the process... could be better

While preparing to get into a good B-school, every now and then I find things that I don’t like in the entrance procedure of some of the B-schools in India. So I thought I’d write all of them down today and see how long the list is:

1. Going in order, the entrance test comes first. And here, I’ll just spare the obvious assualt on the english section of CAT in the last two years. The JMET which is the entrance for the IITs questions students on higher maths which I think I quite pointless but again quite typical of an IIT. Also, XAT has an essay at the end. I really thought GD and PI were more than enough for them to gauge what kind of a person you are. I think the essay section introduces a little luck factor too cause the topic might be to the strength of some people and this might not be case for others. Also, some institutes need to check on the relevance of some of the questions they are asking in the GK section.
2. I think most people know that if a GD of say 14 people turns out to be a fish market because of let say 6 of those people and everybody starts shouting and no one can hear the other, the panel throws the whole group out. Now that is insane. The 8 people who were not to blame were punished without reason in this case and this happens every year. Wouldn’t it be easier to just ask those 6 candidates to leave and let the others continue?
3. Also, if GD is a tool to measure team-skills, it is not an efficient tool at all because it is just a 20 min GD and anyone can fake it for 20 min (Yes, people can fake it and they do) and once this goes undetected, even the interview will not be able to detect this aspect of a person.
4. Now, onto the interview. The worst thing is the question about why you did BSc if you wanted to do MBA eventually or why you did engineering or why bio or whatever. People keep cooking convincing stories about this one or stories they feel they can defend once asked about. A person from BSc says I wanted to know more about this or that subject so I could open up my company in this or that field after some work-ex. Engineers too would come up with some story to avoid the comment that “you just go towards whatever career option that appears more lucrative to you at that time”. So someone will want to open up a chain of restaurants, some would like to challenge pepsico in some way…. All bullshit!!! I think B-schools should stop taking this question so seriously and forget the past to a little extent atleast. The candidate is before you… he may have made a couple of mistakes here and there but don’t kill him for that!.... just see what he can do in the future. We don’t have great schools for BBA in this country anyway so don’t blame a person for doing something else for graduation.
5. I think on the whole there are a few things about the interview that make a person lie without reason. I mean, you sometimes cant even mention your true hobbies there. People who say reading is their hobby are always greeted with gruelling questions like asking them to compare philosophies of their favorite author with some other author. If some book is your favorite book, then you have to have read other books from the same author or you have committed the biggest crime of the century. You say watching friends is your hobby? What was the salary of each one of them? You say you watch football, huh? Name 5 clubs of Brazil. Collecting coins, is it? What is the currency of Bolivia? Like electronic gadgets? Aint that cuuuute!!! Forget everything…. You like breathing? What is the composition of the air that goes in? Are you sure it’s 100% oxygen!!! It’s a hobby for god’s sake!!.. It is WATCHING friends and WATCHING football… not finding freakish facts about them… and if I like breathing, I just like doing it, that’s it!

I guess if some B-schools could straighten some of these issues out, they really would make their selection procedure better and ultimately the people coming out of great B-schools would do greater things. I think, to some extent, the GD should be replaced by something else. This is just one of the ideas. I suggest that students should be divided in groups where they have to perform some actual business task assigned to them in a simulated environment in a couple of hours maybe…. Something similar to what they do on the apprentice but on a small scale ofcourse. There should be a panel of 2 with each group and the true group dynamics would come into play in this case. And if it costs them… simple… just ask for Rs. 2000 or so from each candidate appearing for the process. All those not selected would be returned the money and for those who get selected, they can just think of the fees to be Rs. 1.52 lacs instead of 1.5. The process seems complicated? Well, you expect your students to do the greatest things in the world.. time for you to hold up your own end!