BePrepared

Consulting | ZS Associates
Tuesday, 22 January 2008

Name: Hitesh Chelawat Department: Metallurgy FINAL JOB OFFERED: ZS Associates, Pune How did you prepare your resume? Any help/material you took/read? I attended the workshop organized by Mckinsey & Co. on resume writing. It was of great help for me when I started writing my resume. I first made my resume on my own and then I looked at some of the resumes of my passed out friends. If you have any friend in Mckinsey or BCG, have a look at his resume it will help you a lot. Then I got my resume corrected and checked by my friends of my batch and some passed out seniors. It is always good to get opinion of 2-3 people on your resume. It really helps to improve. Did you attend Pre-Placement talks? Did you gain anything out of them? Did you talk to anyone else about choosing between jobs/companies? I tried to attend as many as ppt’s as possible. First thing is u get free pizza’s ? and second u get to know abt the company, their recruiting procedure, the job they are offering and the pay package. Try to attend as much ppt as possible. People who come to give ppt are very smart and they also tell you how to prepare for interviews. Any website/material you read/used for preparation of Case-Studies/HR Questions/Puzzles/Technical/GDs? (Your sending across links/documents would help us compile a single point resource) There are lots of books on case studies available in IIT on various servers. There are few websites also for puzzles, but I think a community on Orkut with the name Puzzles is the best place to practice puzzles. For interview/GD/Test preparation did you prepare in groups or individually? Which one do you think helps the most? Any details you provide will be of great help .For interviews and case studies, I believe preparing in groups is the best policy. Don’t make very big group for case studies. A group of 2, max 3 is enough. Try to do case studies with different persons, you will get different perspectives. Don’t mug up your HR answers, but thinking about and telling it to your friend will be of immense help. The Company in which you got recruited What was the procedure of selection? Roughly how many people were short listed at each level? And how many were made final offers? First there was a written test in which about 50 people got short listed. Then it was followed by a GD after which about 30 people got short listed and then a case study round after which 18 got short listed and finally one HR. They made 8 offers finally Walk us through the GDs/Interviews of this company. The questions that you were asked and other details that you may remember would be of great help. (You may not write the answers you gave)

In the written test, there were about 8 questions comprising of 4 HR questions and 4 puzzles. Puzzles were mostly logical and were easy to solve. HR questions included questions like why you want to join ZS, what are your 3 most important strengths, how will you help ZS in growing etc. It was followed by a GD where the topic was “Privatization of Government sectors- Good or Bad.” Then case study was not a typical business case study, it was more data analyzing kind of thing. Some charts and data tables were given and we were asked to come up with a model to decide how much incentive should be given to sales force. In final HR round they asked me about myself, my internship, my strengths, my weaknesses and one simple supply demand problem. If someone wants to appear for this company, what all should he/she ideally prepare? Prepare your HR well. Do some case studies. Familarise yourself with some commonly used business jargons and be confident. Other Companies in which you were shortlisted What was the procedure of selection? What all happened in your GD/Interviews? Anything you remember can be of great help. Company 1: My first company was Mckinsey. They short listed about 22 students. They had 2 rounds of interviews. I was not able to make to the second round. In the first round I had 2 interviews. In both interviews a case study was given and some HR questions were asked. In my first interview the interviewer gave me a case of a steel industry. It was like that my industry had 2 places from where I can procure my raw material and I had to decide which place is better. I did pretty well in this interview. HR questions included about my academic achievements, why not research, my experience as Mess secretary etc. You will always enjoy giving interview to a consultancy firm because this people make you very comfortable. Though it was my first interview but I was not nervous at all. In my second interview I screwed up my case. The case was about a company which is earning lots of profit and is now looking for new fronts to invest the money. I started talking about vertical integration and hor izontal integration in the same field in which company was operating. But in the end interviewer told me that he expected me too look into different new ventures like real estate etc. Though I was not short
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listed further but I enjoyed a lot my first interview. Company 2: My second interview was Mercer Oliver Wyman. I don’t know why but I was getting short listed only for consultancy firms. In this interview also there were two rounds. In first round I had 2 interviews. First interview was a typical HR interview. The interviewer asked me everything written in my resume. My internship experience, y experience in IIT, my future plans etc. Second round was a case study. My case study was very absurd. I was asked “Is it possible to find 2 dogs with similar number of hairs”. I was not expecting such case study so I got very nervous and was not able to think. But the interviewer helped me a bit. But I knew I have not done well in this interview. Finally they shot listed only 5 persons for second round and finally 1 offer was made. Company 3: My 3rd company was Inductis. I gave 4 rounds of interviews for this company. In every round they asked me a puzzle and 1-2 HR question. In my first 2 rounds I successfully did my puzzle. Most of the puzzles asked can be easily found on internet. In my third round, I was not able to do the puzzle. It was a very complicated puzzle. And in my fourth round I successfully did my puzzle. Actually these people actually don’t expect you to solve the puzzle completely in 1015 min they give you. They just want to see your thinking process. The mistake I made was that when I was not able to solve puzzle, I got nervous and didn’t said a word for 10 minutes. Your key learning from these experiences? What mistakes did you commit? I didn’t prepare for puzzles and case studies well. And I always used to get silent when I was not able to do something about the case or puzzle given to me. I think it was necessary to keep telling your thought process to the interviewer. I realize this late and in ZS I was very vocal and I finally got the job. General Tips Overall, any particular mistake that you committed during the whole process? The worst mistake I made was writing my publications in my resume. Every company asked me why you don’t want to go for higher studies and I had a difficult time explaining them that I won’t go. Any key tips for interview-day, viz. dressing, etiquette… ? Get your clothes and other stuffs like print outs of your resume a day before interviews. Try out your formal dress once before your first interview just to make sure everything is right. Have a nice sleep a night before your interview. A day’s preparation won’t help you to get through any company.

