HRiday

Assignments Set 1
PGP 24 – Batch of 2020-22
 ASSIGNMENTS

This assignment has important situational questions which require you to quote various
instances from your life and highlight different qualities. You can choose to follow the
CAR (Context-action-result) approach. Read more on the approach at -
https://www.bluesteps.com/blog/car-interview-technique-key-landing-your-next-
executive-job (Do read the examples given in the link)

Note – Giving a thought to these questions would help you tremendously during your
1st term at IIMK, as a majority of companies demand you to answer these questions
with utmost efficiency and precision, and answers to these questions play a major role
in your placements process.

ANSWERS:

1. What were your 2 biggest learnings/takeaways from your previous job(s)? (If you have not
worked before, write about your internship.)
A: Context: My internship experience at ITR, DRDO in Chandipur was a revealing
experience. I got to learn a lot from the place as well as the work. The sprawling campus
is set in the sleepy town of Balasore far away from the humdrum of the city buzz.

Action: My two biggest learnings from the experience were related professionally to my
career and personally to my life. DRDO is one of the most advanced R&D organization in
the defence sector under Government of India. It was my privilege to be a part of such
an organization. I learnt from some of the most senior and capable scientists of the
country whose innovations and hard work keep us at bay from the dangers of our
enemy at borders. I learned about the rich base of defense technologies of India like
Brahmos, Prithvi and Trishul missiles and studied the need of electrical systems and
grounding in the launch of missiles like Agni Missile. I even coordinated with the
scientists on test launch of Agni Missile from the control rooms which was the most
satisfying and fulfilling experience.

On the personal front, I began to value my life and my being more. Away from the city
life, these scientists were toiling day in and day out to help maintain our country’s
esteem. It taught me how human beings can keep working aggressively for a big cause
without much needs. It made me look forward to life and to be able to contribute to
society in future at relevant levels.

Result: They helped me shape my perspectives about my career and my life in future.

2. Mention an incident in your life where you convinced a group of people to do a task. How
did you go about it and what were the problems and learning? What was your
contribution to the whole situation?
A: Context: This situation occurred when I was in the final year of my graduation at
NIT, Rourkela. Our laboratory classes at NIT, Rourkela were often composed of groups
each comprising 5 to 6 students. They were strictly mandatory and missing any of the
sessions, without proper intimation beforehand, meant grievous penalties towards end
of the semester. I was the only girl in my group amidst 5 boys. On one such occasion,
 several groups of one such lab decided against attending the post lunch session. They
were all enthusiastic about an evening party and wanted to miss the lab to be able to
prepare for it. As such, my team also agreed to it without informing me. They didn’t even
show up for the lab at the department. Unaware, when I reached the department, I was
surprised to find negligible attendance and more so that my lab mates didn’t turn up.

Action: As a result, I called them and was overpowered by their resistance to attend the
lab. But, I stood my ground knowing that not attending the session can have serious
consequences. Meanwhile, I talked to the professor in charge and intimated about the
event in the evening. He gracefully understood the situation and curtailed the usual 3
hours lab to an hour long session. I called my friends back and asked them to attend the
same. I also intimated the other students. The decision was accepted unanimously by all.

Result: The takeaway from the whole situation was that in event of resistance from a
team or people we often work with, it always works to understand their perspectives,
work out a solution that satisfies all the stakeholders and eventually achieve the goal at
hand.

3. What is one setback you have faced in life and how did you cope with it and emerge
victorious? What were your learnings? (Either professional or personal)
A: Context: The past two years of my life (2018-20) have been instrumental to
changing my perspective about life significantly. Right after graduation, I took the
plunge to prepare for writing UPSC Civil Services Examination in 2019. In these 2 years, I
have shuttled through various cities including Delhi, Raipur, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.
Owing to the intense nature of the preparation, I needed to cut down on my social life.
Though I cleared prelims 2019, I could not qualify mains for the interview. This is the
most recent setback.

Action: It was not an easy phase but as they say “Everything in life happens for a
reason”, I learnt the art of managing myself through all ups and downs. Being away from
home and friends and compromising on social life made me learn to draw my inner
reserves of strength to keep going. Besides, as an introvert, it was difficult for me
initially to cope with new environments and surroundings but I learnt to deal with them
as well. I made new friends, learnt to stay independently despite being not very sure
from the beginning. I believe the significant moments in life come from the most
commonplace events. Learning to handle uncertainties arising from the examination,
rushing for deadlines, and handling pressure are some of the skills I have honed.
Besides, in order to ensure that I do not fall back on my career just for an exam, I
decided to appear for CAT 2019 and GATE 2020 at very short notice. I scored decently in
both the exams and earned my way to IIMK.

