50 technical topics for every CA facing IIM interviews!

Hello Everyone! Happy New Year from Team T.U.M! I assume that if you're here, congratulations on making it this far! Now that all WAT-PI shortlist calls are out, it is time to delve deep into the next phase of your preparation - the dreaded interviews!

You may have heard that CAT is an elimination process, and the real battle starts only after that. Having been through it, I cannot emphasize enough how true this is.

I would say that B-school interviews were by far the most nerve-wracking and testing ones – including job interviews after completing CA and even summer internship interviews at IIM Ahmedabad! However, in my opinion, the key to cracking the interview rests on 3 pillars – Honesty & Authenticity, Preparation, and Personality.

Personally having not aced the CAT, I didn't have too many good options before me in terms of shortlists. But, I did not give up or lose hope – Even a single call places you in the same place for that college as it does anyone else!

To that end, let me take you through my mantra for cracking and converting every interview I gave last season (IIMA, SPJIMR Marketing, XLRI, IIMK, MDI). I won't lie- since the only Holy Trinity shortlist I had was from IIM Ahmedabad, a lot of my effort was riding on me converting that call.

Simran's Interview Tips

I structured my preparation for the interview in the following main parts:

a) My academic background and technical questions therein

b) Work experience

c) Hobbies and Interests

d) Current affairs and GK

e) HR Questions

For each of these, I will take you through what I had done and try my best to help you brace yourself for what is to come. This particular article caters to the first section - Academic Background.

You must absolutely know the basics of your field of study. In fact, goofing up here means your chances have drastically reduced already! That is not to say that you cannot falter. God knows that my own interview had a bunch of “I do not know, sir” and “I am not sure, sir”

Also Read: My own interview experience for IIM Ahmedabad!

For a Chartered Accountant, this is even more dreadful since we are expected to have basic proficiency over a large list of areas – Finance, Taxation (Direct, Indirect and International) and Accounting too.

In my preparation, I made a list of topics I had seen were discussed in several interviews (Quora, Online research, etc) and everything else I picked up by talking to seniors who had trodden this path before me.

Attached is the file that I had prepared before appearing for the interview. I must say that it is in no way a conclusive and exhaustive document, it may have errors and may even be outdated! I advocate caution in relying on it entirely and using it more as a base and start for further study and preparation.

I can be reached on our Instagram handle’s DM for any queries and suggestions, linked here.

In the meantime, stay tuned for the other articles in this series 😊

From everyone at TUM, wishing you all the very best!

An MBA after CA - How, When and Why?

CA interview experiences - IIM Bangalore

Aayushi Mehta and IIM Ahmedabad