Finding alternatives for the Group Discussion in the selection process for PGDM admission

Introduction

Group Discussions are a tool for discussion hijackers and aggressive people, trained so by the several ‘interview coaching centers' and ‘personality development courses' to dominate proceedings and make an impact on the selection panel. Last year, Jaipuria Institute of Management Indore experimented by eliminating the Group discussions from the selection process, focusing rather on the individuals' strengths and finding a match. With the new IIMs also rejecting the group discussion completely, there is a strong case for finding an alternative across the board ahead of the B-school admissions for the Batch of 2012-14.

Background

Group Discussions (GD) have become an important element of the selection of candidates at B-schools and companies requiring a large workforce, such as IT companies, BPOs and FMCG majors. The major purpose of the GD is to test candidates' communication skills, leadership, spontaneity, team skills and whether they have a structured thinking process. Originating in the West in the 1950's, a GD was a resultant effect of psychological study done on impact of groups on human behavior. Since then, it has become a major aspect of B-school selection where it has been a thought that team work, peer-influence and communication skills are imperative for a manager to succeed

GD's across the world

The west started with the GDs, and slowly but surely, the western world is doing away with the GD and focusing more on the individual and their skill sets. In India, as most things were copied from the IIMs, even the selection process was getting cyclostyled. With progressing time, however, there is an emerging notion that GDs are becoming more and more unnecessary and a poor judgment of an individual's potential, serving more as an elimination tool and not a selection tool. Many-a good candidate have been known to lose out in the GD process due to dominating nature of individuals who hijack the discussion, rather than focusing on adding value by exchange of thoughts.

Generally in group discussions, there is an initial burst of enthusiasm where everyone is looking for the first-mover advantage (as advised by the coaching-walas) and then there is incomprehensible clutter, leading to illogical statements, factual errors and ends in a ho-hum where the participants are merely looking at each other. And then, a couple of wise souls in midst would pick up the baton, and repeat everything that had already been discussed, this time only a little louder. A group is only as good as the lowest common dominator and the bigger a group is the worse it is. A lot of fresh graduates who are (mis) guided by their respective coaching centers to producing template statements during the GD process, and often speak on topics unrelated to the topic given!

The resultant effect has been that the GD moderator and panel has no clue about the discussion, and often award points on a little communication that they might have caught on, or on basis of any personal bias towards a particular point that they managed to hear. Either way, there is no clear indication or understanding about a candidates' strength with the group discussion. Most selection panelists do not like moderating group discussions, anyway.

The Changing Mindset and process

The selection process started changing across the globe when Harvard paid more emphasis on the personal essay than even the interview; Stanford started getting video resumes; London Business School started the process of personal statements followed by interview with a high profile Alumni, which was essentially the Alumni spending time of 3-6hours in their everyday life with a prospective student. Back home, the six new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are set to make a radical break from tradition by doing away with the group discussion. For admissions of 2011-13, a written test replaced the discussion round at the IIMs in Raipur, Rohtak, Ranchi, Udaipur, Tiruchirappalli and Kashipur, where a common interview was also conducted by panelists from all the IIMs joining hands, a grand move in the direction of finding a match for the Institute as well as the candidate.

For the selection process of the batch of 2011-13, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore experimented with removing the GD round, and instead, focused on the individual by organizing experiential workshops for the group, and gauged the individual's performance thereon.

The process was very successful, and provided an excellent insight into the prospective students' thought process, style of working, communication and team skills. The experiential workshops consisted of ice breakers, followed by team building games where the facilitators could observe and gauge the performance of the individual. Admittedly, it was a lengthy and detail oriented process, and requires certain expertise in behavioral and competence analysis. However, the Institute was convinced of the skills of the individual, and thereby analyze if the skills were a right match for the Institute or not.

The way forward

The focus of the selection process should be practical and offer an insight into how an individual takes up a challenge, analyses it and communicates it effectively to take control of the situation, rather than a battle between the aggressors and the introverts in the regular GD process. Verbal communication can be gauged during counseling and by the interview process also. Expecting individuals to perform in a pressure cooker scenario and judging by being stringent about the same would be counter-productive and might not serve any purpose.

