Practice Interview Questions

Traditional Questions

1. Tell me about yourself

I am Kanika Malhotra. I am a management student studying Masters in Global Management from Royal
Roads University, Victoria, British Columbia. Prior to this I am a graduate in Computer applications and
postgraduate in Retail and Marketing Management from India.

I started my Career 6 years ago as an intern and was hired as permanent in an e-commerce organization
called Snapdeal.com for about 6 years before landing here to Canada for my Masters degree, well, the last
profile that I was working there was as a Go to Market strategy Manager where I experienced working on
different projects related to competition analysis, improve customer experience and pricing on the platform,
have worked with top management on strategic business initiatives. I also have sound knowledge about
account management and have worked closely with Finance team on evaluating the factors of revenue
generation.
In that role, a major accomplishment I’m most proud of was that I was able to reduce the time spent on
projects by developing good relationships with stakeholders’ teams and providing them a collaborative excel
models and other analytical tools that automated the working of all cross-departments.
Well, that was all about my experience. Thank you.

2. What prompted you to apply to this organization/position?

I believe that starting my career with Nestle would be a great opportunity and I feel my skills are
particularly well-suited for this position. I can learn more about the food and beverage industry which
has attracted my attention after I joined the Masters degree and learned about different marketing and
sales strategies adopted by FMCG brands.

Working in the largest food and beverage company will help me to learn more and explore opportunities
to grow myself in the industry.

Overall, due to my strong background in business analysis and account management, I’m confident I will
be able to succeed in this role you’re hiring for.

Thank you for your time to listening to my interview, I would really welcome your feedback and insight
whether positive or negative so that I can better prepare myself to potentially earn an opportunity to
work with Scotia Bank someday.

3. How would your previous supervisor/colleagues describe you?

Actually, in my most recent performance review in my last organization, my direct supervisor described
me as someone who takes initiative and doesn’t shy away from hard problems. My role involves a lot of
critical thinking and analyzing when things go wrong. They describe me as thoughtful and hard-working,
since I can always be relied on to get all the projects assigned to me delivered on time.

4. What do you consider your biggest accomplishments?

The biggest accomplishment that comes to my mind is of been recognized and appreciated by the CEO
of my last company thrice on delivering successful projects that created a positive impact on the
organizational sales.

5. What are your short- and long-term career goals?

Well, my short-term goal would be entering into the ecommerce industry of Canada and learning a set
of skills that best suits the Canadian work culture that helps me to work on my
 long term goal of developing myself as a professional within my field.

6. What do you see as your greatest strengths?

Well, my greatest strength is my ability to learn from my failures, basically it is something that motivates
me always to accomplish anything that I aim for.

7. What qualities do you look for in supervisor?

Open to ideas, approachable, transparent, able to build a culture of mutual trust and understanding,
they do not micro-manage, focuses on employee strengths and help them develop their skills to make
their position in their career.

8. How do you learn best/what is your learning style?

Well, I am a visual learner, the best way I learn is y observing what goes around me in the environment
and implement my sense of imagination to learn and recall things.

9. Tell me about your dream job.

My dream job would be something that involves creative thinking, implementation of new ideas and
extensive amount of teamwork that helps in delivering projects efficiently. I love that this job
emphasizes communication among colleagues and between management and staff. My previous job
was 50% team projects, and I am excited to continue that kind of teamwork and open communication
here. My dream job should also have a learning environment as it is very important to grow and advance
your existing skills and learn new skills.

10. What is a challenge or weakness you have dealt with in your past work?
My greatest weakness is that I sometimes focus too much on the details of a project and spend too much
time analyzing the finer points. I've been striving to improve in this area by checking in with myself at
regular intervals and giving myself a chance to re-focus on the bigger picture. That way I can still ensure
quality without getting so caught up in the details that it affects my productivity or the team's ability to
meet the deadline

11. What do you anticipate finding challenging about this job?

12. How do you deal with stress and pressure?

Pressure is very important to me. Good pressure—such as having many assignments or an upcoming
deadline—helps me to stay motivated and productive. Of course, there are times when too much pressure
can lead to stress. However, I'm very skilled at balancing multiple projects and meeting deadlines; this ability
prevents me from feeling overly stressed. For example, I once had three large projects due in the same week,
and that was a lot of pressure. However, because I created a schedule that detailed how I would break down
each project into small assignments, I managed to complete all three projects ahead of time and avoided
unnecessary stress.

