Students’ Speak: Here’s why GDPI round is vital to crack placements

By: Kartik Mete

One must know the difference between GD and debate. A person who starts a debate and a person who concludes a debate gets more advantage as starting symbolises confidence, knowledge and team-leading skills on the other hand end symbolises work completion and responsibility handling capabilities.

I have recently been placed with Accenture. To crack this placement round, I had to undergo intense training sessions of Group Discussion (GD) and the daily practice of Personal Interview (PI) which were conducted regularly by our college’s training department.

We all underwent these sessions given the fact that all major IT companies, including Capgemini, Accenture, TCS, Infosys and IBM, were going to visit our college in a month for placement activities.

GD is a round conducted by many companies to check if the student has communication skills and ability to lead a team. This round comprises three parts:

1. Starting with an informative paragraph
2. Discussion of everyone’s views on the topic
3. End statement concluding the topic  

During GD, you need to mainly focus on a few points. You must not overpower the other speaker’s statements neither you should interfere when others are speaking about the topic. One must know the difference between GD and debate. A person who starts a debate and a person who concludes a debate gets more advantage as starting symbolises confidence, knowledge and team-leading skills on the other hand end symbolises work completion and responsibility handling capabilities. The Judges of GD take note of the above-mentioned points.

During Personal Interview you should be dressed in formals and must carry all the necessary documents specified by the company, including your resume and certificates. Main questions that you should prepare beforehand for the PI are:

1. Tell me something about yourself/introduce yourself?
2. What are your strengths/weaknesses?
3. What do you know about our company?
4. Which technology is going to dominate in future?

Both are equally important for your selection in your dream company. You can easily overcome your fear of GD and PI just by practising spoken English daily. Don’t try to memorize the above-mentioned questions, instead, you can write them down on a piece of paper and read it daily in the morning. Just be the person who you are during PI and don’t try to fake yourself. Your confidence is the key. 

Communication skills are one of the subjects you should be master at. If you can impress anyone sitting in front of you by the way you communicate then trust me academics skills doesn’t matter at all.

Some of my friends are shy and are unable to talk to a stranger (in this case an interviewer). Just don’t think that the interview is the turning point of your life or don’t expect anything from it. In simple language, a person is sitting in front of you who doesn’t know about you and it’s you who will tell him about yourself. 

About the Author:

Kartik Mete is pursuing Bachelor in Engineering (BE) in Electronics and Telecommunications from Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering, Nagar Yuwak Shikshan Sanstha and has been placed with Accenture.