9th Feb
please read this to get a perspective of whats happeing..
…………………(sleeping peacefully)…………..
OK I will not provide you unnecessary information about what I did after this to get ready and what else I read ( haa haa.. I am stupid).. but I got late, really late! Left my flat at
I reached near
I looked at my watch, already it was
The GD:- Much to my relief, guys were still waiting there in a room(it looked like a room from outside) .. I entered in that 10-10 ft room filled with atleast 30 IIM aspirants(call getters to be more precise), the room was filled with too much tension(as most of us were having their first interview of the season), there was too much intellect in the air(guys were sharing last minute knowledge from topics as diverse as from types of crank shafts to increase in bank CRR rates, from AVL trees to forthcoming elections in states to IRAN-PAK-INDIA pipeline ).. I felt that there was no AC in that room or may be it was totally ineffective in this situation and the room’s slanted roof was hardly 6 feet high at one end. I glanced at all these immaculately dressed boys and girls, most of them were there for more than an hour and it showed on there faces.
In fact the gravity of the situation was there in the Air, As a general rule I can only say that no matter boss! U may go on to convert all your 6 calls and something even better, but for the first one, you will be tensed.
Within 5-10 minutes we were called in groups of about ten guys per panel. I was in panel 2. This Panel consisted of two profs, one rather old one and one middle aged one with a bit heavy structure(I sensed some trouble).
We were seated on chairs that were placed in a semicircular arc.
The case was distributed, got a 1 minute time to think and then start>>
It was not exactly a case scenario it was rather something like a 5-6 line article about struggles between employees and management and how they affect productivity.
To be frank it was a very dull GD, nobody had great points and everyone came up with more or less same points wrapped in different wordings.
The only guys who stood out (in some sense) were the ones who came out with examples(like in
I also beat around the bush, tried 5-6 times, was heard by the group for some 3-4 times.
Apart from regular rephrasing of the case, My points were like management has to listen and resolve the employees’ demands proactively, so that employees don’t get an impression that they will be heard only when they go on strike. And something about why models of Japan etc may not be successful in
Overall a very mediocre GD, and for me as well it was just average.
I would say that apart from 1-2 guys who performed a bit better and 1-2 guys who did not perform that well, all other were more or less on the same level. I should have got an average rating.
The Interview:- Now directly comes to the interview( I was the fourth one in my group):-
Lets call the profs as P1(middle aged one, HR types) and P2(Academics types)
P2:Tell me about your typical day in office?
P2:What is a bug?(mentioned it somewhere in my answer)
I defined it well enough ..something like difference between expected and actual output on a given input.
P2:So how many bugs do you find in say 1 lakh lines of codes?
WTH? Depends ..blabbered smthing about like a faulty design will lead to too many bugs , different impact , bugs found at different stages of lifecycle etc etc..ended up with saying about post release bug possibilities n six sigma standards(6 bugs PMO).
P1:What are your hobbies?
P1:So you have directed some skits?
Blah blah..
P1:Sometimes we watch some movies that look more like a TV serial? Whats the problem?
Me: Sir I feel that the problem lies mainly with the director.. as insipid acting by the cast can be one of the major reason for this. He must convey the situation and the intensity to the actors and ask them to get into the skin of the characters rather than being conscious of or distracted by the fact that they are just acting.
P1:No.. No..from technical point of view?
Me:OKkk, there can be a fault in the screenplay itself, dialogs and situations are not lively or interesting.
P1:No ..No not all this stuff ..have you ever thought of making a movie yourself?
No Sir, I have never thought in that direction.
P1:You are missing something ..think from the director’s point of view?
Me: Everything is described in screenplay..like what exact dialogs will be there, what will be the settings for every scene..infact it treats the story scene by scene.
P1:OK what is the difference between a movie and a stage play.
<hmm.. I started with something that I feared/(and faced
Sir in play we are performing in front of live audience..there is no retake.. the reaction of audience is going to have an impact on actors..so we need a tighter screenplay. While a movie director has lots of liberties..like he can show instant flashbacks(pretty frequently), retakes, editing etc etc.. even if the film looses its grip for half an hour and picks up the pace after that, nobody is gonna complain. But in a play ppl will start hooting if there is a dull period of even 5 mins.(quite reasonable acc to me)
P1:No ..No ..something technical, you are close, think about it..
P1:Ok whats the difference between a stage play and a street play. (how did this come to picture.. I have never even seen a street play.. or do I look like a madaaree? 😐 )
Sir, in street show we will have even more impatient audience.. another thing is that we will not have some luxuries that we have in a stage show..like the background score or backstage area(whr faltoo actors can wait for their turn to glory/or fear for those 2 mins of shame), so all the characters will always be in view .. I mean every actor will always be the part of the play..so the role of everyone at every point of time needs to be decided.
P1:..No, you don’t know what you are saying..
Now the guru unleashes his knowledge on this poor soul:-
Look it’s a matter of camera angle, in movie you have multiple camera angles, in stage plays you have single camera angle(means the front side/audience)..and in a street play you have whole 360 degrees of camera angle.
Ohh! So this was the gyan that I was supposed to say..well good lines, will be used in next interviews 🙂 )
Now P1 decides that I have already wasted his enough time.. so looks at P2 and then never looked much interested in the interview(ye camera angles ne to meri watt laga dee)
Now P2 again takes up:-
Was going through my marksheets..i explained few of his related queries.
OK bhanu, so you had a subject called Numerical analysis Lab, what was the software that you used in that lab?
Sir as such no particular software was used. We just wrote simple C programs for various techniques to verify and use them.
P2 what all techniques did you study in that?
Sir basically it was about Interpolation, Extrapolation and equation solving through iterative methods like Newton-raphson and Bisection method.(I was very much sure about these iterative methods , so I put a little bit more stress on them)
P2: Ok tell me something about iterative method..
Explained.. Select two values of x such that inbetween them they contain a root(some funde about the range and all) .. now middle point..value(f(x)).. then compare the sign of f(x) with that of f(x1) and f(x2) ..then move in one direction..replace x1 or x2 (depending on the result of comparison) by xmid..etc etc..(pretty good explanation)
Ended with saying that I forgot to say that while choosing initial x1 and x2 signs of f(x1)and f(x2) should be different.
Now from here started all the problems. P2 said that this condition is not required.
I tried explaining him that in case of continuous functions different signs means that there will be atleast one root.
Some more discussion took place .. he asked me to draw the graph of x^2-20x+96 = 0(roots as 12 and 8).. I drew it to show him that if I take points like 4 and 14 then at both points the function is positive ..thus more than one root inbetween them..
He confronted by saying that OK there can be more than one root if we have f(x1) and f(x2) of same sign but it will still converge to one of the root.
I said that in program, how will I decide about in which direction to move if both are of same sign.
More arguments..
I quickly identified that maybe Prof knows that he is erring somewhere but don’t want to accept it ..(maybe)
I thought a bit and said that in that case we may extend this algorithm to actually accept any values of x1 and x2 and return all the roots lying in between them(By calling this elementary algorithm again and again for each of the roots with appropriate ranges.)
He seemed quite satisfied with this.
1-2 more general question and it was over.
Afterthoughts:- I feel that I had an avg GD and an avg PI( I don’t think that P1 is gonna mind those camera angles that much, given that my answers were also kinda right in their own perspective), given the profile of 2 years work ex and a good enough CAT score, I do feel that I have good enough chances in IIMK. Lets see ..