As you take the chair in your GD & Interview...

Prithviraj Choudhury passed out of IIMC batch of 2006, from the RTV department. He won the scholarship for being the topper for the IIMC exams and subsequently went on to win the STAR TV Scholarship for the year 2006, before he passed out. By virtue of this, he joined STAR India Pvt. Ltd in 2006, first as a Promo Producer, but went on to establish himself as In-Charge of online product, content development and internet marketing in the STAR TV digital department.

After spending almost 4.5 years in STAR, he moved on to be the Senior Manager in EROS International, one of India's foremost film distribution and production companies. Here his work profile includes rolling out online marketing campaigns for the some of the biggest Hindi films, as well as product lead on several key projects from Eros Digital group.

Armed with a very keen interest in films, and totally abreast with the changing trends in media, specially in the film and TV space, Prithviraj is also has been dabbled extensively in stage- as actor, director and writer, during his graduation days in St Stephens College, Delhi and post graduation phase at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

One day, he plans to open his own restaurant serving exotic food from across the world, and write and direct his own film.

This little note is an ode to confidence and tackling a motley crew of really important looking people as you take the chair in your GD and personal interview. The IIMC doors have now opened up, once you have crossed the all essential (but fundamentally boring) entrance exams and now the real test of you as a person will come into being.

I have always found personal interviews and GDs great fun, primarily because its a direct mode of communication and expression to impress upon people that matter, on why they should give you a chance to be in their institute. Marks are bit over-rated, so an one-to-one communication is a far better judge of your worthiness as a potential candidate.

I am sure all of you are probably well versed with the general tenets of tackling interviews an GDs. Nice sounding cliched lines like: "be yourself", "make sure you have first strike in GD to set the tone", or my favourite one: sit straight, and NEVER EVER lose eye contact with the interviewer". Well, let me tell you- all of the above listed are all true (cliches by definition are stuff that is already established as true, perhaps too often than not!).

So perhaps if I can tell you a note or two on how to tackle a difficult situation in any of these interviews. What happens when your smooth-talking, well-prepped, meticulously-dressed self finds himself/herself in pickle. A tricky question, an uncomfortable silence, a stammer, stutter and a blank expression and its all downhill from there!

The first thing to remember is that you must not think of your interviewers as Greek monster, or that their single point agenda is to make you feel like scum of the earth (that only happens in reality shows auditions only!).

The IIMC interviewers in my experience and from what I have heard over the years are generally nice, who ask pertinent questions to your field and some questions to assess your personality. So the moment you get rid of any pre- conceived notions of what they might be and go there with a mind set- that this is going to be a good round of interaction- you will be far at ease at answering questions.

We are pleased to share the poster of Prithvi’s first feature film LOVE SONGS released in 2008.

Secondly, you must learn to communicate effectively and sharply. Answer your questions short and to the point- don’t go overboard with facts and figures that aren’t relevant- you aren’t being asked to be a contributor to Wikipedia, so answer what is asked. And if you don’t know an answer to a question- nothing at all- don’t go blabbering stuff without thinking.

You may think that you can muster up some facts from here and there and say something that MIGHT just sound like the answer they want, but that’s a bad ploy. The more you ramble on topics you are not sure about, the more likely it is that you will end up annoying the interviewer and bursting his blood vessel.

Of course, you walk into a TV journalism institute and you are not entirely sure why Mamtadi doesn't like cartoons of late, then we have a problem! There is nothing wrong in not knowing something and admitting it. You will be asked tricky questions- the key is not to lose your cool, not dwell too much on it or give any fodder to the other side to prodding you more on it- and quickly change the subject or move on to something different.

Thirdly: confidence is an often used word while dealing with interviews, but more often that not, its not rightly implemented. Toeing a fine line between confidence and arrogance is a difficult job. Always believe that you deserve to be there in the room- else you wouldn't have got an interview call.

Don’t be scared to express your opinion on a topic which may be in variance with what the interviewer or the panel might say. If you are confident of your view point and have solid logic backing you, go ahead and express it. That’s confidence. But thinking that yours is the only view point and not willing to listen to any other POV, that's arrogance.

So be confident... there is such thing as a healthy debate (alas, how I wish our parliamentarians would understand this!)- So be confident and speak up. Again, things might get tricky, when the interviewer may be aggressively driving their point. The best thing to do then, is hear him/her out, say what your final stance on the topic is and why, be polite and then shut up.

Lastly: one question that I always found funny is: What do you think are your weaknesses?" I mean- really- why would I point that out to you when I am interviewing for admission. On the other hand, if I don't say anything am I implying that I am perfect, and am God's gift to mankind? Well- here one needs to be clever.

The right answer is to couch your so-called weakness in somewhat diplomatic terms, balance it out by giving a reason on why your weakness is actually driving you for the betterment of the work that you do and how you so totally aware of your weakness and working on it.

For example: My weakness is that I don't take criticism too well (honest to god confession: I’m working on it!). So when I was asked the "weakness question", I looked straight and said: Sir, I do think that I take criticism very personally, and don't always react too well. I think that's fundamentally because I take a lot of pain in what I do, I do it with pride and passion, and so when something is pointed out which is negative, my reaction is to subjective. I don't want to be caught doing anything which gives others to question my work. I just want my work to be right and want others to see that. I am aware of this, and I know that constructive criticism is only for my knowledge, and I am working on this weakness of mine"... Sounds too random - well -- it works!

Look, I don't profess to know it all! I am just telling you what I have observed in my interviews in IIMC and during my professional life. During my STAR TV scholarship interview, the deceivingly smooth Vir Sanghvi asked me what I thought of a particular movement of films, given that I have a keen interest in cinema. I gave a whole lot of gyaan, making it sound erudite Mr. Sanghvi said: Really- that's lot of confident bullshit you just spewed- you are in the right field! Ironically enough, I think at that point of time, I totally believed what I said (In hindsight, My Gawd- What was I thinking!!). But they key was just that: I was passionately confident and didn't allow my interviewer to intimidate me.

So that's that... Hope it all works out well for you.

All the best...

Prithviraj Choudhury