Interview year- 2015 Final year Computer Science Engineering student at BIT Mesra with CGPA ~8.6 Job offer in hand during the interview- Business Analyst at EXL GMAT score- 730
My interview happened at the Mohali campus and I was the first person to be interviewed for the day. I remember sitting in the reception lobby, visible nervousness on my face as I thought about how underprepared I was for the interview. This was the first ‘proper’ interview of my life, heck I was wearing a formal blazer for the first time. As I was sitting, a current student came to the reception- “Hey, interview?” he asked me, nervously I mumbled a “Yeah, mmm-hmm” post which he gave me the kindest smile and said, “Aaye don’t worry dude, you’re gonna ace it, all the best”. And that is when it cemented in my heart that this is where I want to study. ISB, aah, it’s all about its people.
Smiling I went to my interview process. Before the interview, I was given an exercise where I had to write a very short essay based on a word they chose randomly. My word was ‘Orator’. I made sure I linked the essay to an MBA and myself as much as I could in the essay.
Post the exercise, I was taken to the interview panel comprising of two ISB professors. My panel was a mixed bag with one professor a smiling, energetic chap, and the other one with an absolute poker face. Nevertheless, the entire interview experience was really smooth and relaxed.
They started by asking me questions from my essay related to why is being a good orator an important skill. A few other questions in the flow of the conversation were:
My long-term and short-term goals and what role ISB would play in it
Why ISB and why not an MBA from abroad
About my internships at IIT-B and IIM-A; regarding my work, motivation and learnings from both. This also had a lot of counter questioning as at one point I said something along the linea of how most coursebooks are boring.
3 strengths and examples of each
Why the social sector? Because I had spoken about my intentions of getting into the development space. This segued into a conversation about Section-377 (it was the latest news at that time), about my views on the ruling party and about some of the policies implemented by them.
20 minutes and I was done. At the end of the interview I had no idea how it went or if I would make it, that’s how much the interview just felt like a conversation and not an interview.
A typical ISB interview would be like mine only, where the focus is more on ‘Who are you as a person’ rather than ‘How much do you know. Your personality, energy and attitude play a great role in deciding if you would make it. There are some things that you should definitely prepare for before your interview and some behavioral things to keep in mind- you can know more about them by consulting ISB alums like myself or someone with a more similar profile as yours for free here: Preppie | ISB
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