Dearest students, An important part of preparing for placements is being able to answer personal questions about yourself and

your beliefs. In fact, this could be said to be the most critical part of your preparations, as all interviews, be it in Finance, Consulting, Marketing or any other field, always begin with a round of fit questions. Such fit questions can be used by you, if well prepared, to draw the interview into areas of your strengths, shaping your answers such as to showcase your best achievements. A well thought out story gives you the confidence to answer these questions, and set a great platform for you to then show off your capabilities for the internship on offer. Some important Dos and Donts that should be followed are: Always have a story in mind. Especially when answering general questions like introduce yourself or walk me through your resume. By story here we mean that your points should be interlinked in some way, either progressively leading to something or highlighting different scenarios where you showcased a particular set of traits. It helps to know what the required traits are in the roles that you are being offered, and then show off instances in the past where those traits have emerged. When talking about plausible. Also, your should be backed up will acquire plausibly goals and future plans, always make sure you sound destination (say where you see yourself in five years) by a) skills/traits that you already have b) Skills that you over the time period).

Please be HONEST in your portrayal of strengths and weaknesses. Especially in weaknesses, there is a tendency to hide behind clichs like, I tend to work too hard. Recruiters have also been in the same boat as you before, and can usually spot such made up weaknesses. In a question like this, they are assessing your ability to answer a question with no positive answer. It is usually a good idea to talk about a true weakness, along with steps that you have taken to recognize and overcome it. When citing instances, do not restrict yours stories to work or academics. It is highly encouraged to provide as diverse a set as possible, showcasing your learning from various sources, family, friends, extracurricular activities and sports. DO NOT make up stories, just to fill spaces. We have all lived long enough to have ample experiences for personal questions. Making up stories may put you in a hole if they ask follow up questions later!

To help you kick-start your personal preparations, we have designed the following questionnaire for you to answer.

Personal Questions Word limit for all questions between 100 and 250 words 1. Give a candid description of yourself, describing the major transition points and factors that have influenced your personal development. Give examples when necessary.

2. Mention 3 personal improvement areas for you. Identify one that you have worked upon in the last one year. Why do you feel the above area was an improvement area for you? How did you identify the improvement area? What did you do to improve yourself in this area? Do you think you have achieved your objective? What makes you think so?

3. What do you think are your major strengths? How would these help you your professional life?

4. Do you think that your academic results were a true reflection of your academic abilities? Please elaborate.

5. What do you consider to be your most significant professional / academic achievements and why?

6. Pleases describe your extracurricular interests in brief.

7. Could you share with us one experience in your recent past, wherein you were placed under a lot of stress and how you handled that situation?

8. What do you believe has been the most important decision that youve made (work-related or personal) in your life so far? What were the major factors that you took into consideration and what have been its consequences? If you look back on it now, would youve done anything different?

Professional questions 1. What are your long term ( 3 years - 5 years) and short term (1 year - 2 year) goals in life ?

2. What are the three most important values/personal motivations that guide your thoughts and actions? How would these define your career aspirations?

3. Outline briefly your reasons to choose the following as a career. (Choose those categories which you are interested in and answer.) a. Marketing

b. Finance

c. Consulting

d. General Management

e. Operations

4. Tell us about a situation wherein you influenced a team of people to implement an innovative idea.

5. Could you explain to us how were you able to handle a recent situation wherein you faced a dilemma between you ethics & integrity and achievement of crucial desired result?

6. Describe a situation when you had to accomplish an objective in an ambiguous situation. What did you do to handle the situation ? What was the outcome? Please specify 1 - 2 key learnings from the situation.

7. Describe a task/situation that you faced during your summer internship / past work experience which you consider as a complex problem. How did you approach the problem? What non-traditional options did you generate to solve the problem? What were your key learning from the situation? What would you do in case you were to handle a similar problem in future?