Interviews are considered as the best ways to evaluate your personality, approach, attitude, behavior, and of course your domain knowledge. There are several methods using which an interviewer conducts interviews, with group interviews being one of the most preferred methods. In this session, there are several candidates, approximately 6 to 7, that are desirous of getting a position for a similar role in a similar company. There are several activities that could happen at your group interview sessions, which are listed hereunder.
What Happens In A Group Interview?
With several candidates sitting around a table, engage themselves into four kinds of activities, which are:
- Discussion of Case Studies: A single case study would be assigned to the group and every group member would be required to solve it and draw out requisite inferences.
- Common Interview Questions: A group interview would always consist of several common interview questions, such as:
- What are your strengths?
- How do you manage your time?
- How do you prioritize between different tasks?
- What motivates you to work?
- Describe yourself in a single word?
- Engaging in Group Tasks: In this activity, you will be given a physical task to perform, such as block building, puzzles, crosswords, etc. Through this, an interviewer wants to know how well can you work in a team and what is your level of collaboration.
- Playing a Real Corporate Situation: In this activity, you will be given a real-life situation, a business problem. For example, you all are present in the store of a company at different positions and you suddenly see a few customers who are extremely dissatisfied with the company’s products. How will you handle such a situation, write the script and enact it? These activities help an interviewer to understand your approach to problem-solving.
- Giving Group Presentations: In this activity, an interviewer would give you a situation, which needs to be presented using graphs, pie charts, and other statistics presentation tools. For example, present the financial data of the company to the investors and encourage them to invest in our company during the seed funding round.
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Tips To Ace Your Group Interview
Group interviews are more typical and more intimidating than normal individual interviews. This is because you are in a race, that is run around a round table. This leads to a higher level of mental pressure and fear of failure prompts you to commit mistakes. Thus, it is always necessary to read the below-mentioned tips and deliver a stellar performance:
Not Debate, Its A Discussion
Group interviews are not war rooms or debate competitions wherein you need to get approval for your views. These are discussions, on various topics and situations that your interviewer will put forward in front of you. As the best tip, just understand the situation, and place your views. Be appreciative enough to accept the other person’s point of view and at the same time be ready to defend your own proposition.
Pressure Of Beginning First
In group interviews, you will be presented with a situation where all the members will be sitting around a round table. It is true that if you will begin first, then you will get higher marks/scores and would leave a better impression. But in this race, quality matters a lot. You will certainly lose out a lot more if you put forward a debatable or negative opinion, and it correctly gets pointed out by another group member. In such a scenario, the advantage of starting first will obviously vanish, and from now on, you have to perform really well to make it through. Hence, a candidate must begin only if the given situation has already been prepared by him during mocks sessions or during his preparatory days.
Prevent Yourself From Inferiority Complex
We live in a competitive society. The psychological aspect of getting ahead of another person is so ingrained in our minds that it could lead to severe depression, anxiety, and misery. It’s not only you, but an inferiority complex is present in every human being. You are one down, and I am one up, it is a sweet line and gives unmeasurable pleasure to human minds. However, this is not always the case.
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In group interviews, there will certainly be situations when you will neither be able to defend your views nor be able to criticize any others. This might give you a feeling that you are out of the game, and will certainly impact your performance. However, we recommend that you maintain your focus because what you think is not true. Just yelling anything, or arguing unnecessarily just doesn’t make sense in group interviews. In such situations, it is rather better to remain quiet, and actively listen to everything and be a part of the group proceedings.
Be Patient
Take it as a mantra, just never rush in a group interview. You are always requested to maintain utmost patience during these sessions and just wait for the perfect time at which you will speak and would share your own viewpoint with the other group members. If you will actively listen to everyone and would understand the situation comprehensively, you will surely get relevant ideas.
The Other Candidates Are Not Your Foes
If you are going for your group interview with a mindset that, all the other candidates or group members are your enemies and are there to grab your job position then I am afraid you will lose the battle. This is because, with such a mindset you will not be able to respect the good points, observations, and views of your other team members, which is a necessary trait observed during group interviews. Hence, you ought to respect the views of your group members and ideally add something of value to their proposition.
Prepare Your Domain Areas
Whether it is an interview session conducted in a group or individually, you will certainly be asked a few core questions that would test your domain knowledge. Ultimately, you have to work for your organization in your domain, and hence you can expect a number of case studies that relate to your domain. Thus, always revise your college notes and try to convert them into an abridged version for easy revision at the last moment.
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Always Prepare For Common Interview Questions
A group interview will always comprise questions that are general in nature and are asked in almost all the interview sessions. The primary purpose of these interview questions is to assess the personality and behavior of a candidate in addition to his body language. By having a go at all the common questions, you will certainly be more confident at your interview venue.
References
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SEATEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=How+to+Stand+Out+in+Your+Group+Interview+-+All+You+Want+to+Know+in+2021+–+1000+words&ots=B2siYW6WDw&sig=9MJ-GST43lhrJg_aE4Suk2veoyg
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LrQlEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=How+to+Stand+Out+in+Your+Group+Interview+-+All+You+Want+to+Know+in+2021+–+1000+words&ots=fHT4CsozNs&sig=Uwhk9uehP8NNST3yVgkBIQfhmu4
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Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
I am a full-time professional blogger, a digital marketer, and a trainer. I love anything related to the Web, and I try to learn new technologies every day.
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