Did you apply off-campus? Where? What was the procedure? Any memories? No.

Name: Neha Gupta Department: Metallurgical Engg. And Materials Science FINAL JOB OFFERED: ZS Associates How did you prepare your resume? Any help/material you took/read? Resume preparation was not a difficult task since I knew why I did things that were in my resume. To cover everything in detail I took help of HLPQ- a set of some 218 questions. There is no need to mug up answers to these questions. It should be read just once to get an idea of questions that can come up during an interview. Did you attend Pre-Placement talks? Did you gain anything out of them? Did you talk to anyone else about choosing between jobs/companies? Yes, I attended almost all pre-placement talks. These sessions definitely give a good idea about the company, the profile they are offering and the people therein. I consulted few seniors to make a choice between companies. Any website/material you read/used for preparation of Case-Studies/HR Questions/Puzzles/Technical/GDs? (Your sending across links/documents would help us compile a single point resource) Kellog, Warton, Tuck School of Business Case Study Material HLPQ for HR Questions Be Prepared 2005, 2006 For interview/GD/Test preparation did you prepare in groups or individually? Which one do you think helps the most? Any details you provide will be of great help. I prepared in groups of 2/3. I think preparation should be done in groups, but with few members (max 4/5), so that everybody gains from it. Prepare with different groups…its because after some time , all group members start thinking in the same way and no new ideas come up. It also helps in knowing different perspectives about the same issue. The Company in which you got recruited What was the procedure of selection?\ Roughly how many people were short listed at each level? And how many were made final offers?Resume selection ?written test ?GD?Case Interview?HR Interview? Final Offers (arnd 100) (40) (15) (some 10, I think) (8) Walk us through the GDs/Interviews of this company. The questions that you were asked and other details that you may remember would be of great help. (You may not write the answers you gave) GD Topic: Should the government lay more stress on building infrastructure facilities before inviting/giving permissions to MNCs? Case Interview: A candy company wants to increase its sales, what should it do to enhance sales in three given segments and how much compensation should it offer to its sales people? Also what should be the criteria to decide
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compensation? Lot of data was given- questions regarding best ways to analyze various kinds of data manually and using excel were also asked. HR Interview: Why ZS? How can you contribute to the firm? Some mathematical puzzles and graphical questions. If someone wants to appear for this company, what all should he/she ideally prepare? Nothing much…general case study preparation will be of help. Prepare questions like - Why ZS and What skills do you have to add value to the company. Rest all was general awareness…a little knowledge about what all excel can do.

Other Companies in which you were shortlisted What was the procedure of selection? What all happened in your GD/Interviews? Anything you remember can be of great help Company 1: McKinsey and BCG - Case Interviews Had two set of interviews in both the companies. Cases are simple; hence solving/not solving them does not matter. Only the approach you take matters. Put across as many options as you can in front of the interviewer, don’t just say what you feel might be the problem. (this was the mistake I did) Company 2: Deutsche Bank – HR kind of interview Cleared the first round to go through the second round of interview. Very general questions about finance, bit of maths and about my extra curriculars. Tried taking stress interview for few minutes. Was ready to give an offer, for me finance was not the first choice. Company 3: Opera Solutions don’t know what exactly went wrong here?… 3 cases in all, 2 went well, think the second interviewer was a little unhappy. Case1: Estimate the worth of Mahindra and Mahindra Case2: What would you do to open a mall (the first of its kind) in Kota Case3: About some drug dealer importing drugs from abroad. What all problems can it face if he switches over to an Indian manufacturer. Your key learning from these experiences? What mistakes did you commit? Be proactive in interviews. Suggest all possibilities, speak relevant but more than the interviewer. Dominate the discussion. Tell him/her all directions you can think in. Be yourself during the whole process; don’t be unnecessarily humble/ polite to the recruiters.

General Tips Overall, any particular mistake that you committed during the whole process? For case interviews, I gave fewer options for a particular problem…told them only what I thought could be the problem. After getting the feedback, I guess they were looking for a person who could suggest all possible options, prioritize them and then tell them reasons for choosing/ rejecting a particular option. Any key tips for interview-day, viz. dressing, etiquette… ? Dress properly and smartly Be very confident Don’t think too much about not being able to get through the company Take your own pen and paper; keep spare copies of resume in a folder Be energetic and enthusiastic. Did you apply off-campus? Where? What was the procedure? Any memories? Yes, I did and got an offer from Deutsche Bank, India. The company had offered me during campus placements, but I had refused because I wanted to explore more options. As they had already interviewed me, a call after off campus started, did the job.

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