How many times have you seen a candidate yelling at the top of his/ her voice during a Group Discussion?

It is a sureshot way to ruin his/ her chances of getting admission to a top B-School. We feature the more common gaffes students make that could ensure a speedy exit and elimination from a GD, as well as the evaluation sheet used by panelists to judge your performance.

List of don'ts for your GD

~ Project a shabby image by wearing wrinkled clothes and unpolished shoes.

~ Start clarifying the meaning of the topic from the examiner as soon as it is announced.

~ As soon as the GD starts, jump into the fray with wrong facts and figures.

~ Sit on the fence throughout the discussion. 

It is advisable to take a stand (in favour or against the topic), as this will help you be more aggressive in the GD.

~ Never agree to anyone else's point of view. Disagreement with everyone will guarantee you more enemies.

~ Resort to negative body language; sit with your arms and legs crossed, stare at your GD members, point fingers at others, make a fist at another and sit at the edge of the chair.
 
~ Maintain a sardonic smile on your face throughout the GD. This will seem, to the examiners, that you feel superior to the other members of the group.

~ Do not let fellow candidates speak and, if someone is making a good point, interrupt him/her mid-way and put forth a completely unrelated point.

~ Use words like yaar, um, etc, at every juncture and use abbreviations and acronyms, without explaining them. This will alienate you from the group.

~ Make wisecracks, in the hope of showing off your wit.

~ Yawn or maintain a blank look on your face.

~ Give subjective opinions which are not supported by facts or figures.

~ Only listen, and never speak.

GD evaluation sheet for panelists

The weightage of evaluating parameters varies from B-School to B-School, but the general framework more or less remains the same.

We have attempted to reproduce the actual criteria used in Group Discussions to top B-Schools, which is circulated to the respective evaluators before the start of a Group Discussion.

You can download this sheet, which comprises three parts:

i. Evaluation table with parameters

ii. Rating key

iii. Instructions for panelists to help eliminate subjectivity

• Download GD evaluation sheet

Note: Even though the B-Schools try to be as objective as possible, the devil effect (whereby an evaluator gives a candidate a low score on many traits because the individual is low on one trait which is assumed to be critical) cannot be entirely overruled.

• How to score at all GD parameters

Brijesh Singh is an alumnus of Mumbai's [ Images ] Jamnalal Bajaj [ Images ] Institute of Management Studies. He writes regularly on MBA entrance preparation and MBA scenario in India [ Images ]. He is Project Head, Top Careers and You, which prepares students for competitive examinations.