Interview Preparation: Justifying a gap year | Personal Interviews

Interview preparation can get quite intimidating when the B-school aspirants start thinking about questions that can throw them off balance. This is an important place to be in, as preparing answers for the questions is not just about getting to impress the interview panel or aiming for a seat at a prestigious IIM (or any other B-school for that matter; you can check out our classification of B-schools, here), but also about getting to know oneself in more detail in the process of introspection and arriving at a convincing answer.

There are some questions that can scare the bejesus out of a potential interviewee. Merely thinking about the possibility that these adverse questions can be thrown at them during an actual interview should make the MBA aspirants gear themselves up for any possible question during their interview preparation.

Here is one such question – “Why did you take a gap year?” Let us explore in some detail as to how best an aspirant can try to provide a decently convincing answer to this question.

As always, first things first!

This is NOT a preamble of sorts to nudge you towards taking a gap year. For CAT preparation, taking a gap year is not worth it, for more reasons than one. No gap is always better than a gap year.

We are not advising you to take a gap year and then asking you to find ways to justify it during your interviews. By no means is that the intended goal.

There are two brief pointers that I feel need to be given out as the guiding light before we jump on and go deeper into the idea of justifying a gap year, as you go on with your interview preparation.

1. If you have a job, hang on to it as much as possible. Do not quit for the sake of CAT preparation.
2. If you do not have a job, look for one. ACTIVELY.

Why is this ‘hang-on-to-slash-find-a-job’ slogan important?

When it comes to CAT preparation, having a job helps in two different aspects.

1. You have talking points from your work experience that can steer your interview to some extent.
2. Your preparation journey is that bit refreshing and you feel a bit relaxed.

The other downsides of not having a job

CAT preparation is more of a marathon than a sprint. You simply cannot aim to spend 50 to 60 hours a week for 8 months at a stretch. The process is simply not worth your while, and you are more likely to crash and burn midway during the preparation regime.

All it requires is 15 to 20 hours of preparation a week (for a detailed plan starting March, head here). And if you do not have a job with only this much time, there is a decent chance that you are going to drive yourself mad and crazy.

Now, on to the actual part – Justifying a gap year

There are quite a few relevant and compelling reasons for which a gap year would have been absolutely necessary. Your interview preparation should involve structuring the most meaningful story around that REAL reason.

Some of these reasons are:

1. You were preparing for the UPSC Civil Services Examination
2. A medical condition you have had made it plainly impossible for you to work
3. You lost your job because of the pandemic or other external factors

Reason #1

This is blatantly straightforward. It is understandable that you cannot work 50 to 60 hours a week, and then devote time for serious UPSC examination preparation. It could be a 12-month or an 18-month break, but that is still alright, if you can give a good explanation around why you wanted do that, and what made you decide you will switch to an MBA. You might want to prepare yourself for questions along these lines during your interview preparation.

Reason #2

This, again, is self-explanatory. Just articulate it well and establish that you were not idle the whole time. You are good to go.

Reason #3

Now, the reason we are talking about here begs some pondering. Losing a job is different from quitting a job or not getting a job. Firstly, be clear with that distinction. Losing a job happens when the company you are part of decides to cut the workforce and downsize, maybe due to the pandemic or because of other reasons. Quitting a job is you deciding to move out for your own reasons, whatever they might be.

The pandemic just adds to it

It is very much possible that you had a great job role, and your company was doing well. COVID-19 did create an unexpected new paradigm, and if you were one of the victims of the changes in the job market, communicate that clearly. When you do that, make sure to not be apologetic about losing your job.

However, you might again want to justify that by establishing that you have not been whiling away your time just preparing for CAT after you lost your job. Your interview preparation should also involve a bit of emphasis in letting the interviewers know that you have been doing something, searching for a job and preparing for CAT. In essence, the job loss has not made your life mundane or unproductive, AND you will end up working at another workplace if your MBA interviews do not go in good stead.

Up next – the dicey territory!

You decided to quit your job because you wanted to prepare for CAT. OR, you did not even bother finding one for the same reason as mentioned in the previous statement. Now, this is dicey territory, because there are several thousand candidates who decide to work and still go on to prepare for CAT. And, quite a few of them end up making it to the final hurdle – the personal interviews – before they stamp foot on the B-schools of their choice. Why would an interviewer bother to pick you over someone who can manage a job along with their preparation?

So, your answer to this might require a lot of clarity when you are in your interview preparation phase.

The three pillars of justification

There are three pillars (taking a cue from the Budget presentation, ahem!) on which this answer should hinge upon.

1. Communicating that taking a break year was a conscious decision.
2. You were not wasting your time with just CAT preparation, doing nothing else.
3. The overall career plan you have imagined for yourself and how an MBA and the things you have done thus far – including the gap year – add up towards that goal.

Inform the interview panel that you have been skilling yourself through certifications and online courses. Make it crystal clear that you did not have time to waste at all.

The don’ts

Obviously, you do not want to state something like, “I have always been an average/poor student. I felt like I will not be able to prepare for CAT with a full-time job. Hence, I decided to focus ONLY on CAT preparation and my interview preparation post-CAT.” By now, it should dawn upon you that this answer is submissive and reflects poorly on your persona.

Also, do not overcook this. Do not go overboard by saying you have been doing a bazillion things; a job supersedes anything subjectively meaninful in your personal opinion. Never get into the gyan zone and preach things like, “Jobs are just a drag on my time towards a fulfilling life”.

To reiterate

There are some compelling, unavoidable reasons because of which you could not have been working in a job. If that is the case, state that clearly. Be upfront to the panelists.

If preparing for CAT is/was the only reason you have/had decided to quite your job or not seek one, be equally honest without being philosophically ruminating about the trivialities of a job and how it adds up to your life.

Last but not the least, do not take a gap year as much as possible.

Oh, and one more! Just one last thing

We do have an itnerview experience series going on on our blog. Do check it out, here.

Stay safe and best wishes for WAT, GD and PI.

Rajesh Balasubramanian takes the CAT every year and is a 4-time CAT 100 percentiler. He likes few things more than teaching Math and insists to this day that he is a better teacher than exam-taker.