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As most of my students would know, I have been with IMS for more than a decade now.

But I started teaching for aptitude tests way back in the past, right after my graduation while preparing for the CAT a second time around.

At that time I felt that the teaching stint had a great role to play in my cracking the CAT; I felt the teaching made my thought process very clear when faced with a problem since one has to have utmost clarity of thought to explain a problem in such a way as many students understand the solution right away. Also one is always looking to find better, cleaner or to put it simply more elegant solutions to problems.

Over the past year, I have interacted with a lot of students across the country who are readers of the blog, so I was wondering if any you might be interested in working in the Learning Management Department along with Amit Sir, Parameshwar Sir, Shashank Prabhu Sir, and me (IMS students will be aware of the mentors I have mentioned from the webinars and Masterclasses we conducted over the year).

Openings on offer

Role — Instructional Designer

Responsibilities: Working with our National Mentors to create a new self-learning programs using e-Learning softwares for our PG India Programs.

Profile: Freshers or those with less than 12 months of work-ex preferred.

Requirements: You will need to

  • be well conversant with Excel, Word, Power-Point
  • have excellent organisation, planning, and communication skills.
  • have taken one of the management entrance exams — CAT, XAT, SNAP, CET, IIFT and/or others — and secured the 95th percentile or above in one of the sections.

Salary: Rs. 2,40,000

Location: Mumbai

Role — Software Tester, Learning Technology

Responsibilities: We are looking for a Software Tester who can perform software testing on the new releases on myIMS – Student portal. You will need to work on multiple projects on Web and Mobile applications, detect and report the issues, coordinate with the technical team for the fixes, sign-off the User Acceptance Testing and deployment builds. 

Profile: Working professionals with at least 18 months of prior software testing experience.

Requirements: You will need to

  • be well conversant with Excel, Word, Power-Point
  • have excellent organisation, planning, and communication skills.
  • have taken one of the management entrance exams — CAT, XAT, SNAP, CET, IIFT and/or others — and secured the 95th percentile or above in one of the sections.

Salary: Rs. 4,00,000-8,00,000

Location: Mumbai/Remote

Role — Project Lead, Learning Technology

Responsibilities: We are looking for a Project Manager who can manage multiple software development projects for myIMS – Student Portal. You need to coordinate with the internal teams, document the requirement specifications, coordinate with technical teams, plan and monitor development schedules, manage the quality of the deliverables, and timely communicate status with stakeholders.

Profile: Working professionals with at least 24 months development and/or project management experience preferred.

Requirements: You will need to

  • be well conversant with Excel, Word, Power-Point
  • have excellent organisation, planning, and communication skills.
  • have taken one of the management entrance exams — CAT, XAT, SNAP, CET, IIFT and/or others — and secured the 95th percentile or above in one of the sections.

Salary: Rs. 8,00,000-10,00,000

Location: Mumbai/Remote

Role — Project Manager, Learning Technology

Responsibilities: We are looking for a Project Manager who can manage multiple software development projects for myIMS – Student Portal. You need to coordinate with the internal teams, document the requirement specifications, coordinate with technical teams, plan and monitor development schedules, manage the quality of the deliverables, and timely communicate status with stakeholders.

Profile: Working professionals with at least 36 months work-ex with hands on project management experience preferred.

Requirements: You will need to

  • be well conversant with Excel, Word, Power-Point
  • have excellent organisation, planning, and communication skills.
  • have taken one of the management entrance exams — CAT, XAT, SNAP, CET, IIFT and/or others — and secured the 95th percentile or above in one of the sections.

Salary: Rs. 10,00,000-14,00,000

Location: Mumbai/Remote

Who should not apply

This is job is ideal for

  • freshers who want to work for a few years before their next CAT attempt
  • repeat-takers who want to crack CAT 2021 or 22
  • software professionals who want to work in Edtech later

CAT 2020 call-getters, please do not apply to the roles as a back-up; you can’t have your cat and eat it too!

You can always apply later once you are sure that you will have to take CAT 2021 and incase we have openings we will definitely interview.

