ISB interview experience

I have been monitoring the percentage increase in the number of users visiting my blog and till now Google Analytics shows an increase of 433 % over the last 15 days. Interesting. All such stats remind me of the quarterly financial statement of a company. I wish one day my company would do that. Anyways, back to the real world, I decided to further increase the number of visitors to my blog. Seriously I should stop now. I actually wanted to give back to the MBA blogger community by posting an interview experience with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

I know I am late and I regret that. But I could not help it. I was invited for an interview at Hyderabad when I had applied to ISB in the first round. The interview was on a Sunday and I left Bangalore Saturday evening. Since the interview was at 3:00 PM I took the risk of leaving just the day before. I reached Hyderabad in the morning and went to a friend's place. I just spent the time chatting with friends and eating breakfast at Chutney's. No pressure of the interview till now. I had bath and got all dressed up. One of my other friends came and he took me to the ISB campus. I met another class mate from college at ISB who took admission last year. It was 2:50 PM and I had to report at the reception.

I got a sheet of paper and a topic to write about for about 15 mins. The topic was "Banking". I wrote whatever came to my mind and was sitting quietly in one corner. I observed other applicants talking to each other about their work experience, earlier interview experiences, GMAT scores and what not. It seemed like those guys had arrived a good half to one hour back. It was 3:20 PM and I was still waiting for some panel to call me up for the interview. There were 4 panels I think. Suddenly I felt the urge to yawn. I thought it would be fine. As I was halfway to my yawn (read as mouth wide open), a lady came by and asked for my name. I somehow tried to hide my yawn and gulped it. I thought to myself "What a loser I am ? What a great time to yawn !"

I enter the interview room and I see 1 guy sitting on his chair. The other interviewer was the lady who called me. They had my application open in front of them. They introduced themselves to me. One was an Admissions committee member and the other was an alumni. The following is the transcript (not exact, but very close) of my interview:

G = (Guy) : L = (Lady) : M = (Me)

G: So you play guitar ?
M: yes.
G: Since how long ?
M: Since last Jan.
L: Why did you learn it now and not before ?
M: (hmm. good one. I expected this) I always wanted to since college and never really had the time or the push to learn. It just happened last Jan and I enrolled myself.
L: But you have written that you are a guitar player. So do you play somewhere ?
M: No. just at home. (noticing that the lady is not convinced)
L: So which newspapers you read ? (Note that this was somewhere mentioned on my application)
M: Mint and Hindu
G: What do you like in them ?
M: Mint i like it for its wall street journal's columns and the last 4 pages expressing different views. Hindu for general news and sometimes I read Paul Krugman's column.
G: What was the last column that Paul Krugman wrote ?
M: (Oops. What was it ? what was it ?) I suddenly remembered the headline of his last blog and told him the same.
G: Do you think the US job market will improve ?
M: Yes it will but not so rapidly. Its kind of a W shaped recession. I would have loved to explain here but I just could not gather the thoughts and the next topic came.

L: So you applied before also ?
M: yes
L: When ?
M: Last year round 2.
L: So what was the feedback you got and what have you done ?
M: Blah blah feedback. And I did this and that to improve on it.
L: Hmm..some more questions on my community work.
G: So why do you want to do MBA ?
M: My usual answer.
G: What kind of work you do and how you think it will help you in your future ?
M: Prepared answer.
L: What are your plans for future at work ?
M: this and that.
L: Have you taken any steps towards that ?
M: (Obviously thats why I applied...kidding). No. right now I love what I do, had lots of opportunities here and I did not see any reason to jump from being a developer to a Business analyst or some managerial role.
L: hmm...
L: Can you estimate the number of computers in the campus. We just want to know your approach and not the exact number.
M: (cool). Number of students + teachers + different departments + library and other things + other staff. I just arrived to some number close to 800.
(I actually got the number of teachers wrong.)
G: So you know how many departments make up a B school ?
M: Admissions, Placements, Corporate board, Hostel, Different centres, and ummm....
(Later realized I could have said more like Media, Company relations etc.)

G: Do you think Facebook can give Google a run for its money sometime ?
M: (something that I read a lot about) Yes definitely. The number of users is phenomenal. It can leverage that to may be beat google at search. May be develop new ways of earning revenue other than advertising. Social networking is big and all that. Facebook is the leader in that right now.

G: what should google do then ?
M: It should develop a new Social Networking website. Rethink from the bottom. (this was before Buzz came in)
G: But they already have Orkut.
M: I know. But Orkut is way below Facebook. Although there are certain ways it can improve Orkut. (This was also before they renovated Orkut..am not being visionary but it is just true..may be that guy was at google :D )
G: How ?
M: Improve performance and user interface (was that too geeky). Improve user registration. Currently anyone can do it as against Facebook which requires us to provide a mobile number and a code to confirm online. That will result in lesser spam on orkut. (Seriously there is way too much spam and fake profiles on orkut, may be facebook is slowly approaching that).

G and L looking towards each other.
L: I think we are done. Do you have any questions ?
M: yes sure. (I asked my question and they answered it).

All in all, I did not feel that it was a very good interview and I smashed it. But it was not that bad either. I did some mistakes but I answered some things very well. Probably.
I hope you enjoyed reading it and benefit from it.