IIM Ahmedabad potential questions:

1. Why do you want to join this institute? (Apart from legacy, faculty
and placements)
2. What are your experiences and what have you done so far to
deserve this interview?
3. What specialisations would you choose?
4. What industry do you want to work in after MBA? Name a
company wherein you can solve a problem from a big position after
having done an MBA

5. Favourite subjects - Digital Electronics, DSA

6. Define a problem in electronics/communication and solve it in
your own terms

1. Tell us something about yourself that’s not mentioned in your

form.
2. Why MBA and not a masters in your undergraduate field/family
business?
3. What are your short and long term goals?
4. Why do you want to study at IIMA?
5. You've already been working for 3 years, why don't you work a
couple of more years and go for the PGPX course?
6. Describe an incident that has had a deep impact on you. How did
it change you?
7. What is your idea of success?
8. What did you like/hate about your job?
9. If you had to work with one company for 10 years, which company
would you choose and why?
10. How will your background help you in an MBA

1. What do you do at your current job? Tell us about your

projects/responsibilities
2. What is the decision-making process that you follow?
3. Who are your company’s competitors? Compare the foreign and
domestic players in your market.
4. Tell us about your business idea. How will you pitch your product
on the show Shark Tank?
5. Which technology does your organization use? Are there newer
technologies available? Why aren’t you using them?

1. Which was the last book you read? What did you learn from it?
2. What does your name mean? How does that relate with your
personality?
3. What is the difference between Colleagues and friends?
4. Explain your undergraduate degree to me like I am a five year old.
5. If you had to travel to Shanghai from Gurgaon via road, what is
the shortest route you can take? Okay, what is the shortest distance
between India and Sri Lanka in kilometres?
6. Guesstimate the number of Kapoors in Mumbai.
7. Who is Gita Gopinath? Who is Raghuram Rajan?
8. You’re from Odisha, right? What's the largest river in Odisha? How
old is Odisha? What was it called earlier? Why did they change the
name?
9. Have you watched Padmaavat? If yes, who were the kings who
fought the battle?
10. Assume I am a CEO. Tell me why I should not hire a management
consultant from a toptier firm

Specific to ECE and Computer Science:

1. Explain your current role in a sentence.

2. What is an API? What does it stand for?
3. What steps happen when you search something in a browser.
4. Explain a scenario when I had a conflict with the product
management. How was it handled.
5. What is a transistor?
6. What is MOSFET?
7. Difference between Microprocessor and Microcontroller.

IIM Ahmedabad previous interview transcripts:

IM A transcript | BA Sociology, Fresher

AWT: A passage on how AI will replace the role of a manager. Our job
was to identify the underlying assumptions made and counter it with
arguments.

2 panelists.

Q. What did you study in Sociology?

Q. What was Karl Marx like as a person?
Q. What was Marx’s relationship with Engels? What does it signify
Q. What is Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”?
Q. Did you have Philosophy as a subject?
Q. What else did you study in Sociology?
Q. I mentioned my dissertation so they asked several questions
about that.
Q. What is feminism? (Many follow up questions. They grilled me
here)
Q. Are you interested in the sciences?
Q. What would you say is the scientific temperament?
Q. So how would you differentiate between a musician who
possesses a scientific temperament vs one who doesn’t?
Q. Explain the sociology of science and technology.
Q. Give me two reasons why we shouldn’t select you.
Q. From a sociological perspective, explain why all the candidates
for this IIM A interview have worn masculine clothing.
Q. Define the “Us vs Them” bias (defined). Now relate it to a
sociological theory.

Lasted for 25-30 minutes. They asked me a lot of counter-questions.

For the entire panel (7 of us) they focused on our undergrad
specialisations.

Yes - everyone from my panel was grilled on their undergrad

subjects. Some were asked current affairs questions but very basic
ones. For example what was King Charles diagnosed with recently
(ans Cancer)

There was a guy who studied electrical engineering but worked as a

software engineer later. He said they asked him a lot of questions
about that, and why he’s shifting to another stream now. The rest of
us were freshers. All three. They asked questions on electrical,
software workex and the shift
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Profile : BITS Pilani, JPMorgan

IIM Ahmedabad Interview

Profile -

GEM Candidate with 2.5 years of Work Experience in the Investment

Banking industry in the Quantitative Modelling space. Day 1 of IIM-A
interviews @IIM Campus Vastrapur, morning slot.

AWT Topic -

Critically analyse ethical and moral delimma around the release of

films and series that depict extreme violence. How does it impact
the crime rate in our societies. Give points on both favour and
against the topic.

Disclaimer -

The interview lasted for 50 minutes and was highly grilling in

nature. My advice is to practice medication/deep breathing/nerve
calming techniques, it’ll help you a lot more than last minute
revision before the interview. The professors may cut you mid
sentence and argue aggressively, do not get scared. On the
subjective questions, the professors played Devil’s Advocate and
negated everything that I said just to see how I defend my stance
and how I hold up under pressure. Try to smile and maintain a
positive body posture throughout the interview.