How to apply

If any of you are interested then drop in a mail to tony@imsindia.com with the following details before 15-Feb.

  1. A resume/CV and scorecards
  2. A short answer to the following question: Why do you feel you have the skill sets to take up this role? Feel free to include anything that you feel will let us know why you feel you have the potential to take up the role — exam/test scores (SimCAT scores, if you have a tendency to bomb on test day), reading habits, prior informal teaching, love for the section, communication skills — anything that you feel captures your suitability.

It goes without saying that the biggest perks of this job will be that you have direct everyday access to the best mentors in case you are taking another shot at the CAT.

This is what a couple of our past recruits have to say about working with us.

KUSHAGRA SHARAN

Background before joining IMS

I am a Mechanical Engineering Graduate from BIT Mesra. I have worked in leading start-ups such as Byjus, upGrad, and e-GMAT. I held various hats, and lead different and diversified teams to produce impactful products. Till then, I have had experiences in content creation and management, data management, product and project management, team management, and vendor management. However, a more captivating experience amalgamating all that I had learnt and wanted to contribute was waiting for me in the name of IMS Learning.

Experience working with IMS

It started with an awesome interview experience with the senior and higher management of IMS Learning. I was sure that I am getting into the core of education in the role described to me, and I would be having a pool of experienced, talented, veteran professionals in the field. But, it was more than that! Right from the senior-most trainers, to the chief learning officer, I must tell they were not only knowledgeable, and humble, but at the same time to feel the same and even more passion towards education was extremely overwhelming, the least I can say.

My role included handling teams, supervising projects, managing vendors, articulating new projects, data analysis, and budget preparation. The trust shown by the peers and the higher management in me was of the highest standards, which reflected in giving me all the freedom to work in my style.

The result was incredible. We managed to produce 400+ hours of content videos, produce a new myIMS with a lot of new features for the students, and much more. I was given the freedom to create, record, and produce the PGDBA product on my own, with all the nagging I did to give me this work.

Then came the pandemic. What next? We transformed the whole of offline learning to online learning within a matter of 2 days (I must say overnight). I played a pivotal role in the integration of the live classes for IMS, and I do carry very rigorous, very tiring but very satisfying, and very enjoyable memories of the same, impacting the learning of thousands of students. Each second that I spent at IMS was fun, and motivating in one or the other sense with a lot of creative and interesting things going around.

What I am currently up to

Having such an awesome experience, it’s very difficult to leave – right? But again it was the pure mentoring of Tony Xavier who motivated me and supported me to apply for the Ph.D. program at least if not for MBA, to have an exposure of the higher studies which would help me in shaping my career more towards academia and open more doors of impacting and contributing to the society. So, yes I cracked with a good percentile (keeping the number secret :)), and got calls from the old IIMs for the Ph.D. program. Currently, I am in one of the old IIMs pursuing Ph.D. in Strategy area (point to note is – I did not have a master’s, it was all some good fortune, well-wishers, blessings of parents and mentors, and yes hard work), and missing the fun at IMS.

ROHIT SINGH

Background before joining IMS

I had worked for a year and a half in a leading IT company when I got the opportunity to join IMS. I had taken CAT twice before (with decent scores) but realized that I needed to work harder if I wanted to create a genuine chance for me to join one of the old IIMs.

Experience working with IMS

1) I had mentors all around. I could go to anyone and ask for guidance and all of them were among the best in the business. (when we used to go to office in pre-covid era). Most of them have experience of 15+ years in the field and are alumni of old IIMs.

2) I got to interact with some of the smartest people I had ever seen in my life. We had a lot of people from the top colleges in the office and personally for me, it was a huge confidence booster.

Interacting with them on a daily basis helped me a lot in transforming myself.

So, I became a better person and cracked CAT as well. In CAT 2020, I got 99.37 and 99.58 in VARC and QA respectively. 

What’s up with me these days

I am expecting interview calls from XLRI, FMS and some of the old IIMs.