Result: Besides, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, I have been more aware of the
different challenges life can unassumingly throw at us. But at the same time, I am
affirmative about the zeal of human spirit to come out of it. The bottom-line: The past 2
years of my life have influenced my way of thinking in the most beautiful ways. They
have taught me to stay positive in the intensely grim situations and look at the sunlight
instead of the shadows.
4. Give an example of a situation where you faced an ethical dilemma/ an example of a time
when you compromised on values.
A: Context: An ethical dilemma or ethical paradox is a decision-making problem
between two possible moral imperatives, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable
or preferable. The complexity arises out of the situational conflict in which obeying
would result in transgressing another.
In my personal life, I faced an ethical dilemma of protecting between protecting my
brother and lying to my mother. In one certain exam, my brother had scored really poor
marks in his exam. He was afraid of breaking the news to my mother. He was afraid of
her tantrums and above all, he had his other exams just on the next day. But somehow I
got to know about this situation of his and why he did not disclose his marks.

Action: As a result, I thought it best not to disclose to my mother as well. This is because
the heated atmosphere might affect my brother’s performance the next day. But
somehow when my mother came to know from other parents and demanded his marks,
I stepped in to save him and lied to her that they were mistaken and no such results
have come out.

Result: Though I later apologized and admitted my mistake, this is one example where I
compromised on my values of telling the truth, no matter what. In certain situations in
life, we are faced with intriguing options neither of which is easy to choose. In such
scenario, it is best to take a decision that ensures no harm in the long run of humongous
proportions.

5. A situation when you had to work with a group and co-ordinate in order to achieve
specific results within a particular amount of time.
A: Context: The most recent and significant challenge that I have faced so far was to
coordinate and work on my under graduate research project. The project was on
location, classification and detection of faults using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs).
ANN, as a concept, was entirely new to me. As a result, it was upon me, as the lead of the
team to coordinate all the developments.

Action: We started with the basics of ANN from a book, divided the reading material
amongst the three of us and got down to learn the nitty-gritty of the subject. Slowly, we
progressed through the concepts and clocked substantial improvement. Later, the coding
in MATLAB came as the second challenge. We divided the project topic again among the
three of us and took upon the three objectives individually. We learnt to code during a
similar course during that semester and completed the project in a commendable
manner.

Result: I learnt that a seemingly impossible task in the beginning, can be well handled
with appropriate action with a properly framed plan. Besides, the team members can be
extremely helpful to achieve an overtly complicated project as the quote goes:
"Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success."
6. An illustration of a time when you had a difference in opinion with the team, but you
went ahead with your decision.
A: Context: This situation occurred when I was in the final year of my graduation at NIT,
Rourkela. Our laboratory classes at NIT, Rourkela were often composed of groups each
comprising 5 to 6 students. They were strictly mandatory and missing any of the sessions,
without proper intimation beforehand, meant grievous penalties towards end of the
semester. I was the only girl in my group amidst 5 boys. On one such occasion, several
groups of one such lab decided against attending the post lunch session. They were all
enthusiastic about an evening party and wanted to miss the lab to be able to prepare for
it. As such, my team also agreed to it without informing me. They didn’t even show up for
the lab at the department. Unaware, when I reached the department, I was surprised to
find negligible attendance and more so that my lab mates didn’t turn up.

Action: As a result, I called them and was overpowered by their resistance to attend the
lab. But, I stood my ground knowing that not attending the session can have serious
consequences. Meanwhile, I talked to the professor in charge and intimated about the
event in the evening. He gracefully understood the situation and curtailed the usual 3
hours lab to an hour long session. I called my friends back and asked them to attend the
same. I also intimated the other students. The decision was accepted unanimously by all.

Result: The takeaway from the whole situation was that in event of resistance from a
team or people we often work with, it always works to understand their perspectives,
work out a solution that satisfies all the stakeholders and eventually achieve the goal at
hand.

7. A time when things didn't go according to plan. How did you improvise, and what was the
result?
A: Context: It is often said: “Life is all about how you handle Plan B.” The past two
years of my life (2018-20) have been instrumental to changing my perspective about life
significantly. Right after graduation, I took the plunge to prepare for writing UPSC Civil
Services Examination in 2019. In these 2 years, I have shuttled through various cities
including Delhi, Raipur, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar. Owing to the intense nature of the
preparation, I needed to cut down on my social life. I cleared prelims 2019 but
unfortunately could not qualify mains for the interview. This is the most recent setback.
And more traumatising was the fact that I did not have a Plan B. I was clueless for some
days about where to head as I was not in favour of dropping more years exclusively for
UPSC preparation.

