What is the panel looking for in a GD? And How can you excel in it..

Group discussions are used to gauge various personality traits in you. A typical GD consists anywhere from 8-12 candidates and would generally reflect a board room meeting of a company. Thus by placing you in such a scenario an institution tries to assess the capability of its future students to cope with and perform effectively in a group.

About the panel....

It typically consists of two personnel generally one from industry and one would be a faculty member. In GD’s of CET (I say this from my personal experience) they would generally be faculty members and age would not be on their side. Learning from this never try and act smart in front of them.

What do they look for...and how to excel

First things first you need not necessarily have the qualities like leadership or flexibility in you but the art is that the panellist should believe that you do have it and I will show how to do that...
Leadership skills: a very important aspect. Ultimate desire of most of the students studying in management institute is that one wants to become a successful manager and such a person should have skills of a leader.

In a GD try to give a direction to the discussion for eg: if the topic is on global meltdown start a GD by saying “Lets have a broader approach on the topic and discuss it in the following way 1. Lets UNDERSTAND the topic (define it) 2. Talk about the CAUSE 3.EFFECT’s of it 4. How to COME OUT of the meltdown.

If people are going off the track ask them to pause and make them realize what the topic is truly about (before a panellist does that)

If you are speaking well in the GD try to bring the candidates who have not spoken, into the discussion. This should be done only at the time you see that candidate wants to speak. You can say “ I think gentleman/lady here is trying to make a point so lets give him/her a try”. By saying this you will immediately gain an advantage over others.

Communication Skills: this is a core competency in a GD. Not only your speech but your body language helps in sharpening this skills.

While talking avoid using any fillers eg words as ‘LIKE, you know, i mean “ and a definite avoidance would be use of hindi words like “ matlab ki. Or ki”

Your hands can be your strength in a GD use it in accordance with your talk but never point at any1 along the GD. Never do the mistake of keeping your palms together thats a sign of nervousness.

Eye contact is a major aspect which any examiner clearly notices. Do have an eye contact with everyone and for equal amount of time. And never look at the panellist not even while summarizing or concluding.

Diversification: In a GD have wide variety of points to say, like for a topic on Social responsibility talk about Moral policing, Tax paying, Talk on a cooperate angle like e-choupal, akritis death case, NGO’s etc

Initiatives: Talk about points that helps others to add on and built on it, like if you frame and keep up the point of moral policing I bet immediately someone will come up with ramsena, next person will come up with raj thachkeray. This shows how people follow you in a scenario.

This are four basic things other things would be Assertiveness, Creativity, Flexibility etc:

Finally in an entire GD there should atleast be three places where an examiner should say WOW listening to what you have said this is wat I call the “WOW EFFECT”.

If you have any suggestions please paste a comment here.