Again, the presence of mentors all around is helping me getting that required confidence before the final stage. I am getting the right guidance and all this is helping me to prepare for GDPI more effectively.

Since, most people here are alumni of top business schools; every now and then, I get to know a clearer picture of the college life. This helps me know what to expect from MBA and to prepare myself in advance for the campus life. I believe this will help me make the most of my 2 years in MBA.

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. Read More

Preparing for a pandemic PI

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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? Especially in a year, or should I say season, such as this (somehow I feel that the New Year will truly start only when the mask becomes unnecessary, until then we are living in the pandemic’s orbit not the planetary orbit).

From what we know so far some of the schools — FMS, SPJIMR, TISS, and IMT — have already announced an online PI and others such as IIM-K have scrapped the GD.

I think we will not be too far off the mark in assuming that this year the only process will be an online PI — a bulk of the professors are not really young, spring chickens with tons of immunity to go around, so getting them to travel to different cities and conduct interviews even as the vaccine is getting rolled out is not a risk that professors and schools will be willing to take.

And if it is an online PI then the logistics of conducting and evaluating a WAT or a GD become difficult. I wish for once they just stood up and gave clarity well in advance (at least in the pandemic). Alas, Indian b-schools like Indian firms (and most definitely the Indian cricket team’s management) rarely take the bull by the horns and provide clarity at the earliest, the usual strategy is to take things as they come, which is nothing but another word for groping in the dark until the last moment (in contrast international employers announced work from home well in advance for a long period so that everyone can make their arrangements).

So how do you go about preparing in the face of such uncertainty since preparing and not preparing for WAT are, on the face of it, two different things altogether?

Prepare for an All-In-One Personal Interview — A longer PIs with a dedicated OAT section

Since they might not be able to conduct WATs and GDs, I will not be surprised if the selection process will allocate more marks and time to PIs, (given the logistical ease of online PIs) and ensure that the things that are tested in WATs and GDs are tested in the PI.

So within the time set aside for a PI they might carve out a 5-10 minute space to test your views through an OAT or Oral Assessment Test during which the panel might probe your take on an issue as follows

  • what is your view on the farmer protests
  • do you think their fears that MNCs will take over is valid
  • do you think there are issues that have been ignored by both parties
  • what are the learnings from large-scale, privatised farming in countries such as the US
  • what do you think of protest as a tool in general
  • have you ever protested at whatever level

Another thing they might do is first give you time for an Extempore (you will be given a minute and a topic to speak uninterrupted) on a topic and then probe and discuss it.

If they genuinely want to test your awareness of the world around you, setting aside the other skills that WAT and GDs test, then an OAT or an Extempore is a very likely possibility.

The reason I think that this might be possible is that they have anyway over the years made the PIs primarily about your General Awareness in the context of your life, all they need to add is the General Awareness of the world around you, which they tested through GD and WAT.

Do an audit of the big talking points this year

Given what we discussed so far, you should make a list of the big topics, like the Farm Bills mentioned above, this year and do a thorough audit and prepare for the same along the lines:

  • Pandemic
    • Which country has the highest numbers?
    • What are the numbers in India, in your state, your city?
    • What are firms manufacturing the vaccine?
    • Which countries tried to implement herd immunity?
    • Which countries had the lowest numbers?
    • Are there countries which are COVID-free?
    • How did the pandemic change your life?
    • What are pros and cons of work-from-home or study-from-home?
    • How do you think India handle the crisis?
    • Did you bang the thali?
    • Did you travel during the pandemic?
  • Brexit Deal
    • What were the main points of contention between the EU and the UK
    • What is a backstop?
    • What are political implications of Brexit with respect to Scotland
    • What are the economic implications of Brexit?
    • Which countries are likely to benefit from Brexit?

After reading up enough on the various topics, practice speaking out your take on the same into a camera with a 1-minute time-limit

These are just the most important issues, IMS students can attend the WAT-GD-PI Webinars that have started and that will comprehensively cover all the other major issues as well as knowledge inputs (basics of economics etc.) that might need. You will have other resources as well the details of which can be found here — https://www.imsindia.com/GD-PI/

As far as the rest of the questions go, 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 form or on current affairs. They will use the standard questions as a surprise element when you are least prepared for it or they might not use it at all.

