Author: Tony Xavier

My 2 cents from a lifetime experience called MBA

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Over the past few years of mentoring there are always students who keep in touch even after they graduate from b-school. Some to express gratitude once they get their final placement, some to sort out their post MBA dilemmas and others just to have a nice chat about everything under the sun :-). Likewise this year a student of mine wrote to me, just after a graduated, saying that he felt investing in an MBA was the best thing he did and over the course of a few mails I asked him to do a guest post about his MBA experience. Given that a lot of aspirants who made it to b-schools will be debating the pros and cons, thinking about the cost involved whether it is worth it, the better schools you missed out on and stuff, this post is timely. Two years back I remember this student also being in the same dilemma. He was wondering whether it was really worth leaving his job at Ford to do an MBA. I felt he should …

To re-take or not to re-take the CAT

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At this juncture, it doesn’t take a magician to see what kind of anxieties aspirants might be going through. A small fraction of you have got the calls you want and are all excited and nervous about the impending interviews or the results of the same, others have  GD-PI calls but are not sure whether the b-schools that have given them the calls are really worth it, and still others knowing that this year is done have hit snooze mode till June. This post will primarily deal with the dilemma of those in between — to re-take or not to re-take the CAT. It is not an easy call to take but your task will become easy if you ask yourself the right questions and give the most honest answers you can to them.

How to approach the Indian B-School Personal Interview

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Over the past few weeks, I was travelling around taking sessions at the IMS NAW, which explains why the posts have become sporadic. Now that we are done with the Achievers Workshops there is more breathing space to do some writing that captures the essence of the closing session that I took at the NAW. The IIM interview season has already started and aspirants would be trying to get as many insights as they can right from how to dress for the interview to how to reduce India fiscal deficit without affecting our growth! Amidst all of this clutter, how does one go in with the right perspective? What is the state of mind with which one should approach an interview? How you approach an interview will make all the difference.

Why every WAT-GD-PI call-getter should write the IIM-B SOP

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One of the things about preparing for a b-school personal interview, especially that of an old IIM, is that one struggles to find a structure to prepare for what can potentially be the most random 20 minutes of one’s life. I am sure my previous post, despite my intentions, would have scared readers rather than re-assured them. So let us see how you can bring some structure into your PI Prep.

How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – II

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In the previous post, we discussed how to start your prep for WATs and GDs. In this post, we will tackle the big fish — The B-School Personal Interview. The Indian b-school interview is maybe the most random of all interview processes that you will ever face in your life. Going by student testimonials and transcripts over the last few years, barring IIM-B, none of the schools seems to have a fixed yardstick for asking questions. If panels have one thing in common it seems to be their mistrust of candidates and the claims they make. Most panels start with the premise that the only thing the candidate wants is to make more money and hence it might be useless to start asking them The Big 5 Standard Questions — Tell us something about yourself Describe your work experience Why do want to do an MBA What are your long-term and short-term goals List your strengths and weaknesses They would rather test out your mettle by grilling you on the things you mention in the …

How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I

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Now that the CAT scorecard is out, the time to start preparing for WAT-GD-PI has come. But how does one go about it? It all seems like a vast sea with no beginning and no end. A single post covering all the three — WAT, GD & PI — will be unwieldy to say the least, so I will do a series of posts that will help you kick-start your prep for the second-stage.

A timing strategy for the XAT

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I never thought I will be doing a timing strategy post since the CAT has gone with fixed sectional time-limits for a long time now. But a reader asked for one for the XAT and thought it might not be a bad idea to do a short post on the same. I have always preferred a test without sectional time-limits since it tests a crucial quality required for management — optimizing resources to achieve maximum return on investment. In this case, the resources are your own skills and the investment is your time.  So how does one go about using the 180 minutes on the XAT?

How to crack XAT Decision Making – Part II

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In the previous post we discussed how Decision Making can be the undoing of XAT aspirants and tried to understand the nature of questions that come up on the section. We took up two sets from the Decision Making section of the last year’s XAT and discussed a structure to answer DM questions. In this post, we shall look at the remaining questions from last year’s paper.