The first half of my interview was highly targeted towards my work

experience and I believe that an average candidate is not expected
to know most of these things. I had a Finance professor in my panel
whose work aligns with my current job, hence the depth of his
questions. The other professor was from Policy Making background.

Although I present a list of questions below, the interview format

was not Question-Answer, each topic was discussed in detail to
gauge my depth and not just the memorised concepts. Each answer
lead to a detailed discussion which in-turn lead to the next set of
questions. Your concepts should be sound and you should have a
certain clarity of thought.

Interview Questions -

Tell us about your school. (My school happens to be right across the
road from IIM Ahmedabad).

Tell us about yourself.

What exactly do you do in an Investment Bank?

You already work in Finance, why MBA then?

What are client facing roles in the world of Finance?

What aspects of financial modelling do you cover?

What is risk in Finance?

What is counterparty credit risk? What are the various methods to

calculate CCR?

What is market risk? Name a few methods to calculate market risk.

What are financial regulators and what do they do? Name a few
financial regulators. What is Basel?

What is Internal Model Method and how does it differ from

standardised approach to calculate counterparty credit risk? Why do
banks prefer IMM?

What is option pricing and what models do you use to price them?

Write the Black Scholes equation.

Explain the concepts behind arriving at this equation.

What is a Weiner process?

Write the equation for a Brownian Motion.

Explain Brownian Motion as an engineer, use concepts of fluid

mechanics.

What is VaR? Explain it to me as if I am a layman.

What are the various methods to calculate VaR?

What is expected shortfall and how do you calculate it?

What is a normal distribution? Draw the curve.

What do x and y axises represent in a normal curve.

Why do you assume stock returns series to be normally distributed?

Explain stock path movements using a graph.

What is the Law of Large Numbers? What is the Central Limit

Theorem? How do you define “large” for such theorems?

What is a confidence interval?

What are type-1 and type-2 errors? Which type of error is more
risky?

What does your bank do to minimise these errors?

Give a real life example of a normal distribution.

What is probability and what is uncertainty? Explain the difference

between them with examples.

What is a binomial distribution?

Write the equation for a binomial distribution.

How would you explain probability to a 5 year old?

What if he tosses a coin 20 times and gets heads all 20 times? How
would you explain it to him then?

What are regression models?

Use all these discussed concepts to explain how any Investment

Bank uses financial modelling to calculate risk.

Why did you do engineering if you wanted to make a career in

finance?

How does being an Engineer help you in your current job?

Why does the country waste resources on people like you to make
you engineers when you provide no engineering assets to the
country?

What needs to change so that people start taking up diverse fields

at the undergraduate level? What would you change in your school?

What were key highlight points of the NEP 2020?

You run a page related to Cinema on Instagram, sell it to us like a

pitch.

How much time do you invest on it and what do you gain out of it?

What steps would you take to build your page into a business?

If you’re presented with a situation where you can no longer sustain

working on the page, what would you do?

What is the opportunity cost for which you’d give up on your page?
Clearly quantify it.

Thoughts on the Statue of Unity. Should it have been constructed?

What are the costs and benefits of such a construction? Do the

costs of Statue of Unity outweigh the benefits?

What is capital expenditure? What are the other types of

expenditures?

How could the Government have worked for upliftment of the

villages around the statue without constructing the statue? State
methods to do this without any capital investments.

Do you think that the villagers not know business and they need the
government to construct extravagant statues to give them
employment?

How does a villager hedge his risk? How do they insure themselves
against losses?

What are the intangible benefits of such a construction? How would

you quantify the intangible benefits?

Please have a toffee.

Post Script -

Again, you may know the answers to the above mentioned questions
but the textbook definition would not do. They are going to dig deep
into what you say. All the best for your interview!

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Anyone wants to practice IIM A - AWT

Write a response to the following - 300 words

Teenagers today seek independence. However, granting them this

freedom may lead to distances within the family, potentially
harming familial relationships. Society often perceives a rift among
family members negatively, which can result in the family feeling
offended. Therefore, allowing teenagers autonomy is incorrect and
may result in unhealthy relationships.

Analyze this argument by addressing the following points:

1. What is the line of reasoning in the argument?

2. Identify the underlying assumptions in the argument.
3. What could undermine the argument's effectiveness?
4. What can be the counter-arguments?

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IIMA interview
Center: Mumbai. Date: 9/02/2024
Profile: GEM (Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur + 2.5 years
work experience in core R&D)

Panel: 3
P1: Swanand Deodhar (Information systems)
P2: Neharika Vohra (Organisational Behaviour)

P1 brought us too the panel room and gave us sheet for writing AWT
answers. We were given 20 mins overall to read and write the
answer.
AWT: Giving tight deadlines for projects is beneficial and breeds
creativity because it makes people focus on problems than wasting
time on managing resources and risks.
Find out the assumptions in above para and critically analyse by
giving counter points.
After that each candidate was called based on his serial number.