So do you go about preparing for this randomness apart from the Current Affairs prep?

Draw the largest circle with yourself as the center

The PI is primarily a test of the stuff of you are made of. So right at the center of it — a lamb to the slaughter or a gladiator in the Colosseum (though it is best you don’t think of yourself as either the latter or the former) — is you.

So draw a circle with you as the centre and divide it into four quadrants.

Quadrant 1 — Your Personal Background

This quadrant contains all the information that is relevant to you as a person

  • the meaning of your name,
  • the number of districts, rivers, Lok Sabha Seats, the recent events, the future elections, famous personalities, anything and everything to do with the state you are from or the state you were born and raised in
  • your parent’s profession in case there are questions there, for example, a defense kid might get asked about the services

Quadrant 2 — Your Educational Background

This quadrant as the name suggests deals with all questions that can be relevant to your educational background — yes, your engineering subjects will haunt you for one last time.

Usually, the questions can fall into two types

  • Lowest Hanging Theoretical Concepts in your discipline — The panelists might not be from your discipline but they will have enough top-level knowledge about a wide range of subjects to ask you basic questions from any are. For example, students with a commerce background might be asked the difference between single-entry and double-entry accounting, a mechanical engineer might be asked questions on thermodynamics and an electrical engineer might be asked about Kirchoff’s laws. So you need to revise the basic concepts across the most important subjects in your graduation.
  • Practical applications of your discipline — This applies more to engineering and science graduates. Panelists may ask an electronics and telecommunications engineer the difference between 3G, 4G & 5G or how Bluetooth works or what is iOT, a mechanical engineer about how CVT or automatic transmission works etc. IMS students will get a book with all the previous year’s questions, scouring through that is the best way to find out the kind of questions that have been asked in the past.

Quadrant 3 — Your Professional Background

Working professionals will be expected to know more than the projects they are working on. So everything ranging from the turnover of your firm to those of your major competitors, the CEOs of the big firms in your industry, the recent controversies or happenings in your field ( if you work in the auto sector, you might be asked about electric cars and Tesla and Musk) and the major trends shaping your industry.

Quadrant 4 — Your Hobbies and Interests

Whatever you mention as your hobbies and interests you need to have an in-depth idea about the same. What do I mean by in-depth?

If you say you love football, then you need to know everything from the weight of the football, circumference of the football, dimensions of a football field, dimensions of the goal-post and everything about your favorite team.

If you say you love trekking, then you need to know what the highest mountains in the world are, what the highest motorable road in the world is etc.

This would technically be the largest circle you can draw around yourself that you need to fill with every GK or CA question that can be asked within this circle.

It goes without saying that you might not be able to learn everything about football. For example, a panelist might ask you, do you remember Zidane’s Champions League volley? You might say yes, very much, it is one of the great goals in football, the panelist might say, which team was Real playing against in that Final. Some of you might know, some of you might not. So do not freak out thinking about the most random things that can be asked.

On any topic, there is a circle that denotes your knowledge and a circle that denotes the panelists’ knowledge. Your job is to maximize the chances of overlap.

And remember, the harder you work, the luckier you will get.

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 165 minutes on the XAT?

Read More

How to crack XAT Decision Making – Part I

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One of the most tedious and inscrutable sections that you will find across all management entrance tests, Decision Making has been the nemesis of many a XAT aspirant. A lot of factors contribute towards DM possibly being the biggest stumbling block on the XAT. But none is bigger than the fact the amount of time any test-taker would have spent preparing for DM when compared to any other section is minuscule. This coupled with the dislike and unease most aspirants have towards reading, and the extremely subjective nature of questions ensures that DM ends up becoming the deal-breaker as far as the XAT is concerned. Read More

How to prepare for the XAT

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A curious phenomenon repeats itself year after year when the results of the CAT and the XAT come out – there is little overlap between the students who crack CAT and those who crack XAT. In other words, a largely different set of test-takers ends up cracking each test.

