was really a memorable one; both the interviews were so involving and so much centered on one’s own self and experiences that one just enjoys the complete process regardless of the result. That’s what I exactly did.

What are your long-term aspirations and how do you see the MBA degree helping you achieve the same?
In the long term, I would like to be viewed as an indispensable asset to my organisation and be seen as an individual who endeavors to excel in every aspect of his work.

To be more specific, general management and strategic decision-making is my ultimate destination. In order to do so, I have planned to take up a consulting role, which would help me in capacity building through problem solving and learning from experts in the field before attaining the generalist role where I will have all the accountability and authority for all the issues surrounding a business.

I believe an MBA degree will help me achieve these goals by not only providing me with the essential technical grounding but also provide me with holistic understanding of how an organisation works.

How would you describe your life at IIM Kozhikode?
My life at IIM Kozhikode is extremely fun-filled, informative, social and hectic. IIM Kozhikode has one of the most diverse batches between all the IIMs. The diversity of the batch is quite evident in the quality of discussions and presentations in the classroom. Apart from class learning, there are various clubs and society that one joins to pursue his/her interest in the functional area of choice. Also, there are informal discussion and debating groups that discuss almost all the happenings in the business world. People take part in informal groups to share their work experiences and insights of the industry they have worked in. The diversity adds to variety in terms of perspective to look at things. The most satisfying part of life at the IIM Kozhikode is that almost all the students here follow their hobbies and passions alongside studies – be it sports, reading novels, music, etc. The IIM Kozhikode campus is a picturesque campus and provides the right infrastructure, the serenity and calmness to the life, which is indeed very hectic. There are many cultural events happening throughout each of the trimesters, which get the hidden talent out. Apart from that, hostel wars keep the tradition of healthy competition going among hostels. Most importantly, the batch parties, hostel parties and section parties are all witness to the happening life at IIMK.

Your advice to the MBA aspirants…
At this time of the year when the result of all the major B-schools are around the corner, I will say it is the most important time to dig down deep inside and find out as much as possible about yourself ie, what you want from an MBA? What are your long-term objectives, your likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, etc? The interviews are all about knowing how much you know about yourself. The more you know about yourself, you stand a better chance of clearing any interview. Yes, brushing your graduation subjects is important and so is the general knowledge. But, the most important thing is knowing oneself.