MDI interview experience
Venue: Hotel Pai Viceroy,Jayanagar East,Jaya Nagar 1st Block, Bangalore
Date and Time : 20 Mar 2018, 09:00 AM
CAT17 Score : 99.75 (Sectionals 98.6+)
Class 10 = 91.xx
Class 12 = 86.xx
Engineering : 82.xx
Work Experience : 19 completed months as Software Engineer
Document Verification started exactly at 09:00 and I reached late by 7 minutes.
WAT Topic : Outsourcing : Advantages and Disadvantages.
WAT was for 15 minutes with 150 words as the limit. A big A4 sized sheet was provided and we could write on both sides.
WAT timings : 10:00-10:15
GP Topic : Outsourcing : Advantages and Disadvantages.
GD was for 15 minutes
WAT timings : 10:15-10:30
GD was a total fish market from the moment it started.
WAT prep : 3/5
WAT performance : 2/5 (It was Okay this time)
GD prep : 0/5
GD performance : 3.5/5 (I started it and put forward 4 key points)
I was third in the panel. The first person's interview was 10 minutes long (he was asked acads), the second person's was 20 minutes long (he was asked General Awareness).
There were 2 panelists, one male professor who was about 55 years old, another male professor of about 32 years of age with specs.
I was not asked for the documents which I was carrying.
The first 20 seconds passed with no action. They seemed uninterested initially.
Q1 : Mayur, Tell me what do you do at Dell?
Ans : Told them all the basic information and the product my team works on. Explained my role and its impact.
Q2 : Mayur, you have a decent job. Why MBA now? You should work hard at office and try to persuade your bosses to send you to Austin Development Center after 3-4 years.
Ans : Told them about product development and product management. They asked me if I am satisfied with my earnings, I took time to reply. The senior prof laughed and said, no amount of money is satisfactory. Even I smiled like a sheep at this.
Q3 : Tell us about Dell Business. What all sort of customers do you guys deal with?
Ans : Told them about our Enterprise and Consumer business. It was good 1 minute gyaan of all products I know. They were thrilled to know the facts.
Q4 : Tell me Dell rankings in Enterprise business and the reasons.
Ans : Rank 1. Better support and monitoring services with every device you buy. We have more than 28% of market share.
Q5 : Tell me Dell rankings in End User (Consumer) business and the reasons.
Ans : Rank 3. Lenovo's dominance in cheaper segment. HP's legacy and peripheral devices are the prime reasons for them being Rank 2. Dell has about 14% market share, HP has 18, Lenovo rules with 20% (2016 stats).
Q6 : Why is Lenovo almost 1.5 times of Dell in consumer space?
Ans : Chinese home grown company with 1.4 billion population and about 65% market share there. Plus more penetration in education sector.
Q7 : Major competitors in Enterprise space?
Ans : HP,Cisco,IBM,Lenovo.
Q8 : What are your hobbies?
Ans : Cooking, Cricket and Reading.
Q9 : Dell was Rank 1 in sales in 2005 and 2006. What happened? (Note : I was surprised they knew about it.)
Ans : Explained about Dell Hell campaign in 2006 and how we invested so much money and efforts. And now we are one of the best companies in terms of customer satisfaction. Also, more focus on Enterprise sales now.
Q10 : Your CAT score and other calls?
Ans : 99.75,IIMK,IIMC,IIMS,New IIMS.
Q11 : And you have applied only to PGPM and not PGP-HRM/IM.
Ans : I said yes. I was explaining the reason and they stopped me in between and said its alright.
Finally, they asked if I had any question for them. I had one. I asked and they smiled. They told me that it is a secret and I'll get to know about this once I come to MDI-G. I thanked them for their time and was leaving. When I was holding the door knob, the senior prof told me that even if I come to MDI, I might not get to know the answer to the question which I asked. I smiled and told them that I hope to join MDI soon and reveal the mystery.
Total PI time : 8-9 minutes.
Interview Prep : 2/5
Interview performance : 3.5/5
Verdict : Converted in the first list.