Why is this so? It is almost like one of the GMAT CR question types – which of the following provides the best explanation for the phenomenon described above? 

The answer(s) to this question will also hold the key to know how to prepare to ace the XAT! Read More

How to plan your post-CAT prep for other exams

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I hope the last week served its purpose, which was for you to process all the emotional side-effects of the CAT. Going by the response to the previous post, there seems to have been enough and more trauma that this year’s edition of the CAT has caused.

The CAT is an indicator of what you CANNOT do, not what you CAN do

The aim of the CAT is to eliminate applicants and not benchmark applicants, so given this you should understand that the CAT exam serves the needs of the IIM admissions teams more than the test-takers.

So, in effect what is tells you is this — it puts really heavy weights in front of you especially the DI-LR section, if you can lift great if you cannot, hard luck.

Until 2018, the other two sections were easy, I assumed it was by design to ensure a more equal playing field to applicants from diverse educational backgrounds (you cannot say you want educational diversity and shaft the non-Math students in the QA section). Last year, the VA-RC level went up appreciably and this year, they did the same with the QA as well. It goes without saying that they still just play it by the ear, every year a different IIM just sets the paper, what ever happens, happens.

So, more or less across sections all you know is that you cannot lift a certain weight but you still do not know what you can actually lift.

With the GMAT for example this is not the case. The test is adaptive, it starts at medium and moves up only if you consistently get questions in the medium range right. This is the reason why the first few questions can seem really, really easy. And each of the questions are tested as experimental questions before they are made scored questions.

So, if you take the GMAT and you get an 85 percentile, it means that you can only solve questions at that level. And as an instructor I would know what your capabilities are precisely, since the $250 is to benchmark your capability with the test being one of the parameters and not the first eliminator. This is also the reasons why the GMAT score card claims that the score has a reliability of 87 percent — which exams that if you took the test again with no change in your level there is an 87 percent guarantee that you will get the same score. So, if I were a recruiter I will always use the GMAT since I will know what you can do as opposed to what you cannot do.

Why this lengthy paean to the GMAT?

So that you stop emotionally telling yourself that you are no good and start making a logical assessment of your level on the other tests.

Please do not go an take a mock GMAT on the rebound to see if you will feel good because nothing you did for CAT is technically useful for the GMAT — 57.33 percent of the test has question types that are not tested on the CAT.

Benchmark your skills with each of the areas on each of the other tests

Each one of you will be taking a different number of other tests. Go through or solve a mock each of the other tests and measure your chances on each of the area of the other tests, make yourself a TABLE like the one below (it is only partially filled)

At PAR denotes that your ability is equivalent to the level of questions asked on test and some light practice will suffice; BELOW PAR indicates that test is tougher than your current capabilities and you need to prep specifically; ABOVE PAR indicates that you do not any prep or practice just the mocks will do.

You should be able to do this based on your evaluation of your performance on the SimCATs and the actual CAT. For example, the RCs on this test are a lot easier than those on the CAT I can easily handle it.

EXAM / TESTVARCQA DILR
NMATAt PAR,
One new
Q-type		Above PARAbove PARNAAbove PAR
SNAPAt PAR,
Three new
Q-types		Above PARAbove PARNAAbove PAR
XATBelow PAR, Three new
Q-types		Below PARAbove PARat PAR
At PAR
IIFTAbove PAR, One new
Q-type
At PARBelow PAR
TISSNET




MICAT




I have not included sections such as GK and DM that were not there on the CAT — there is no way you can evaluate your level since you have not even prepared.

Plan your prep test by test

I do not endorse two-timing your prep — each of these tests is very different from the other and it is best that your prepare one test at a time.

The big temptation can be to prepare a bit for each test all at the same time but think of it — you have 100x hours from now to the end of Jan, and for each test you would need to allocate a certain hours of prep — are you better off spreading those hours or bunching them closer to the test? I think the latter.

You have to work on specific areas, question types and take mocks as well, I for one would not think about XAT even a whit until SNAP is over and IIFT until XAT is over.

