To know what kind of questions and group exercises are being held this year, we caught with a candidate who was called for HRM interview on February 20, 2014. This person has scored 92 percentile in XAT (Xaviers Aptitude Test). The candidate recently completed BTech Civil Engineering and has joined a prominent construction firm.
According to this person, “My group had ten members. But one guy failed to show up while another guy missed his GD. After initial rounds of introductions among participants, the procedure started at 2:50pm.”
Read the exclusive detail of GD and interview in first person account:
Case-based GD/Group Exercise
Topic: ‘Show your Aadhaar Card Unique Identification number’
Situation: Government has created the Aadhaar Card system. Some states have gone ahead and made it mandatory for availing various benefits and services. Since there are various other cards, the Centre doesn’t want states to make Aadhaar card mandatory. Other cards should have equal weightage. So now the government has moved to the Supreme Court (SC). What should SC consider first while giving a decision?
(This was followed by seven statements)
Time: 3 minutes to give rankings/points to the seven statements; 20 minutes for group exercise; and 20 seconds to each candidate in the group to verbally summarise the entire exercise at the end.
We were given the above case study, followed by seven sentences (points). We had to give ranks to each sentence in order of priority of the situation. We could also add one more sentence – eighth point – if required.
First, we had to give ranks to the sentences in 15 seconds. Then, the group had to discuss, give common ranks to the seven sentences through consensus. It was a very nice and calm discussion. The participants discussed and brainstormed over it for sometime before arriving to a conclusion.
Except for the first and last points in my list, all the other five points were same as that of the group rank.
The PI
Before the interview, we were asked to fill a questionnaire and write about ‘some peak experiences in our life – either failure or success’. There were related questions on it such as, ‘Who all were affected by this decision?’ and so on. I love playing cricket and wrote about it.
I was sixth candidate in the group to go in for the interview. About 20 minutes were given to each candidate. There were three people in the interview panel. They were also moderating the group exercise. It looked like they were institute professors, but I am not very sure. Two panellists were asking me questions, while the third person was just observing.
One of the panellists called my name and asked me to come in. In went in and tried to close the door. But somehow, the door couldn’t close properly.
Q: Close the door properly, please.
A: (I closed the door.)
Q: Why do you think there is confidentiality in interviews? Why are they held behind closed doors? People are asking for transparency. What is your say on this?
A: (The interview had commenced even before I could sit! Since I had unintentionally left the door open, I chose to speak on the transparency part only.)
It is a good idea to have transparency during interviews. The idea to keep interviews confidential fails since students go out and discuss what is happening inside. Apart from the first candidate, everyone knows what questions are being asked and how is the mood inside. Later on, students also go and post their experiences on social media. Next year, people will come more prepared.
Rather, holding the interview in an open room is better. For instance, in Jamia Milia Islamia (for engineering and diploma admissions), interviews are conducted in a batch of four to five candidates. A question is thrown open to all the candidates. They can also ask specific questions to a candidate too in such a set-up. Once a point or answer has been discussed, other candidates have the pressure to give better replies or come up with new points. That's a different kind of a challenge.
Q: (Agreed to my point) This is the most interesting profile we have got so far. You have written a lot on cricket. You have mentioned about your college league. Explain, how did that work out?
A: Ok...
Q: (Another interviewer abruptly interpreted) Just a minute.
A: (I thought they wanted to take a pause and stopped replying.)
Q: No, explain about the entire process in just a minute.
A: Oh, ok. (I spoke about our college tournament which is based on the lines of IPL, including auctions. But there is no monetary exchange involved.)
Q: But how did you manage everything without money?
A: Instead of money, we had point-system. Every candidate had some points and based on that, they were selected in different teams. It was quite successful.
Q: Ok, very interesting. So what are your hobbies?
A: Every hobby revolves around cricket. But I like cricket in an active sense, i.e, playing, rather than watching and wasting time. (I wanted to avoid indepth conversations around cricket. But as you can see from the next question, it kind of backfired.)
Q: But what’s the fun of cricket if there is nobody to watch? It will lose all the financial and economic gains.
A: A few days back, while I was working in office, some of my colleagues took sick leaves to watch an important match of India. Because of that, my work suffered. From that time, I realised one should not waste a lot of time watching it.
Q: Ok, I get your point. It’s based on personal experience.Who is your favourite leg-spinner?
A: Shane Warne.
Q: But what about ... ? (The interviewer started naming some old cricketers, about whom I knew nothing. I don’t even remember the names now.)
A: Sorry, sir. But I have never seen them playing. I can’t comment anything.
Q: So, why Shane Warne?
A: The conditions in which he played are not very favourable to spin bowling. (Explained it further.)
Q: You are a batsman or bowler?
A: Medium-pace bowler.
Q: Tell us how to bowl a reverse swing.
A: (I explained the entire process with actions including details about shiny side, rough side and where the seam should be pointing.)
Q: Talk about different fielding positions.
A: (Answered correctly.)
Q: During GD, why were you trying to dominate the group? You were coming in and out with the points.
A: It was nothing like that. In the seven points I had marked, the very first point wasn’t matching with the group’s view. What I thought could be the starting point, the group thought was a general point. After I understood the other person’s point of view, I backed down. And later on, came back with another point. That was the whole idea. I was never trying to dominate.
Q: Okay. All throughout you have performed consistently and now work with a reputed firm.
A: Thank you, sir.
Q: Is it possible to run a business without taking loan from bank?
A: If somebody can pull it off, then very good. But during business expansions, investment is required and nobody has that much cash lying around. Therefore it becomes important to take loans from bank.
Q: Tell us some unique features of Delhi Metro.
A: (Answered it correctly.)
Q: Tell us something about environment and infrastructure.
A: Whatever we are doing today, it is harming the environment. There’s definitely a cry for sustainable infrastructure so that we don’t harm the world around us.
Q: Do you know about building ratings specific to environment?
A: Sorry, I have not gone through this.
Q: There must be contractual employees in your company. Why aren’t your company making them permanent?
A: (I had no clue about this, but had recently read a related news article on it. So framed an answer accordingly) I don’t know the exact reason but, it could be something like this - If there are more than 100 people, I think the company cannot fire them without government permission. So companies keep the headcount at 99 and hire others on contract.
Q: Do you think a company as big as yours has only 99 people or that it has to take permission to fire somebody?
A: I am not saying, this is the exact reason. But there could be a reason like this.
Q: Okay. The interview is over. Do you want to ask anything?
A: What kind of industry interaction is present in college? I know there is six-month internship. But apart from that, it is mostly bookish or there is a practical approach?
Q: (The interviewers got emotional and all the three panelists started talking at the same time. They spoke about the industry interface of XLRI for about 5 minutes.)
A: Thank you.
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