P2 asked first: you’re unemployed right now?

S: Yes ma’am.
P1: Why left your job?
S: Told about the long term career aspirations and constraints in my
job.
P1: Why left Mahindra?
S: Gave my reasons.
P1: What kind of robots do you make?
S: Told the history of my previous company and talked about
products.
P1: Why did the company pivot in medical devices?
S: Explained.
P1: What is the benefit of smart medical devices over standalone?
Try to sell the smart devices to me as a customer.
S: Gave a few pointers. (P1 seemed satisfied)
P1: What is the infrastructure needed to make all the data
streamlined among the different kinds of devices?
S: I couldn’t answer clearly. Took around 20 seconds to think then
just gave 1 point, to which P1 was not convinced.
P1: How to cut the infra cost of all the data transfer?
S: Similar response. I tried to give something he didn’t look so
convinced.
P2: Is this the same company which made a ventilator in 40 days?
S: Yes
P2: Did you work with Shrikant Shastri?
S: Yes
P2: Your profile looks good on paper. However I am not sure why
should we give you a seat in our institute. Convince me that you’re a
good candidate for MBA?
S: Gave a prepared answer. (Not sure whether P2 liked it or not. No
expressions or eye contact)
P2: You have studied in prestigious institutions, and again you’re
aspiring to getting into one. What did you give back to the society?
S: Told about how I utilised my engineering learnings to make
products which were ultimately used by the society and saved lives.
P2: What extracurricular activities you did?
S: Told. There was a mention of dance.
P2: Why Natu Natu song is famous even when it is not good it
quality?
S: Talked about how the collective taste of society is not always the
best. Most of the times it is average or below average.
P2: Then why don’t people do just average things and why strive for
excellence at all?
S: Talked on the lines - the inner consciousness is something which
most of the times drives people for excellence and not the rewards
and pleasures from society. Excellence is not always a pleasurable
experience.
P2: (Seemed to like the answer) That’s an interesting point of view.
We will think about it.
P1: Have a toffee.

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IM A transcript 11th Feb Noon

Work exp- Battery RnD

Grad- Chemical engineering
Panel- 1M and 1F in their 40s

P1-
What is chemical engineering?
Explain your work ex.
Explain the whole process.
What specifically is your role in this?

Extreme cross questioning in each answer. Wanted to know how

chemical engineering helped in each step.
P2-
Maths- What is Cartesian system of cordinate.
Give an alternative to this.

Further discussion on this and wanted depth. Asked for examples

and stuff. Had to say IDK at the end.

What current affairs do you know?

Told that the newspaper is all about the election and the conflicts
going on along with Bharat ratna
What are your hobbies?
Told chess.
I don't care about chess. Tell me what's going on in Pakistan
politics.
Told elections coming up but
Idk the specifics.
What about US elections?
Gave my views and who I think will win.
Who won the Bharat Ratna and why?
Answered
Further cross questioning on this.

Take a toffee and u can go.

Total time 20 -25 min

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IIM Ahmedabad transcript: 9 Feb

P1: American, age:30-40ish , background: economics and operations

research
P2: Age: 40-50ish, background: chemical engineering,operations
research and decision sciences
Time: 30-35 minutes

AWT: AI will replace manager since it knows critical thinking ,

counter this.
Mine was 6th number in the panel (unfortunately I was only engineer
in the panel)

P2: tell me what is not written in your form.

Me: told about chess.

P2: asked me some question about chess how did I improved it and
all , and how did I play in lockdown.

Me: I told about Li chess and book I followed.

P2: what else did you not write?

Me: I worked in student counselling cell

P2: asked me about what events I organised

Me: told about how I worked to reduce screen time of students

P2: called me a hypocrite since I work on data science and I have

more than 8 hours of screen time.

Me: defended Myself by saying it's necessary screen time.

**** Then It started to go haywire*****

P2: so you're a chemical engineer tell me about your final year
project

Me: dye removal using ultra violet radiation (I told them about some
specifics)

P2: he started to ask about formula of that dye and then formula of
catalyst , what are different type of catalyst and then went to
optimization problems in chemical engineering.

Me: I wasn't able to answer most of them(they were kinda tough to

me given catalysis was departmental elective)

P2: write the equation of svm with constraints and it's optimization.
(the lagrangian one)
I have attached the photo of the equation he asked.
Me: was able to tell some of it overall he wasn't satisfied

P1: asked me about what is open ended task and closed ended task

Me: boy oh boy I fumbled so hard , answered some of it

P2: asked me about different distribution, random variable , some

questions on p(x).dx kinda thing

Me: I told this part correctly

P2: asked me about electoral bonds and got in depth with this and
asked me what is wrong with it

Me: I told most of it and wasn't able to justify that it's bad to have
anonymity in it.

P2:do you have any questions for us?

Me: asked about how they instill leadership values

Had a discussion on that and it lasted for 2-3 minutes

And P1 ended the interview with telling me and leadership is an

open ended task (what a savage ).