What is a winning strategy to market yourself in a Personal Interview?
Following is the list of parameters upon which you are likely to be evaluated in a Personal Interview, accompanied with a list of things you need to keep in mind for scoring well in these areas. An understanding of these parameters will help you to assess what the panel “needs.” It is only then that you can state a value proposition and market yourself well!
Introduction:
This is that part of the interview where you set yourself up. This is where the panel gets a first look and evaluates your personality. The question type in itself is a vast one, and you can cover a host of information in this area. You should make sure you mention your positive traits in this section and drop the right hints for the panel to connect with you later in the interview. This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate an ability to prioritize information and lead the panel.
Education:
This is the place where you portray your overall learning skills and demonstrate that you have a well-rounded personality. Academic learning is checked with the help of your subject knowledge questions can be sourced from favorite subjects, recent most subjects, core subjects, and subjects related to management (depending upon graduation stream). Technical training and projects also become a probable source for questions. Your knowledge is co-related with your performance, giving the panel a fair idea about your learning levels. Extra-curricular activities are evaluated based on their nature, relevance, and level of achievement. Performance in competitions is further proof of your passion.
Current Affairs:
Questions on current affairs can become an Achilles heel for many students. These questions are designed to check your knowledge, awareness, and ability to process current information. The larger challenge is to assess the candidate on an overall environmental sensitivity. Knowledge in political, economic, business, and socio-cultural domains is required to well in these questions.
Career Planning:
The panel evaluates your “time-bound plan” and must provide a clear and logical guide for your plans. The important consideration here is that you should not appear too over-ambitious in your plans, and you should strike a balance between being practical and ambitious. You can always state that you wish to start a business, but if you have no inkling of what you will do or do not have any basic plan to back up your claims, this kind of a statement can be hard to justify an interview. You can always say that you wish to be the Business Leader of a company, but you need to have a defined career path to justify the same. Making tall claims requires a lot of backing, and you would do well to keep a humble profile that can be justified easily. While discussing your long-term plans, the focus should always be on the skills you wish to learn rather than the posts and positions that you want to occupy.
Personality based questions:
Interviews often feature questions on areas such as strengths, weaknesses, rolemodels, etc. Each of these questions is based on your “self-awareness levels” and the degree to which you know yourself. If you know yourself well enough and have enough time figuring out the intricacies of your personality, you would have no difficulty providing examples for your strengths and detailing your weaknesses and how these could be overcome. After all, a B-school would appreciate a personality carved out for management someone with strong initiative, willingness to learn, ability to contribute, and work in teams!
