My Interview Experience at IIM Bangaore

The interview was in IIM Bangalore. The GDPI was scheduled at 2 P.M. and for obvious reason everyone was there by 12:30. I will skip the GD part, it was a decent experience though.

I was 3rd in the line of fire.

Characters of the Play:-

I1 (Interviewer 1) :- Mr . Damodaran (http://www.iimb.ernet.in/iimb/html/m-frames.jsp?ilink=111&pname=allfaculty.jsp)

I2 :- Mr. Rahul De (http://www.iimb.ernet.in/iimb/html/m-frames.jsp?ilink=111&pname=allfaculty.jsp)

Me :)

As some of the readers are going to be very fussy about details. I will cover the interview comprehensively.

I2 called me and held the door open. Distant voices of BOL were shut out abruptly the moment I entered.

I2 : Go and take seat.

Me: (Like an obedient kid walked up to the chair and gently sat there)

I1: Give me your certificates.

Me: (Gave him 2 folders) One contains my academic and co-curricular certificates and the other my Extra-curriculars. No, this one contains the extra-curricular certificates and the other my academic certificate (He fumbled with the folders for a while but didnt open it, probably got confused)

I2: So you are from Christ college. It is a very prestigious college.

Me: Yes sir.

I2: ( Had my application on his Laptop, from behind the laptop) You got 82% in 3rd year.

Me: Yes sir

I2: Thats not a very good score.

Me: I got better in my 2nd year.

I2: Do you call 85% as a good score, you also have just 81% in 1st year.

Me: (Time to dazzle!!) Sir, Christ college is an autonomous college. I was the gold medalist in
my college. So, I in a sense I set the benchmark for the class.

I2: So, you are a college topper.

Me: Yes sir.

I2: Good. You also have done CFA lvl 1.

Me: Yes sir.

I2: D.E.shaw is related to finance.

Me: Yes sir, It is hedge fund ( a keen observer would have noticed that till now I have made a hatrick of 'Yes sir' , not a good sign!?)

I2: So, you guys are in trouble (with a smile)

Me: Everyone in Finance industry is ( All smiles :)

I2: Can you explain me what do you mean by toxic assets, I know nothing about it.

Me: Can I Borrow a paper and a pencil (Thinking at the same time)

I2: Here you go.

Me: It all goes to back to 2003, when Alan Greenspan the then Fed Chairman substantially reduced the bank rates ( At this point I1 suddenly came out of his disguised trance and wrote something on the evaluation sheet, smirk lurking on his face ) , flooding the markets with excess money supply, in the process forming many economic bubbles. As the bank were overflowed with money as well, they started pushing credit to sub-prime borrowers. Basically there are three type of borrowers Prime, Sub-Prime...ah...ahm.... and Ninja. Subprime borrowers are those which have dont have sufficient resources to back their borrowing. As houses were priced very high. The lendings were pegged to Libor which was pretty low at that point of time. As the cost of house started going down and the Libor rate going up, People started defaulting. The bank had created a basket of the loans made and sold it to others in the forms of CDOs and tranches. Then came CDS to insure against defaulting and the system became very complex. So when the

I2: You are talking about CDOs and tranches, these are very technical terms, do you know their meaning. ( If someone noticed, I haven't answered their Toxic asset question, I forgot, lets hope they also did)

Me: I do !!!

I1: Leave the technicals behind , tell me in simple words, where is the money????

Me: (Dear readers, I have a confession to make here, this question, this one question took the breath out of me. I was completely flabbergasted and could not hide the look). This is something which even the fed could not find the answer to [All smiles :) but I had to continue] May be people who sold their houses still have it with them.

I2: They are keeping their money in the bank rite, so where is it.

Me: May be may be not, they might have bought T-bills or gold as it anti-inflationary or just keep it with them.

I2: So they are hiding it under their pillows??

Me: Possible

I1: Obama is coming with 700 billion stimulus so all he needs to do is to ask the people to pull the money from under their pillows,

Me: He is bringing the package to save the companies and to stimulate consumption at grass root level. Besides what I am saying is not backed by any knowledge or any article, it is my personal analysis, I might be grossly wrong.

I1: Dont be defensive, stick to your views, you are very close to the answer, just think about it, you are missing a link here.

