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What you must do after CAT 2013

You can perhaps use the time ahead to learn a new skill or prepare yourself for the upcoming Group Discussion and Personal Interview rounds.

Now that the Common Admission Test is over… what next?

After the mad prep for CAT and those long nights suddenly there is a vacuum to fill.

How can you make the "best" use of that time and energy?

Here are a few things I can think of. Pick your poison!

1. If you have a job, you can do the following:

a. Get back to work with same enthusiasm as your CAT preparation and do a darn good job of it. For the heck of it, try to be the best in your team just to show that you can.

b. Learn some business concepts and get a head start to your MBA. How about some basic marketing, finance may be?

c. Understand how those business concepts apply for your company -- what the positioning of your company, what is its core value proposition, product or service lines, key executives, who are the key clients, key competitors, barriers to entry etc.

d. While you are at it can you first hand explore what the post MBA job scene may look like so you can target better -- within your company itself explore roles that look interesting, what are the responsibilities of those roles, what skills are needed to be successful in those roles, who are the key folks that you can track as role models etc?

2. If you don't have a job (considering, you never took one or quit in preparation for CAT)

a. How about NOT going back to the same industry where you were but exploring afresh? You can treat this as a second chance in your career life. Analytics looks hot, how about opting for non-traditional industries like real estate, education which seem to be booming?

b. Since you got your studying habits back, how about a short term three to four month course on a skill that may help you land a job in a different industry just in case you don't make it this year?

In either case, preparing for GDPI is a smart idea anyway.

There are at least four to five questions that are bound to come up (in some form or the other) that you can be prepared for:

1. Tell me something about yourself / introduce yourself

2. Why MBA?

3. What does your company do?

4. What is your role?

5. What is your future plan?

While the questions look simple and innocuous, the answers to some of these could make or mar your entire GDPI.

Think about how you want to answer them, write it down and practice so that you can deliver under the stressful high stakes situation.

Good luck… and if you have more ideas, please feel free to share them in the messageboard below.