Venue: Hotel Pai Viceroy,Jayanagar East,Jaya Nagar 1st Block, Bangalore
Date and Time : 20 Mar 2018, 09:00 AM
CAT17 Score : 99.75 (Sectionals 98.6+)
Class 10 = 91.xx
Class 12 = 86.xx
Engineering : 82.xx
Work Experience : 19 completed months as Software Engineer
Document Verification started exactly at 09:00 and I reached late by 7 minutes.
WAT Topic : Outsourcing : Advantages and Disadvantages.
WAT was for 15 minutes with 150 words as the limit. A big A4 sized sheet was provided and we could write on both sides.
WAT timings : 10:00-10:15
GP Topic : Outsourcing : Advantages and Disadvantages.
GD was for 15 minutes
WAT timings : 10:15-10:30
GD was a total fish market from the moment it started.
WAT prep : 3/5
WAT performance : 2/5 (It was Okay this time)
GD prep : 0/5
GD performance : 3.5/5 (I started it and put forward 4 key points)
I was third in the panel. The first person's interview was 10 minutes long (he was asked acads), the second person's was 20 minutes long (he was asked General Awareness).
There were 2 panelists, one male professor who was about 55 years old, another male professor of about 32 years of age with specs.
I was not asked for the documents which I was carrying.
The first 20 seconds passed with no action. They seemed uninterested initially.
Q1 : Mayur, Tell me what do you do at Dell?
Ans : Told them all the basic information and the product my team works on. Explained my role and its impact.
Q2 : Mayur, you have a decent job. Why MBA now? You should work hard at office and try to persuade your bosses to send you to Austin Development Center after 3-4 years.
Ans : Told them about product development and product management. They asked me if I am satisfied with my earnings, I took time to reply. The senior prof laughed and said, no amount of money is satisfactory. Even I smiled like a sheep at this.
Q3 : Tell us about Dell Business. What all sort of customers do you guys deal with?
Ans : Told them about our Enterprise and Consumer business. It was good 1 minute gyaan of all products I know. They were thrilled to know the facts.
Q4 : Tell me Dell rankings in Enterprise business and the reasons.
Ans : Rank 1. Better support and monitoring services with every device you buy. We have more than 28% of market share.
Q5 : Tell me Dell rankings in End User (Consumer) business and the reasons.
Ans : Rank 3. Lenovo's dominance in cheaper segment. HP's legacy and peripheral devices are the prime reasons for them being Rank 2. Dell has about 14% market share, HP has 18, Lenovo rules with 20% (2016 stats).
Q6 : Why is Lenovo almost 1.5 times of Dell in consumer space?
Ans : Chinese home grown company with 1.4 billion population and about 65% market share there. Plus more penetration in education sector.
Q7 : Major competitors in Enterprise space?
Ans : HP,Cisco,IBM,Lenovo.
Q8 : What are your hobbies?
Ans : Cooking, Cricket and Reading.
Q9 : Dell was Rank 1 in sales in 2005 and 2006. What happened? (Note : I was surprised they knew about it.)
Ans : Explained about Dell Hell campaign in 2006 and how we invested so much money and efforts. And now we are one of the best companies in terms of customer satisfaction. Also, more focus on Enterprise sales now.
Q10 : Your CAT score and other calls?
Ans : 99.75,IIMK,IIMC,IIMS,New IIMS.
Q11 : And you have applied only to PGPM and not PGP-HRM/IM.
Ans : I said yes. I was explaining the reason and they stopped me in between and said its alright.
Finally, they asked if I had any question for them. I had one. I asked and they smiled. They told me that it is a secret and I'll get to know about this once I come to MDI-G. I thanked them for their time and was leaving. When I was holding the door knob, the senior prof told me that even if I come to MDI, I might not get to know the answer to the question which I asked. I smiled and told them that I hope to join MDI soon and reveal the mystery.
Total PI time : 8-9 minutes.
Interview Prep : 2/5
Interview performance : 3.5/5
Verdict : Converted in the first list.