13. How have your organizational skills contributed to your success/achievement?

My good planning skills and teamwork skills have helped me long way in achieving my short-term and
long-term goals and be a good decision maker and an initiator

14. What is your leadership/ style?

15. What does success look like to you/how do you measure your success?

16. Why should we hire you/what can you offer that others can’t?
 Behavioural Questions

Tell me about a time when you……

 had a conflict with a client/customer.

- Pricing of a product
- Difficult to influence him to update the pricing online
- Benefits of increased sale, competition analysis discussed
- At last, he agreed upon to update.

 worked successfully/collaboratively in a team.

Well, my previous job involved creative thinking, implementation of new ideas and extensive
amount of teamwork that helps in delivering projects efficiently. I always had worked in an
environment with communication among colleagues and between management and staff. My
previous job was 50% team projects, I have always worked in collaboration with my team and
believe teamwork is the best way of completing the tasks.

 had a difference of opinion with a supervisor/colleague.

- Project release dates after the festive season to reduce the impact on sales
- Shared my ideas why the date should be delayed, and shared insights received from
different stakeholders on the project that it might need some improvement and date must
be postponed.

 made a mistake (or had to accept constructive feedback).

Well, there were quite not many times when I made any serious mistake during my career as I
always double-triple check my data and analysis before delivering it to the top management.
There was one time when I made a small mistake as the deadline was shifted before by the CBO
of the company and I had no time to verify my analysis, I immediately mailed to the CBO and
shared the revised file by next half an hour.

 had to make good on a commitment that you wished you hadn’t made.

 took initiative.

 worked effectively under pressure/stress.

 were unable to complete a project on time.

 had to make an important (or unpopular) decision.

 had to adapt to a difficult situation.

 experienced challenges working in a team.

 surmounted a major obstacle.

 prioritized a complicated project.

Situational Questions

You have just been asked to solve a problem for a very important client, but it involves a
situation that you have never dealt with before. Your manager is not around to help.
There is no established precedent or process for dealing with this issue. What do you do?

-Discuss the problem with the client

-Try to understand the problem
-Try to analyze the situation and potential flaws of the problem.
-Try to provide a potential strategy to solve the problem and if it is still not getting resolved I would try to
collaborate with one of my teammates with whom I have worked with and may seek for some ideas or his views.
Sometimes at work we are in the position of being pulled in multiple directions at one time.
How would you cope with that situation?

In such a situation I first ensure I am easily approachable by my manager and co-workers. If

I’m working on a task that will take a while to complete and other projects or tasks come into
my check list, I try to give a heads-up to my team that I am still working on the previous one.
If my workload gets too busy, I check in with my manager about which items can drop to the
bottom of the priority list, and then I try to reset expectations about different deadlines

What would you do in a situation where you were presented with a deadline for completing a piece of work
that you felt was not do-able in the time allowed, given the volume of previous work you had already been
assigned?

If the new piece of work that just came is important and need to be done on priority, I would
check in with my manager about which items can be dropped to the bottom of the priority list,
and then I try to work on the most important task.

If you knew a co-worker was doing something you consider highly unethical, what would you do?

If someone wronged you in some way, how would you deal with the situation?

What would you do if the priorities on a major project you were working on were suddenly changed?

I would roll with the changes. I tend to work in Agile and Scrum environments. I usually find myself working for an
organization or customer. What makes a project important is the value it brings to the organization or customer.
When their priorities change, it is commonly because the value the customer wishes from the project has
changed. So, unless the changes are accepted and guide the project, it is no longer an important project.
“Out of the Box” Questions

Is telling a “white lie” ever justified for the greater good?

Do you consider yourself a reader? What is the most recent book you have been reading? What do

you wish was taught in school that isn’t?

What is one misconception people have about you? Who

are your heroes and why?

If you could wave a magic wand, what ill in the world would you solve and why? What

do you want to be remembered for at the end of your life?

What’s been your best work and what about it could you have done better? What

motivates you and what doesn’t?

Tell me in no more than 3 words what you think we do? Tell

us in 3 words what you would bring to this job?