The actual test starts for an MBA/BBA student not while they are finishing assignments and preparing for the graduation tests but when they have to face the placement interview questions. Those few minutes of interaction could land them a plush job, a lucrative summer internship, or a chance to join their dream company. And it is surely a scary time! The nerves will calm down eventually and you will get the hang of the process and the questions soon but do remember to keep a calm face and answer the questions with utmost confidence. 

Staying alert, aware and avoiding any mistakes will finally get the dream going for which you had been waiting since joining the business school. Use the following tips to make the experience more valuable.

  • Requirements

There are usually two main parts to take care while preparing for your campus placements, first being your knowledge of the subject and second being your soft skills. Keep this in mind that these two basic skills of soft skills and course skills do not stand alone. Both need a proper mixture of various ingredients to help you function to the best of your abilities and thus finding you that dream job in an interview which you will remember for times to come. TKWs Institute of Banking and Finance (TKWsIBF) ensures that both these areas of your personality are honed to perfection before you hit these scary interviews.

  • Soft skills

These make you stand out from the crowd and enhance the impact you put on the interviewer in the first few seconds that continues with proper grooming all through the interview. It will not only help you during the interview but also later on with your professional and personal life by turning you into a better person. Students at our Institute get trainings on soft skills from industry experts which is topped by corporate interactions through projects in every semester that propels them to interview industry professionals that helps them understand how they should behave and talk during their interview along with providing them with industry insights. Interview times are nervous times but do refrain from chewing pencil or snapping your fingers and try to be calm and casual while not being overconfident.

Being truthful, humble and honest while not being aggressive, is a trait that one must practice to perfection. Ensure that your body language and formal dress present the right message and project you as a person with knowledge and confidence in your abilities.

  • Resume building

We also help the student to craft the resume in an intensive workshop towards the end of the last semester to ensure that it is built for the kill and you are prepared in advance for any of the likely interview questions. The resume should have clear bold headlines that highlight your academic achievements and bring out your extracurricular activities. We encourage our students to craft their resume in their own format based on their experiences and then teach them how to build the perfect resume with to-the-point items and important things in bold. The best resumes have a crisp introduction and a short format preferably not longer than two pages. At TKWsIBF, we also work on resumes that might be too lengthy and might be mentioning extracurriculars or other activities in a non-impactful manner. Your resume is the window to present yourself succinctly and should leave an impact on the interviewer.

  • Mock interviews

Preparing for the common interview questions is undertaken in conjunction with activities that will improve your personality in regular professional banking communication classes. One should not only be prepared for talking about themselves in the interview but for any questions related to your personality and the job for which you are being interviewed. Practise makes perfect and we provide many mock interviews to our students to help them get over their anxieties and perform better in the real interview. After these sessions, we have a discussion with the students to make them understand what they did wrong and how they may improve. 

  • Group discussions

Mock interviews and their following discussions also prepare the students at TKWsIBF to prepare for group discussions and basic grooming tips like haircuts and parlor visits before the interview and some of the basic do’s and don’ts that help our students stand out from the rest. We organize a 3-day leadership summit in association with Rocksport Experiential to provide our students with real lessons on survival and decision making. These skills will not only help them during the interview but in the long-term, throughout their life. 

These activities are bolstered with interactions of the best-performing students to get the chance to meet up professionals from countries like Singapore, Malaysia, HongKong, etc. on the ASEAN banking tours. The students also get the experience of a lifetime by hosting an annual banker’s meet which is attended by many of the top professionals and CEOs from the Banking and Financial Services sectors.

  • Concept building

This next stage of preparation is mostly to do with how well you have prepared your topic of choice. This part is mostly dedicated to your marks in the final examinations, the kind of research activities you have participated and your other accolades and achievements during your time at TKWsIBF. We help our students become international bankers by focusing especially on subjects like international trade finance, business banking, Forex & currency derivatives, etc. that help you understand the topic better. 

Further discussions with the faculty can clear any and all doubts and give you a good platform to apply your newly gained knowledge. The institute ensures these concepts are ingrained into our students’ minds to such an extent that as soon as they graduate they become rockets to their own success and we may feel proud of them. Our students attend special classes for IBPS and government mock examinations to help them prepare for the real exam and to qualify through the employment process.

  • Company-specific preparations

After the first few semesters of your study in various subjects, you must have by now a good understanding of the subjects like Consumer behavior, market communication, strategic marketing, etc. The interview is the space provided to showcase those skills you have absorbed. Do ensure that you revise your concepts before your interview and think of suitable ways to apply them in the real world scenario. You can make short case studies to help present the concept to your interviewer. And learn about the tools and the trends of your trade by discussing with industry experts that TKWsIBF provides through experiential learning techniques that focus on industry aligned professional skills rather than only through books.

  • Know your company

Before you reach the real interview we ensure that you know about the company and its products, the markets they target and operate in, their competitors, their pain areas, etc. If you go this extra mile to learn about the company in advance it will help you answer the questions better during the interview. This preparation requires not just knowledge gained via sitting in a classroom or auditorium but by attending product launches, reading and discussing interesting case studies with your peers or with the faculty, latest advertisement campaigns, and their impacts. 

It can also help to know about your interviewer in advance by looking them on social media like LinkedIn and if you have any seniors or friends already working in that company, it is a good idea to speak to them and take their advice to tackle the interview. TKWsIBF students are asked to participate annually in a trading competition set up just like the real market using Rs 15,00,000 of virtual currency that helps develop their financial acumen even further.

  • Stay updated and ready

Reading at least one newspaper a day is a habit that should be inculcated by every student to stay up to date. It need not happen at home or at the library but with online newspapers, one can read them while traveling and save time and utilize it better. A further impetus to this daily dose of knowledge could be gained by following blogs or websites that are focussed on the market. TKWsIBF faculty can help you follow some of these blogs and websites and we have also created a space to learn the latest news and happenings in the financial markets and to stay updated about the business domain through a special subject introduced in the curriculum called ‘Economic Times’. This helps you answer any and all sudden questions in the interview about any of the latest happenings and trends. Workshops by industry and corporate experts are organized every year to help more interactions between the experts and the students that help to pivot the scale of choice of the interviewer in their direction.

Authored By:

Corporate Relations Department

TKWs Institute of Banking and Finance