A Group Discussion also says GD is a methodology used by an organization to measure whether the candidate has certain Personality Qualities and skills that it desires in its members. In this methodology, the group of candidates is given a topic or a situation, given a few minutes to think about the same, and then asked to discuss it among themselves for 10-15 minutes.
Some of the personality traits the GD is trying to judge include:
1) Ability to think on ones feet
2) Ability to work in a team
3) Communication skills
4) Creativity
5) Assertiveness
6) Flexibility
7) Leadership skills
8) Flexibility
9) Reasoning ability
Why GDs:
The reason of conducting Group Discussion is that after testing your technical and conceptual skills is to get to know you as a person and gauge how well you will fit in their institute or organization. The
Group Discussion tests how you function as a part of a team. As a manager, you will always be working in teams, as a leader or as a member. So, how you interact in a team becomes an important reason for your selection. Managers have to work in a team and get best results out of teamwork. That is the reason why management institutes include GD as a component of the selection procedure.
Company's Perspective:
Companies conduct
Group Discussion after the written test so as to check on your interactive skills and how good you are at communicating with other people. It is to check participate and contribute in a group, how you behave, how much importance do you give to the group objective as well as your own, how open-minded are you in accepting views contrary to your own and how well do you listen to viewpoints of others. The aspects which make up a GD are conformation to norms, verbal communication, decision-making ability, non-verbal behavior and cooperation. You should try to be as true as possible to these aspects.