Suggested alternatives

There are many alternatives that might be more effective than a group discussion to analyze individuals for the forthcoming admission process

1. Personal essay: Most of the colleges and universities worldwide pay utmost importance to the personal essay, which is part of the application form. It gives insight into the previous achievements, thoughts, feelings, ideas, and personal input of the writer on a variety of topics. There is one drawback; however, that the applicant might chose to get the essay written by someone else.

2. Written analysis test: On the day of the interview, the applicants can be given a variety of topics, case studies and case-lets, and one can be selected for them to write an analysis about. This gives good insight into spontaneity, general knowledge, analytical ability, comprehension, thought process and written communication skills of applicants. It's a window into finding out whether the applicant has a structured thought process and also their ethical skills. The written analysis test can be an actual internal ‘test' designed, or a broad topic on which an essay can be written in a given timeframe.

3. Ice-breakers and Leadership exercises: On the day of the interview, the candidates can be made to undergo group ice-breaker and leadership exercises, which could be a combination of written exercises and activity-based outdoor exercises. Once into the process, the real talents of individuals start emerging. This would give the moderator/ panel member insight into the individuals' thought process and working pattern. Role plays and games are another valuable tool for selection in this form. There is a wide variety of such games that are at the disposal of most faculty members

4. Aptitude test and psychometric testing: Psychometric tests attempt to objectively measure aspects of a candidates' personality. They are designed in a very effective manner to ensure that even if a person tries to swindle on their responses to get a favorable score, the dummy variables would ensure that does not happen. In addition to psychometric testing, selection can be done using aptitude tests designed to measure capacity to perform in a particular way, including for manual dexterity and speed, mechanical ability, spatial awareness, reasoning, abstract reasoning, clerical work, and numerical and verbal skills. Even if not practiced during the selection phase, these tests should be conducted post admissions as they would serve as a wonderful tool to help Institutes plan for their students

5. Extempore: Give the candidate one topic, and after a minimal preparation time, let the candidate speak alone in front of the panel in form of an extempore. This gives the panel insight on the structured thought process as well as communication skills of the candidate.

Recommendation

Of the mentioned alternatives above, a written analysis test seems most appropriate for the time being. A variety of tests or topics can be discussed by the faculty council, and analysis be taken from applicants at the time of interview. These tests can be conducted real-time also, with forming an alliance with colleges and universities across the country who can act as representatives across the geographies, as done by the new IIMs last year. This would be effective for standing selection process or a rolling admissions process practiced at many B-schools.

For the interviews conducted on campus, all B-schools could try and experiment further with ice-breakers and leadership exercises, as they would add on to building a unique selection criterion that would fascinate individuals to be a part of it, and give an insight on ‘what's in store for two years'

Of course, these alternatives are suggestive and certainly not comprehensive. Various individuals and panels would have more alternatives, and there should be substantial and holistic study done based on research to explore this further. The need of the hour is for individuals and organizations to be pro-active rather than reactive. Rather than market forces indicating a change, a focused and detailed approach would augur well for the future. The time has come for B-schools of India to stand up and deliver the change we have promised over the years- be it in our approach, curriculum as well as the selection process.

About the Author

Prepared by Prof. Kanak Gupta, currently, Asst. Professor of OBHR & Chairperson Admissions & Branding at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore and also Co-Founder & President of Theatrecian, the most prolific English theatre group in India. This paper is based on the authors' personal experience with the B-school selection process, discussions with students across the world aspiring for B-schools as well as academicians at top Universities and Institutes in USA, UK, Germany and India, where the author has previously worked. The author and his team have been disillusioned with the state of admissions in India outside of the premier Institutes, and this has prompted them into a research about finding alternatives to the current system.

The thoughts and ideas mentioned are solely of the author and might not reflect the overall idea of any organization the author is associated with.

Date : 18^th November, 2011

Source: Jaipuria Institute of Management