Be Expressive To Be Impressive

Shashank Rawat is of the AD/PR department of the 2011-12 batch. He is a BBA Graduate from I.P. University, Delhi and aspired to be a copywriter before entering into IIMC. He follows the theory of being a ‘jack of all trades and master of one’ and believes that learning is not just confined to books and classrooms which in turn made him into an avid traveller and student of human cultures. He has changed many avenues after leaving IIMC like copywriting, events, activations, entrepreneurship and even wedding planning. He is currently working as an Account Planner in Grey Worldwide apart from pursuing his hobbies of reading, writing, character mimicking & film making.

It’s been around 3 years when I entered the IIMC campus to give my GD / PI and coming from a non-media background it was quite natural for me to be surrounded by doubts and questions about my entrance interviews.

Questions like do I know the industry well which I am aspiring to get into, do I know much about my favourite creative writer, what if they ask me about brand taglines etc. used to continuously hover my mind like American drones.

So in order to look for these answers and look like an aspirer of the “Media industry”, I started swallowing information from websites, magazines, newspapers and what not.

My quest for absolute information and my ambition to become the advertising encyclopaedia had taken me so far that I even knew the postal addresses of advertising agencies.(yeah, that’s true)

So with my ‘Gyaan kiPotli’ inside my head I entered the G.D. room and within a few minutes the truth dawned on me.IIMC was not looking for data about advertising inside my head but my perspectives on the discussed data.

As a candidate, please remember that your point of view carries more weightage than objective data andtopics of the group discussion will revolve around issues, movements, culture & trends of people in India & around the world which will require you to put your opinions forward.

Most importantly don’t hesitate & judge your perspective before putting it on table& try not to get into an altercation with your group members (easier said than done) but into a healthy debate.

Now coming to the P.I... It can be gruesome and intimidating for some and extremely fun for others but remember whichever format you get don’t take it lightly, because no matter how you feel you will be evaluated on your reactions,responses and your behaviour.

For instance my interview started with the fact that my graduation college had serious branding problems and I should do something about it (which I couldn’t as much as I wanted it to) and then shifted to a test of my writing skills and my decision to choose advertising and changing my career.

Do take your ideas and work along with you and focus more on the granularity of your ideas and less on the style of presentation.

Also remember that nobody would mind if you run, jump, dance, sing and act as long as the interviewer can see the passion towards your work and idea. Saying that I would also you urge to not fake yourself because believe me that won’t help at all.

That would be all from my side, I wish you all the best for your interviews and GD’s, don’t overstress yourself, keep calm, #ThinkDifferent, don’t hesitate & #JustDoIt