With its surging demand for places at leading business schools, India offers an enlightening case study of how stress affects faculty members tasked with conducting intense periods of admissions interviews. Goa Institute of Management’s Padhmanabhan Vijayaraghavan , Karman Khanna and Sreerupa Sengupta elaborate on how this issue can be alleviated by business schools Feeling
the pressure
rubric provided by your institute with confidence. Wait… you entered the scores? Who have we been talking about this whole time? Globally, discussions on stress pertaining to admissions interviews have centred on the interviewee. Their focus has been on everything from anxiety relating to a perceived unfamiliarity with the interviewers and their questions to fatigue generated as a result of attending multiple interviews and handling rejections. However, a university or business school’s admissions interview process can be equally daunting and stressful for the interviewers. This is especially true in a country such as India, where management institutions receive large numbers of applications and dedicate weeks of resources and faculty members to the admissions process. While enlisting the assistance of human resource agencies for recruitment is common among corporate organisations, the practice of outsourcing admissions interviews is not prevalent in Indian academic institutions. The job is entrusted to faculty members as a non-routine, short-term administrative task, spread over a limited period of time. While this task may not always be welcomed by faculty members, it is generally considered to be one that is necessary to support institutional sustainability. Academics’ place in a critical process The ‘corporatisation’ of higher education has, as described in a Journal of the Professoriate paper by Margaret Sallee and William Tierney, extended academics’ responsibilities. Far from merely facilitating students’ learning, they are now expected to undertake wide-ranging administrative duties, including tracking student performance, reporting
I magine an MBA admissions interview It is beginning to feel like a monotonous routine and self-doubt regarding your approach is starting to set in. But a lot is at stake and you can’t give up now. So, here goes nothing. You greet the individual on the other side of the table and discover that, like you, they have a background in media and communications. A small slice of nervousness dissipates instantly. A light comment on the magic bullet media theory eases the atmosphere further. At the end of 12 minutes, you feel you have done a good job. You turn and enter the scores for the candidate in the scenario – nervousness is brimming, your heart is racing and your palms are sweating. You have prepared well but are unsure of who you will meet on the other side of the door and question if you have done enough. At the same time, the frustration is building up because you’ve been through so many interviews already.
36 | Ambition | MAY 2024
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online