I am writing this post based on personal experience and tips that me and most of my friends followed, who made finally to IIM A, B,C and L also in XLRI, IIFT and FMS, during our fight to win the RAT[CAT] races of our lives.
To give you a brief about GD[what/why?]
A GD is a method to gauge whether the candidate has certain personality traits and/or skills that an institute desires its students possess. This way institutes judge if the candidate fits into its cultural setup, or if the candidate’s personality is going to add a different flavor to the existing culture.
Points that a GD brings out about candidates personality-
Ability to work in a team
Communication skills [including listening, speaking and expressing]
Reasoning ability
Leadership skills
Initiative
Assertiveness
Flexibility
Creativity
Ability to think on ones fee
How to approach a GD
Always use time given for before discussion starts judiciously and efficiently
Step 1: Read/ listen to the topic very carefully
Step 2: Identify the main ideas and themes about the topic
Step 3: Write your points on the sheet provided and try to structure them [5-6 points are enough]
Tip:- try to remember to link your examples to point from the readings and experiences you had relating them to the main topic
Roles people play during a GD
1. Initiatingt the GD started by introducing the topic to the groups and adding his points
2. Facilitating participation of all the groups members, If anyone or few dominate a group moderator tries to control that,
3. Keeping the content of discussion around the core issue
4. Giving and asking for information & reactions & critiques
5. Discussing and questioning each other’s interpretations of materials
6. Summarizing what the group has said and moving on giving new direction to the discussion
7. Final conclusion
Strategies you may adopt
Competing without a strategy will take you nowhere, unless you are planning to reach nowhere.
Depending upon the comfort level with the topic you must decide in the beginning which role will you be playing in a particular GD. Same strategy for all the GDs that you may be participating in may not be a good strategy as a person a different level of comfort with different topics. So choose a role carefully rather strategically. If you are comfortable playing multiple roles and very swiftly you can switch roles and use your strengths to your advantage.
Normally, opening a GD involves these very important things:
1. Define the topic of the GD if there is a need to define it for others (clarity)
2. Set boundaries/parameters that you may feel will help the GD to be discussed without ambiguity.
3. In case you have a story/ incident/ experience for the topic, then start with that.
4. Creative GD will be started with your interpretation and the supporting thought process for the interpretation.
No matter what role you choose, but you have to make sure you put your own points forward and do your job by adding some valuable points to the discussion.
Tip:- 1. As most of the candidates pounce on the opportunity to open the topic and lot of people speak simultaneously and no one is heard. Better strategy could be to choose roles from 2-6 so that it will be easier to pitch in you points.
2. It is always good to substantiate your point with some facts. Most Business Schools ensure that they pick up those students who have some data on the topic or related discussions wherein the students can compliment their point of view or the stand they might take. This approach gives an impression that candidate has a rational thought process and knows how to built arguments.
Dos and Don’ts
- You must ensure that the group hears you. If the group hears you, so will the evaluator. That does not mean that you shout at the top of your voice and be noticed for the wrong reasons.
- You have to be assertive. If you are not a very assertive person, you will have to simply learn to be assertive for those 15 minutes. Remember, assertiveness does not mean being bull-headed or being arrogant.
- Participate in as many practice GDs as possible before you attend the actual GD. There is nothing like practice to help you overcome the fear of talking in a GD.
- The quality of what you said is more valuable than the quantity.
- Be as natural as possible. Do not try and be someone you are not. Be yourself.
- A group discussion is your chance to be more vocal. The evaluator wants to hear you speak.
- Take time to organize your thoughts. Think of what you are going to say.
- Seek clarification if you have any doubts regarding the subject.
- Don’t start speaking until you have clearly understood and analyzed the subject.
- Work out various strategies to help you make an entry: initiate the discussion or agree with someone else’s point and then move onto express your views.
- Opening the discussion is not the only way of gaining attention and recognition. If you do not give valuable insights during the discussion, all your efforts of initiating the discussion will be in vain.
- Your body language says a lot about you – your gestures and mannerisms are more likely to reflect your attitude than what you say.
- Language skills are important only to the effect as to how you get your points across clearly and fluently.
- Be assertive not dominating; try to maintain a balanced tone in your discussion and analysis.
- Don’t lose your cool if anyone says anything you object to. The key is to stay objective: Don’t take the discussion personally.
- Always be polite: Try to avoid using extreme phrases like: `I strongly object’ or `I disagree’. Instead try phrases like: `I would like to share my views on…’ or `One difference between your point and mine…’ or “I beg to differ with you”
- Brush up on your leadership skills; motivate the other members of the team to speak and listen to their views. Be receptive to others’ opinions and do not be abrasive or aggressive.
