A New Hope -3 (FMS Interview)

I reached FMS pretty early, infact the people there were also running a bit late. Anyways met a guy from Time Chennai GD preparation classes. Finally after a wait of about one and a half hour we were called for our GD.

When we entered the Interview/Discussion room there were three professors in the panel. One was the Dean himself Prof. J.K. Mitra. After we took our places he congratulated us for having cleared the written part of the exam. Then he gave a brief overview of the GD and the Interview process. He also told us about the much dreaded Extempore. After that he asked for a volunteer to pick up a chit for the GD topic. A girl went forward and the topic on the chit was

"Nobody studies for an MBA, everybody studies for a job".

Somebody has a sense of humor!!!!

Something really weird happened in this GD. I didn’t speak for the first 3-4 minutes. I don’t know why, probably because I just wanted to see how the group would act, or I wasn’t sure what I wanted to talk about. Anyways when I did speak I tried to present a new angle to the topic (doesn’t everybody).

Here I must add that the discussion was quite civilized, probably the topic had a lot to do with it. Everybody allowed everybody else to speak and present their points in a peaceful manner. Infact there was this 3-4 seconds pause during the discussion (trust me, 4 seconds in the middle of a discussion is very long time)

Anyways after some time a female prof announced that we had one more minute left to discuss.

That was when everybody started to speak at once. It would have been better to stay out of that conundrum, but then some point came to my mind and I interrupted another participant (with proper courtesy) and made my point.

And then we were told to wait outside while we were called for the interviews one by one. This time I was the third last person to be called for the interview.

Meanwhile, sitting outside the interview hall (it can in no way be called a room) we got to hear how did the people who went in early fared.

A girl who had mentioned about organizing fashion shows in her college in her resume was asked to name two fashion magazines and now for the most shocking part, she couldn’t. While we were joking around I told her even I could name 2 fashion magazines :- Vogue and Maxim. When I mentioned Maxim the girl sitting next to me rolled her eyes and said "Maxim is not a fashion magazine". Time for a sheepish smile.

Another interviewee was asked to speak on "White Buffalo" for a minute for her extempore.

Finally the seventh guy went in for his interview (I was eighth) and that’s when I started feeling tensed. To be honest I had not felt tense in any of my interviews before. Infact I was surprised during my XL interview that I was so cool. Again MDI was a stress interview but I didn’t feel it. But here in FMS I was feeling tense even before the interview had started (it cant be good!!!)

Now the guy before me came out and as I was standing there and waiting for the bell to ring (so that I could go in) I thought this was the worst kind of torture anybody could be subjected to!!

The bell rang and I entered the interview hall. The interview hall had this long table behind which sat the Dean and this female professor. I will refer to the dean as P1 and the female professor as P2.

Once I had taken my seat, the interview started.

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P1 : so were u here last year??

M : no sir I am a fresher

P1 :I see , you are a fresher

P1 : so u r from VIT, anybody else from VIT here??

M : I am not sure Sir, but somebody told me there was a guy from our college here some time back, but he must have graduated by now.

P1 : ok, ur extempore topic is "sole of shoe"

M: (gulp) aye aye sir, blabbered something .....when I saw P2 resetting the stop clock I stopped

P1 goes through my profile and says Oh u have won prizes in extempore, we should have given u a more difficult topic

I just smiled. (kahe mazaak uda rahe ho sir, waise hi kuch khas nahi bola)

anyways at this point a third prof(P3) enters and takes his place

p1: so dont u have a hobby or something??(what made him say that)

m: I do sir, defence aviation, quizzing and …….

P3 : ok amit, so what is Comanche?

M : (aila plane, yehi to apun ko aata hai).....told him its an attack chopper and on and on and on.

P3 : what is special about comanche

M : launched into my answer...after some seconds thought I should stop....took a pause since nobody

interrupted listed some more.....told him about inverted flying…

P3 : ok what about a plane which flies very fast and very high and stealthy too?

M : (i am loving it, bata dia...thodi extra info bhi daal di …) told him that probably he was talking about SR-71.

P1 : what about f-16?

M : (bahut bhadiya hai sir....aur thoda bola....) explained basic characteristics

P1 : what about its stealth characterisitcs?

M : (nah sir, woh thoda alag hai) Told him it wasn’t designed with stealth in mind.

P1 : ok, which sector would u like to go to after mba?

M : defence aviation, sir

P1 : Which company in particular??

M : lockheed martin, sir(jo muh me aaya bol diya, whats wrong with me!!)

P1 : ok, does it come to the campus , I dont think so!!

M : (abhi nahi aati to kya hua, mai hoonga to aa jayegi , gave gyaan about opening up of defence scene in india)

P2 :- ok, do u track financial markets??

M : (thoda bahut)little bit

P2 : where did the sensex close yesterday?

M : around 15400, (pause for a moment) 15357 to be precise (this again was in feb, tab se dekho kaha pahuch gaya hai sensex, India Shining!!!)

p2: nice but it was 15387

time for a sheepish smile

p1:thank u, u can go now

m: jaisi aapki aagya

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Ok, now my take on the interview. Obviously my first reaction after the interview was that I had done ok. Not very good, but not bad either. There were questions on fighter aircrafts which I could answer confidently and accurately and could also show off my immense gyaan in the field ;-)

But I wasn’t very happy with my performance in the Extempore. I had not stopped midway or something but I could have put better content (20/20 hindsight).

Anyways that was it, all my three interviews were now done and all I could do now was just wait for the results (besides visiting temples and praying).

Read about the results in the next few posts (you actually know about them, but jab itna jhela to do aur padhne me kya chala jayega!!!)

I have been asked this question zillion times before. And every time someone did I had an answer which I just rewound and played.

Read it as I repeat it for the last time, Why FMS over XLRI?? In the following posts….