Yes, there is the case of TISSNET and XAT being together but the former will end up becoming a subset of the latter in terms of level (with GK being the exception, since the it is an easy test.

Plan your prep area by area

Within your preparation for each test, plan your prep area by area.

For example, you know you need to prep for CR, Modern Math, and DM, if I were you, I would spend three days to master CR fully and then move to Modern Math spend a week and so on (the duration is just a random number). I would not do a bit of CR, a bit of Modern Math, a bit of DM everyday.

If you feel your head will burst with a full day of Modern Math, may be it is best that it burst first before it can tackle QA in an exam situation. The only leeway I will grant is that you can go topic by topic Logs, followed by CR followed by P&C.

If you feel you will forget the CR you have learnt when you start to solving Logs, then I am afraid you have not learnt CR at all, one does not forget to reason, the reverse can be possible if you are learning Logs for the first time (so doing five to ten log problems after you move on to CR should suffice.

Once you finish mastering all the areas, using dedicated stretches of time, you can move on to taking the section tests and then the full-length tests.

Make a list of where and how you messed up on the CAT

Now that the emotions will have died down, write down where and how you messed up on CAT — the worst thing you can do is not correct the execution issues that you faced on the CAT.

  • My Arithmetic is still a problem area — I tend to not read properly, I tend to not solve the problem in front of me but patch solutions from Mocks onto the question in front of me
  • I never really could apply or did not consistently apply the Shadow Answer technique on RC, which cost me dearly
  • I ignored set selection and chose the 6-question DI-LR set (selected to face the 9-balls over instead of 6-ball over without checking whether it is Bumrah or Saini who is going to bowl; akal badi ya bhains, obviously bhains)
  • I did not have any time-management strategy

The usual questions I get for the other exams are how to prepare for Vocab, Grammar, GK, and DM.

Firstly, I am last person you should ask stuff like where do I mug up something from. So as far as vocabulary goes, I do not think there is a well-defined list the way there is for GRE, I do not know how many words you know and do not know, so there is no way I can tell you to go mug up this list or that; Barrons Word List, Word Power Made Easy, All About Words — these are some generic books that are around but there is no guarantee that mugging up these words is going to specifically help you out with the questions on these tests.

For Grammar all the videos on the LEARN Module of myIMS should suffice.

The words General and Test do not ever go down well in an Indian context. The GK section on these tests are sometimes just that General, so IIFT can have questions ranging from

What is right combination of the movie and the vest endorsed?

(A) XYZ-Lux Cozy (B) ABC-Macho (C).. (D)…

to

What is latest reduction in the Prime Lending Rate by the RBI?

(A) .25 Basis Points (B) .50 Points (C) (D)

May be this is their way of selecting a candidate who can be a judge on Jhalak Dikhla Jaa as well as a panelist on CNBC TV-18 with equal ease.

My two bits of advice on GK — use the IMS GK Zone, and just read the newspaper end-to-end for Current Affairs (if you are really desperate, mug up the Manorama Year Book, that is how general, the general in GK is)

For DM, I will do a Masterclass like I did last year.

I will soon put up posts only for the XAT since I have not never prepared and taken the other tests at least once. My skill sets are limited to CAT, XAT, GMAT and GRE.

But some of my colleagues are real champs on the SNAP, NMAT, and other tests, so here are their how to prep videos (the IIFT one will be out soon, abhi Dilli door hai)

Your goal is to do an MBA from a school that will advance your career and set you up for the future. For this you are taking 3 to 5 different tests based on your profile.

This is no different from playing a 3 to 5 test series against different teams at different levels. You just got mauled in the first test by the strongest team, does that mean that the series is lost? There is still everything to play for, losing to the best team does not change your chances against the others.

I do not think there are any more cricketing analogies I can come up with!

I think our unique talent as human beings is to confuse categories, in this case converting a matter of the mind into a matter of the heart, and I am sure we do the reverse as well and pay dearly.

Smile, incase you have forgotten how to 🙂