- If you have a group of like-minded friends, you can have a mock group discussion where you can learn from each other through giving and receiving feedback.
Tip:- 1. Be yourself. Try not to react and get into a heated argument rather respond and give a very cogent argument
Please feel free to ask any doubt or question related to this post or otherwise.
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Thanks for the instant responses. Now onwards, I request all the readers to please copy paste the subject from the post. This is just to make the task simpler for the technical team of mbatutes.
Hi.
Can you give something CRISP, as in something which we can jot down on our pocket diary and therefore can remember easily.
Thanks
Niyati
Tell me
One thing How one can brush up his leadership skills. What I have read leader either have those skills which are necessary for organization to run or they acquire with the time the roles they play in the organization. So plz clarify me on this. Or you just wrote like this.
hy u can brush up ur leadership skills from ur friend circle also forEx. command them to do some work. see how they react on ur command. if they dont obey u dat means ur tone, convencing power, either ur words were not gud.
improve 44m here den think abut d job line
@Niyati:- Whatever I have written in the post it’s already a condensed form of an elaborate activity that becomes second nature for people by practicing over and over again. I suggest you to check out the points from the post that you feel you lack and work on those areas . Keep strengthening your strong areas. Please don’t look for something like pocket diary or something similar for GDs and PIs as they will simply add more pressure on you. Imbibe the skill set that you feel you need and just be yourself [you don't have to mug up and remember anything] during testing times. Keep your cool.
[talk to your friends or write to us describing in detail the problem you face, our team will be more than happy to help you in winning probably the most important fight of your career ]
@ Arun:- First of all mabtutes is for readers who are serious about their career [and we respect that] and when I say that… I mean we write stuff that is serious, meaningful and valuable to our reader
To answer your query about leadership skills— The source of your knowledge is very much correct. All people have leadership skills they just have to realize and hone them. At some point in time in your life in some situation you must have displayed leadership skills. What I mean in the post is by brushing up leadership skills is that you have keep reminding yourself about such incidents and how you reacted to the situation that time. Try to fit in the leadership skills that you have read in various texts in a GD scenario. Try to keep in the basic leadership qualities[that I mentioned in the post], that get highlighted and people[the selection panel] notice outrightly, at top of your mind, and try to showcase them during GD.
I you want to discuss more about leadership skills, please feel free you write to me at the email provided in the post. The leadership is a contextual term[what you have written is in context of an organization and it is absolutely correct] and there are tones of literature available about leadership. But what they check in a B-school entrance GD are some basic attributes[that I mentioned in the post] of leadership. I will be more than happy to discuss more on this.
I hope I answered both of yours’ query . Please feel free to write in case of any doubt.
Thanks.The “10 min guide to cracking GD” was very useful.Can you kindly include more articled on personal interviews..
Thanks Cathy ….
Please let us know the tentative dates for your GD PI ….
And I request all the readers to share their calls and dates so that we can write next post on stuff that will be really beneficial to our readers …
can u pls explain how we can politely but assertively put across our ideas.. can u give us some standard terms used… and how do we manage ourselves in a gd with a topic that we are anaware of…
Sir i had score 83 marks in cet written test may be i will score 25 in GD & PI . I want admission in mumbai but i dont have knowledge of colleges in mumbai so i request u to give me suggestion for selective colleges. I belong to NT-1 (NT-B) catagory.
Hi Ansh ,
Thanks a ton for sharing the views on GD.
Taks care!
can v make gestures lyk hand muvmnts while spkng…??
sir,
i did not join any class for cracking the entrance exam,but now i have got a call from an institute i wish to join.i basically want to hospital management.can you please tell me some coaching class where i can practice for gd’s as i have no prior experience to it.
Hi Ansh
Thanks for sharing the tips on GD.
it ll help us alot!!
sir,
i recently appeared for 12th board and currently preparing for bba entrance(symbiosis). I’m extremely underconfidently and cannot interact with people,no matter how much i try. I had a group discussion session at my coaching and was terrified to see my performance. I could speak only a few sentences. I’m not that fluent in english. I’ll be grateful if you could give me some tips as to how to overcome my fear and speak up in public.
Thank you
sir,
i recently appeared for 12th board and currently preparing for bba entrance(symbiosis). I’m extremely underconfident and cannot interact with people,no matter how much i try. I had a group discussion session at my coaching and was terrified to see my performance. I could speak only a few sentences. I’m not that fluent in english. I’ll be grateful if you could give me some tips as to how to overcome my fear and speak up in public.
Thank you