Thursday, May 2, 2013

Khazanah Stage 2- Breakdown



Stage 2 is a full day assessment
It consists of a presentation, individual interview, group interview(with some critical reasoning) and critical reasoning (read and answer).

Presentation
For the presentation, for my year, the topic was "Should Facebook be banned in the workplace?" So your group will either support or go against the topic.

Reminder that while the presentation is done by the whole group, each person is assessed individually, so try to carry yourself confidently in order to stand out of the crowd. Do not be discouraged if someone suddenly comes in and steer the whole group as if he/she was the chosen one,  each person is assessed individually so don't worry about it.  If you have any opinions about the group, you can always voice it out during the group interview.  Of course, play nice and don't undermine/diminish your counterparts in the group.


Individual interview
The individual interview is a cliche scholarship interview, with questions directed to you to dig the most information out of you.

Questions range from: "tell me about yourself", "tell me about a failure and how you overcame it", "what is your proudest achievement", "what is your future vision should you work in khazanah" and other questions of similar fashion. You don't need to memorize a script but just select a few interesting points to talk about for the interview.

For more information about individual interviews, refer HERE on my posts about individual interviews.


Group interview
  
For the group interview, during my year, the panelist hands us a list of cards with two situations on each sides--in the front and back. Each person is suppose to pick a side and reason out why he or she chose it. Some questions are directed towards you about your group mates too; for example: "what do you think about XXX as a person?", "if there is a person you would like to eliminate, who should it be?", "which person is the strongest is the group" and "do you think XXX poses a threat to your advancement to the next stage?" Overall advice: play nice, get to know your group members beforehand and play each other's strengths out. Talk with confidence, play humble, highlight your strengths and don't bad mouth others in the group. 


Critical reasoning (writing based)
The last assessment was a critical reading (writing based) assessment. For my session, khazanah gave us a set of questions which was part of a survey. We were not asked to answered the survey but rather we were asked questions like: "is the survey effective or not?", "if a person answered (so and so) to question X, what is your opinion about him/her?" The questions are formulated to make you think.  Is also encourages you to speak about your personal stance/opinion about something.

So there you have it, a brief explanation of stage 2. I wish you all the best and good luck for your future endeavors.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for the article! It provided a pretty good insight as to what to expect of the selection process. The group presentation sounds quite challenging though. Did they require you to present it via PowerPoint?

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  2. It was on mahjong paper. But it wouldn't make much of a difference if it was a power point presentation. They're just accessing your general skill sets.

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  3. hi can you tell me the number of candidates that are selected in stage 2? thanks! btw your post was really hopeful!

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  4. I'm a shortlisted applicant of the YK scholarship this year and truth be told, it wasn't an easy one for Stage 1. The online assessment was so much different compared to the ones that were described on most blogs lol. The 'test' pretty much consisted of two tests revolving around numerical reasoning and a verbal test. Not that it was something ridiculously easy to do ( Heck no, lol. I even 'tembak' quite a few questions ). But it definitely shows that YK's really filtering the applicants, grabbing the best of the best. I do hope I make it to the 2nd stage which is next week. I need a scholarship so badly for medic T.T

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    1. So how it is? Do you get through it? I am planning to apply for medic too.

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