Action: It was not an easy phase but as they say “Everything in life happens for a
reason”, I learnt the art of managing myself through all ups and downs. Being away from
home and friends and compromising on social life made me learn to draw my inner
reserves of strength to keep going. Besides, as an introvert, it was difficult for me
initially to cope with new environments and surroundings but I learnt to deal with them
as well. I made new friends, learnt to stay independently despite being not very sure
from the beginning. I believe the significant moments in life come from the most
commonplace events. Learning to handle uncertainties arising from the examination,
rushing for deadlines, and handling pressure are some of the skills I have honed.
 Besides, in order to ensure that I do not fall back on my career just for an exam, I
decided to appear for CAT 2019 and GATE 2020 at very short notice. I scored decently in
both the exams and earned my way to IIMK. I also cleared several the PI rounds of
several other IIMs and the elite IITs.

Result: Besides, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, I have been more aware of the
different challenges life can unassumingly throw at us. But at the same time, I am
affirmative about the zeal of human spirit to come out of it. The bottom-line: The past 2
years of my life have influenced my way of thinking in the most beautiful ways. They
have taught me to stay positive in the intensely grim situations and look at the sunlight
instead of the shadows.

8. What are you passionate about? (Talk about at least 2 hobbies)

A: Context: I have a variety of interests. I believe in doing different things every day.
Among various activities, I take interest in listening to music, playing games, watching
movies and series, reading comics. Among sports, I love playing badminton and
practicing yoga and meditation. I am a bibliophile and take interest in collecting and
reading books of various genres. Some of my favorite authors from literature include
Ruskin Bond, RK Swaminathan (Malgudi Days fame), foreign authors like Mark Twain,
Charles Dickens. Other genres that I find interesting are history, fiction, philosophy,
science and economics.

Action: Among hobbies that I passionately follow are photography, travelling by nature,
jogging and writing musings. I undertook a basic photography course online and learned
to handle a Canon DSLR 600. But on normal days, I explore mobile photography. I mostly
love to photograph nature and food. At times, I dabble with street photography as well
where I try to capture the various aspects of common life. A collection of some of the
shots can be found at www.thethinkingbird.wordpress.com.

Apart from this, I love travelling and walking by nature. I usually visit the areas which
feature nature at its best like sunrise and sunset, serene premises and love to photograph
and write about them. I believe myself to possess a thoughtful bent of mind and love to
write short musings.

9. What has been your greatest achievement to date? How did you overcome the obstacles
that you came across?
A: Context: My single biggest achievement so far has been when I got selected for
NTSE scholarship. It has been an achievement for me personally for it helped me
understand my strengths and my weaknesses.

Action: I consider it my largest achievement by far because it taught a multiple number

of skills in class eight which always come handy till now. It was a challenge back then of
its own proportions. It taught me to handle a long term goal with patience, commitment
and dedication. Besides, it helped me understand the need for consistency in whatever
we do. Every goal when broken down into smaller doable tasks on a daily basis becomes
achievable. In short, this very situation made me understand various facets of
perseverance and personal management. It also taught me discipline at a very young
age.
 Result: This also helped me to crack the first stage of civil services preliminary
examination in 2019, CAT 2019 and GATE 2020 back to back. I am also hopeful of using
these skills to my best during my course at IIMK.

10. What are your long-term goals (10-15 years)?

A: Context: Our Indian economy is the world’s fastest growing economy as per IMF
and World Bank statistics and clarion call by Hon'ble prime minister is to reach 5 trillion
by 2025. To achieve that, our industry, business and government should work in a sync
and lead it with expertise in technology, science, economy and management.

Action: Being an engineer with specific domain knowledge in electrical engineering, I

wish to hone my managerial skills with special attention to finance, sustainability and
human resource development by working with your organization. Besides, in the wake
of corona virus pandemic, our economy is in a serious need of reconstruction and uplift.
I am overly optimistic that this has to come from the industrial sector which is rising on
the charts of GDP with its contribution. In this regard, I aspire to be an active participant
in the making of the 5 trillion economy.
With that perspective in mind, my goal is to apply my learning from class, and observe
closely how organizations work. I aspire to have a steep learning curve at the start of my
career, working across different teams, and be adept to change in a fast paced working
environment. I look forward to learn from and be humbled by my peers, as I believe it is
the people who make an organization great.

Result: In the long term, I would like to work towards shaping the industry, ranging from
policies to implementation being part of a proactive team. In essence, I want to work by
delivering value both to my organization and society and be an active contributor to the
best of my satisfaction.