Me: Give me 2 min.

I2: Sure, take your time.

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What can it be... what can it be.... What can it be... what can it be.... What can it be... what can it be.... What can it be... what can it be.... What can it be... what can it be.... What can it be... what can it be....what can it be.... What can it be...what can it be.... What can it be...what can it be.... What can it be... What fool am I!! ... Can it be greater Fools theory.... No it cant be , atleast say something.....
---------------------------- (After 2 Min) ---------------------------

Me: I could not find any connection, has it got anything to do with The Greater Fools Theory??

I1: No , leave it.

(Both of them looked at each other, but there was nothing sort of sinister in their look, Possibly I2 took the hint and began...)

I2: You have done your BBM from Christ college , Its a very reputable college why don't you do your MBA from there?

Me: (Reframed: Why do you want to do M.B.A from IIM B) I am looking for a management course the course structure and course content of which is internationally oriented. International exposure in terms of Internship and a semester abroad as is the need of the day. I know for a fact that Christ college has tie up with only 2 foreign universities ( Like 90% of the facts, this credible fact was also made on the spot)

I2: Lets say tomorrow Christ announces tie up with 15 international universities, will you join christ then??

Me: Sir, international exposure is not the only criteria, it is one of the criteria. I am also for faculty who have substantial work experience and teaching experience as well. In christ most of the faculty begin their career from christ and are still there. Also most of the teachers who us in BBM are also teach in M.B.A classe, so in a way there is an overlap of talent.

I2: (tried to protest)

Me: I know they used to teach us at the wavelength where we could understand but I want specialised faculty

Me: (I took an unculculated risk here) If I am rite, You are Mr. Damodaran, I have gone through your profile on the IIMB website. You have years of Work-ex and number of research articles in your name ... (I2 interrupted)

I1: Lets not get personal here

Me: (Expected this contingency) I meant faculty at IIMB in general. I just randomly went through some of the profiles, faculty here have years of work-ex, teaching-Ex and degree from some of the finest institution across the globe, not India.

I2: Okay, So tell me what are your hobbies.

Me: I like reading books, watching gameplay videos of computer and console games as well as chess game in my free time.

I2: So which books do you read??

Me: For past 8 month I have being busy with my work, in college years I used to read autobiographies in non-fiction and authors like Michael chricton, Matthew reily, christie and holmes in fiction.

I2: Don't you think Auto biographies are also fiction??

Me: Not completely, some events in life may be exaggerated but they follow real life sequence. And anyways the purpose behind an autobiograohy is generally to motivate people, so if some events are exaggerated they serve the purpose better.

I2: (Looked at I1, got a nod) Ok you can leave now.

Is the oil crisis for real?

The debate for the past few days has been the catastrophic wrath dealt by the rising oil prices on the global economy, which by the presents forecasts will grow at 2.5% a substantial departure of 100 basis points from the previous forecasts of 3.5%. While there is a divided opinion on the real culprit for the price rise .i.e. unsolicited speculation and demand-supply imbalance, no positive groundbreaking measures have been taken to address the same. The president of OPEC, Chakib Khelil recently said that there is a surplus production of 2 Mbpd after the global consumption of 85Mbpd and flagrant speculation and illlicit cartels is responsible for the astronomical crude oil prices. If that is the reason for oil price hike then an increase in the production of oil by the OPEC countries will basically be ineffective to address the global crude prices, what phenomenally will scale down the speculation is delinking of crude prices to dollars which as of now has eluded the global media. US, on the other hand is smuugly blaming the third world countries for excessive consumption resulting in demand-supply disequilibrium, seemingly ignorant to the fact that it is the largest fuel consumer across the globe. What is preposterous is the fact that a large chunk of the arable land has been put to bio-fuel production and stern rules for oil exploration on these lands, fuelling inflationary juggernaut rolling down on poor countries with diminishing foreign exchange, an inevitable cushion to sustain the current global crisis.
While I am impervious to the global economic and financial (crashing markets) turmoil will get my bike refuelled to half its capacity because some thinktank in US has suggested that this action on my part will initiate a chain reaction eventually easing the global crude oil price.

I am just hoping that happens soon.