Students’ Speak: Top assessment parameters for Personal Interview round in placements

By: Ayushi Pandey

Personal Interviews are conducted to understand what kind of individual you are, do you have the caliber to succeed, do you have the potential to excel in the business world.

Personal Interview (PI) is the most critical step that defines your journey to any B-school. You may have thought of it, the dreamt of it for hundred times in your mind but here it is, the room, the panel that will take you to your dream B-school.

PI can be of many types. It can be of relaxing kind where you might feel that it is like a normal conversation regarding your opinion about different things, it may sometime turn into a grilling session where basically they are trying to test your patience and composure. It may also be possible that if there are more than two interviewers they try to bombard you with questions & see how you handle such an uneasy situation.

Whatever kind of PI it is, the most important thing is to maintain your calm and composure and present yourself confidently. The candidates are assessed on the following criteria:

1. Confidence,
2. Presentation & grooming,
3. Self-awareness,
4. Ability to deal with uneasy questions,
5. General Awareness, and
6. Potential of the candidates

Following points are very important in the PI that should be taken into consideration:

1. How comfortable and confident are they at the same time. It is important that you do not seem nervous however you can take a few of the initial seconds or moments to get comfortable but settle yourself quickly.
2. Be honest with your answers. These interviewers are doing these interviews for a long time so they can easily differentiate between honest answers and Even if you are not comfortable with the questions, try to give justifiable answers.
3. Do not try too much to impress the interviewer. If you will try to market yourself too much in the PI, the interviewer may or may not like that, so it is better not to be too harsh on yourself but just give your best.
4. Try to show your diverse interest areas and how well aware are you with the latest topics & trends. The interviewer should not feel that you are too rigid and not flexible in your approach.
5. Try to be witty, show your presence of mind & groom yourself well. This is another very important criterion which will give you an edge over candidates.
6. Be precise in your answers, do not give too long answers or a complete story version of any incident.

About the Author:

Aayushi Pandey is a BCom graduate from DAV PG College, Dehradun. She is currently pursuing PGDM from IMI, Bhubaneswar. Her hobbies include reading fictional stories & writing while her areas of interest are Research, Strategy & Human Resource.