ISB Interview Debrief – Kaustubh Joshi
Place : ITC Sheraton, Saket, New Delhi
Date : 12-Jan-2013
Time : 4:30 PM
I reached the venue an hour early, on reaching the floor, I was asked to sign on an attendance page. At first I was perplexed and my hands were shaking while signing, but then I got better of my nerves, hell yes I was nervous. The essay topic that I got was "Drubbing". I moved from my chair which was near the door to a more comfortable sofa. I was just gauging others in the room, and believe me every one was looking at their smart phone screens.
So I also looked up the meaning for the word, and thought about it for a minute. Then I wrote the essay about the drubbing that India got from Australia in 2001, and the learning about how a resurgent India won the next match and then the series. Essay done, now the wait for the real thing started. There was a few interactions between the candidates sitting there in the waiting room.
When my name was called, one of the panel members was standing outside and escorted me to the room. Panel number 2, was my panel, there were two guys (both alums I guess). The guy who received me made me comfortable, while I was just taking my seat, the other one asked me about one of the instances that I had mentioned in my essays (the first one), as to why I was reluctant at first to go for the UATs at the beginning. I told him all the difficulties I had faced in the project, and I knew beforehand about all these difficulties. Then more question followed about the project, the technicalities and what was the whole project about. I guess I handled this pretty well.
The second person then asked me about why MBA, as he was not able to gauge the same from my application material. He also told me to switch companies. In response to that I told him, it is because I want to change my job profile that I want to do an MBA. He told me to switch to Alstom, and asked me whether I know the company. I told him that Alstom is one of my vendors (I forgot to mention that Alstom has one of the worst ratings as per L&T's procurement department, with poor past records).
Now again the one who asked me about the UATs, wanted to know about the management trainee scheme, which I had mentioned in my essay. The details, which I told them in detail, what all difficulties I faced and the stages that I liked the most. I gave the answer and it was ok. Now came the guesstimate, to which I was able to arrive at a figure, with help from the panel member, he gave me hints all the way till I was able to arrive at a certain figure.
Apart from this, they asked me where I am from, I told them from Dehradun, to which, the other guy said "lo kar lo baat". After that, he started taking to me in Hindi (I think he noticed my weakness of speaking hindi words in between a lot). So from then the whole interview was in Hindi and English.
In the end, they told me if I had any questions, to which I asked "if selected, what kind of preparation I will have to do before joining ISB (pretty lame question in my opinion)", to which both of them gave their opinions.
The interview lasted for around 25-30 minutes, with the whole process taking about one hour. That was it, nothing fancy, the panel made me comfortable throughout but still was probing. I guess the situation is very dicey, with very bleak chances of converting the call. My fingers are crossed, let’s hope for the best.
12 Jan 2014, 07:45
