Preparing for personal interview: Know Dos & Don'ts

Dec. 12, 2012 - PRLog -- By the end of January, you would know your results of MBA entrance exams you have taken so far and start receiving calls for the final rounds of selection. In the past week, you have known about group discussion and how to prepare yourself for that. This week, you will know about personal interview.

In the first article of the series, we share with you the Dos and Don’ts in a personal interview and during its preparation, as suggested by B School students.

Let us first start with what to do.

Know yourself: The first and foremost preparation you need to take about personal interview is to know thyself. Generally, the first question in the interview is ‘Tell us about yourself.’ Giving a glimpse of your CV won’t help you much. Hence, you must introspect and give an answer which would reflect your personality. You should also know your aims in life and purpose of the MBA you are planning to pursue. Along with that, also revise on your graduation subjects, your work profile, company, hometown, etc. While sharing her PI experience, Malobi Banerjee, an IIFT student, mentions, “The toughest question in my PI was when I was asked about Bidhan Chandra Roy. He was the first chief minister of West Bengal and I used to live in a locality named after him, hence the question. I was clueless and told the interviewers that I knew nothing about him.”

Steer direction of the interview as per your convenience: Often, the next question of the interview depends on the answer you gave for the last question. If you mention something which you are not very sure about, undoubtedly you will get the next question on the said aspect. So try as much as possible to avoid such topics in your answers.

Maintain eye contact with panelists: When there is more than one person in the panel, you must maintain eye contact with all the panelists. Initially, look at the person who had asked you the question, and later you can shift your gaze to other panelists gradually.  

Give crisp answers: Your answers should be short and crisp. If you give long answers, panelists would tend to lose interest and cut you short or ask a different question. Hence, keep your answers short but mention all the important points. “Most applicants tend to talk a lot during interviews. This should be avoided. The interview panel insists on crisp and short responses,” says a first year student of SPJIMR.

Be confident & honest: As you have known from your childhood, honesty is the best policy and it works well for your interviews as well.  Be confident of you answer and be honest about yourself in the interview. That is the best trick to be successful in an interview. “I personally feel that you should not worry too much about the interview. The more you worry about things that are unknown, the worse off you are,” says Rohit Roy, a first year student of NITIE.    

Now let us discuss which the things to avoid are.

Don’t mug up answers: Some aspirants tend to mug up answers for the questions like introduce yourself or why MBA. You should not tread this path, as it doesn’t lead to success unless you sound really convincing. Panelists are experienced enough to know which answer is genuine and which one is mugged up.

Don’t make wild guess: As mentioned in the Dos part, honesty is the best policy, if you don’t know a particular answer, confess it. Don’t make wild guesses as that can lead you to trouble.

Don’t repeat points from your CV: The panelists want you to be different from what they already know about you. In the questions about yourself and the one about your education or work experience, mention what is not there in your CV or form.

Don’t miss out on general awareness preparation: You may expect a question or two from current affairs. If you are not well versed with current affairs or general awareness, it won’t leave a positive impression on the panelists as being an aspiring manager you must know about the current events and have an opinion on it.