Cracking the GMAT

• Q: I am planning to appear for the GMAT this year. Since I am an engineer by training, I am good at maths. But as I did my Class XII from a Bengali medium school, I am not very comfortable with the English section of the test. Please tell me what I should do to improve my score.

Nupur Guha

• A: It is not unusual for those matriculating in the vernacular medium to feel uneasy with English. But I have seen time and again that by sheer dint of hard work, many of them have even outperformed their English medium counterparts in tests. So if you are willing to work hard, you should be able to do well in the two GMAT English sections: analytical writing assessment, which does not count towards your main score, and the verbal section that does count. Both sections also test your analytical skills, which shouldn’t be a problem for someone with a background in mathematics.

In addition to going through the usual paraphernalia of guidebooks, coaching institutes, and/or test-specific websites, do read the technical, business and international sections of daily newspapers voraciously to prepare for the English sections of the test. With adequate preparation, you should be able to tackle the often unfamiliar and dense passages in the English sections and understand the nuances of idiom.

If you need additional help in grammar, keep a practical English grammar book handy, preferably from Oxford University Press or Cambridge University Press. For writing practice, download the pool of issue essays from www.mba.com and work on them.
For the best advice on how to write essays, get any of the three books titled Style by Joseph M. Williams. The one called Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, though the most expensive, has practice exercises with answers.

Falling below expectations

• Q: My son’s Class X results are much below our expectations and those of his teachers. Because of his past performance, his school has agreed to allow him to join the science stream in Class XI. How important are his Class X scores going to be for his future career?

N.K. Bishnoi

• A: If your son has been able to get the stream of his choice, the only thing the Class X results have been able to do is to shake his self-confidence a bit, which sometimes may not be a bad thing.

A performance below expectation in one examination is not, by itself, a measure of the child’s ability and his school has rightly thought so.

Your son may ask for re-evaluation of his papers. Beyond that, just reassure him, as well as yourself, that the Class X results are not that important. It will be just another statistic in his resume. What really matters is his performance in the Class XII exam.

How to win friends and influence people

• Q: What do companies look for when recruiting B-school graduates? Is it necessary to have studied business subjects in college?

Jadav Kakoti

• A: Most companies look for people with senior management potential and, in their view, MBAs have an above-average chance of fulfilling this need. They also want people who can be effective and hit the ground running.

Many companies complain that the MBA’s excellent theoretical knowledge is not matched by sufficient interpersonal and especially supervisory skills, which are essential in a good manager. Therefore, they try to give graduates an opportunity to learn these skills. Many companies feel that students are becoming MBAs at too young an age. The argument is that companies need young people in their 20s who are, to an extent, specialists such as engineers and economists. But these people later need the kind of broadening into general management that the MBA experience provides.

The manner in which more traditional companies assimilate new MBAs is to place them in central staff positions, with roles in areas such as strategic planning where they are close to the levers of power and where their breadth of view can be put to good use. Some design special induction programmes, with a senior executive acting as a personal mentor to groom them for line positions.

The MBA is a conversion degree which takes any student with a good bachelors degree in any subject and equips him/her with the knowledge required to move into business management. You don’t need to have previously studied a business subject.

For reference, you can see the final placements profile of this year’s batch of IIM Calcutta which shows that the majority (58 per cent) are 23-25 years old, 24 per cent are 20-22, 15 per cent are 26-28 and 3 per cent are above 28. Eight per cent of the graduates have 60 months of work experience, another 8 per cent have 40-60 months of work experience, 23 per cent have 31-40 months, 5 per cent have 25-30 months, 38 per cent have 22-24 months and 18 per cent have 11-21 months of work experience. Thirty-two per cent of the graduates did summer internships in the financial services sector and 19 per cent did summer internships in consumer product industries.