What is a bad interview?

Jatin Bhandari

Q. I have got interview call from one of the leading B-schools. Can you tell me what would be a bad interview? — atul roy

A. Here’s wishing you all the luck for your PI session. As for a good and bad interview is concerned, always remember that you are not interviewing with the media. The interviewer does not take onus of editing your interview and identifying the relevant incidents.

The most common mistake that most of the smart people make in an interview is that they get lost in the weeds. The fact that they are smart is proven by as they have been invited for an interview. But, interview is not your opportunity to ramble about everything you have experienced in the 30 years of your life. Do not deviate from what is being asked. You have limited time and the interviewer does have other appointments on his calendar. And this is certainly not a media interview.

A simple question such as “Why do you work for this company?” moves over to past, present, future sequences, international experiences, undergraduate life, and by the time the candidates realise that they have wasted nine minutes and the interviewer is still wondering “Why did you pick this organisation” and the candidate has barely addressed the question.

During a mock interview for a top school, an interviewee after 8-9 minutes of delivery asked “What was the question again?”

While working on your candidature, you should again be careful not to divert from the given question. For every assignment or transition that took place in your life and all that is mentioned in your resume, you should be prepared to explain it crisply. Questions like why you did it, or what it was like, or what you learnt, or how you would do it differently and your stories and explanations, all should be answered with precision briefly. You should be able to explain what you are asked in 40 seconds. Do not feel the need to explain in detail. If the interviewers find it interesting they will ask you to explain.

Another faux pas to avoid is to give cliched answers. Candidates think most B-schools are looking for a certain type of reply:

Many a time the students have a preconceived notion, they feel there has to be “more than that” in an interview. They think B-schools are looking for some kind of perpetual responses.

However, the admission committee is more interested in socially conscious people. They would like to hear someone say they are interested in investing in enterprises that can actually bring a change. For example, “My greatest transaction was in supporting an orphan drug company that created a drug to help people with a rare type of diabetes.” Or that “You found a creative way to help finance a social enterprise in rural India to provide clean drinking water to people.”

It's not easy to trust they’ll go for it, but seeing the end result, the emphasis should be, not to give a chance to be accused of greed.

— Jatin Bhandari is CEO & Co-Founder of PythaGurus, an education consultancy.