IIM Admission 2021: Abhinav Paigwar Shares His IIM Bangalore WAT-PI Experience

The IIMs recently released their final admission lists of MBA/PGP 2021 batch. Shiksha got in touch with Abhinav Paigwar for his IIM Bangalore WAT-PI experience. Read below.

Abhinav Paigwar from Jabalpur has converted interview calls from IIM Bangalore, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore and IIM Shillong. A BTech graduate in chemical science and technology from IIT Guwahati, Abhinav shared his WT-PI experience at IIM Bangalore. During the interview he was asked question from diverse topics-from his work experience at Merilytics to Ramayana.

IIM Bangalore WAT:  

Topic: Due to COVID-19, education industry has seen many new startups. Discuss how this the affected everyone in positive or negative way?

My approach to this topic: I already made my mind that I would take PESTEL analysis irrespective of the topic given. PESTEL is analyzing something in 6 different fronts i.e., Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environment and Legal. Also, if I am mentioning any data, I make sure to cite the source of the data.

For e.g., “70% of Indian population has access to internet”, Time of India,2019

Statement of purpose (SOP):

• This is your life history basically following things:
  • Your background
  • Professional and personal achievements
  • Your projects, hobbies
  • Reason for choosing MBA

Tips:

• Build a story around your past for the reason to do MBA
• Be very precise because you have word limit of 600 words
• Choose one project in which you are best at because your interview will revolve around your SOP and that Project only

My SOP for reference:

CHOICE OF CAREER IN MANAGEMENT

When I was a kid and still a school student, Flipkart, the biggest e-commerce company in India started. I was fascinated by the idea of buying things online which was new to me. Having been brought up in an era where we have to go to market for everything, I have seen the evolution of the online world. I have always fantasied about how they are managing multiple tasks while optimizing everything from ordering, warehousing, and delivering. I had many questions then about who was planning all these and what were their strategy to develop and run everything!

While I was preparing for higher studies, one of my teachers once said, “if you want to mount up and move faster you have to do it at a bigger platform, so start preparing and reach that platform”. His words are proving right in the real world. The thing I learned is when you are around the right set of people you develop the right mindset.

I have been living away from my home for higher education, right after completing my matriculation, and it has helped me to develop a sense of teamwork and recognition of others.  Though I have a B.Tech degree in Chemical Sciences and Technology from IIT Guwahati, this has never restricted me from going off-road and working in close proximity with e-commerce clients in my company.

Being a part of NCC and cricket in school, college and my organization have helped me understand and appreciate the concept of people working together towards the same goal. I am now working for more than 1.5 years in the IT industry.

I am willing to move out of my comfort zone to explore new horizons to learn things that help me to improve by adding value to my career and increase efficiency. Working as a Business Analyst at Merilytics and Getmega has helped me figure out how people strategize to build and operate such a big company/product. I worked on a project where I had the task to optimize the floor labor requirement and build a model that can be used in real-time for floor managers. My dedication, hard work, and sense of ownership along with business knowledge and tools helped me to get promoted to Senior Business Analyst in a short period. I would like to explore more in this field.  I would like to learn and develop my skills and industry knowledge so that I can be able to tackle real-life challenges faced by organizations.

 I want to pursue a career wherein I can build strategies and products which can help a business to grow. I have been working with a gaming company for the last 2-3 months as a part of the strategy and growth team which helped me to gain perspective about the journey of product building.

I believe that “Effort is important but knowing where to make an effort in one’s life makes all the difference.”

I now need to further enhance my understanding of the functional aspects of management. I envision myself joining a group where I can build a product from scratch and see its journey and end impact and want to learn more about it. Like it said leaders are learners and learners are leaders.

Decided on an MBA, I am convinced that IIM Bangalore’s unique position among top MBA colleges is perfect for my short and long-term goals. The customizable curriculum, the flexibility of the program and the focus groups would effectively improve my thinking skills.

I want to build a strong network and meet people with a similar mindset from whom I can learn. In MBA college I will have the opportunity to meet the best people from diverse fields.

IIM Bangalore Personal Interview (PI) experience:

Online interview over zoom, 3 panelist all in late 40s.

As I already mentioned, Interview revolve around your statement of purpose, here are the interview questions asked to me:

P1: Hello Abhinav, so tell us briefly about yourself?

Me: Told them about my birthplace, parents their profession, my education in chronological order, work experience, thing I like to do and why am I pursing MBA.

P1: So, you worked at Merilytics, tell me about one of the problems you solved there.

Me: First I explained about the company, their structure and our team. Then I explained my work and choose the problem which I mentioned in SOP.

P1: So, you did floor labor optimization, what was the exact problem statement from the client and how did you approach to the solution.

Me: Already prepared the answer for that, answered.

P1: What tools did you use in that problem?

Me: SQL, Tableau, Excel and R studio.

P1: Which prediction model did you use?

Me: ARIMA Model.

P1: What is ARIMA model, how did it work?

Me: Prepared the answer already.

P1: What variables did you use?

Me: Named all the variable used in the model.

P1: What else you could have taken?

Me: Told 2-3 more variables. There could be many, but I was nervous so couldn’t recall more.

P2: What were the limitations of your model?

Me: Answered as I already prepared that.

P2: What is seasonality, how did it affect your model?

Me: I knew this. Answered.

P2: What is correlation?

Me: Answered.

P2: What is positive correlation and negative correlation?

Me: Explained with an example.

P2: So, let’s move to some general knowledge questions, how many daughters did Dashrath had, and name?

Me: I knew there was 1 daughter but didn’t remember the name.

P2: Name all the daughters-in-law of King Dashrath.

Me: I know Sita was the one, rest of them I couldn’t recall. Politely said, “Sir, I am not able to recall rest of the names, Sorry”.

P2: How India’s relation with neighboring countries?

Me: Its positive for some countries and negative for some.  

P2: Name one with positive relation one with negative?

Me: Positive is Sri Lanka, Negative – China

P2: How’s India’s relation with Bangladesh?

Me: Sir it is kind of friendly. We are helping them in this pandemic situation.

P3: So Abhinav, both of my collogues asked you a lot, let me as you last few questions, “what did you learn by solving the floor labor optimization model”?

Me: Sir, I was pretty new to corporate world when I picked up that project, I wasn’t even knowing how the company works but after picking up that project I learned a lot about how companies work, learned new tools, how companies try to keep on optimizing and cost cutting techniques. Learned new tools. It was overall a great learning experience.

P3: That’s pretty much of it Abhinav. Do you have any questions for us?

Me: Sir, I have one question, what did IIM B introduced PGP BA when they are already teaching BA in PGP?

P2: Answered that question, “There is industry’s requirement that played the major role in introducing new specific course. We researched with some industries experts to know the requirement came to this conclusion. Also, it is beneficial for the students who are already clear about their career path. So, if there will be high requirement of HR related job roles in market, we might introduce specific course for that too. I suppose that might answered your concern.”

Me: Yes sir, that pretty much made everything clear for me. Thank you all.

Panel: Thank you Abhinav, it was wonderful, All the best.

Me: Thank you, sir.

Verdict – Converted.

Read More:

• IIM Admission 2021: Mayank Shares His IIM Bangalore WAT-PI Experience
• IIM Admission 2021: Rupesh Gupta Shares His IIM Ahmedabad PI Experience