Pre-Placement Prep, Placement Experience, American Express, General Fundae

Pre-Placement Preparation

a. I was pretty clear on what companies I’d be targeting, hence figuring out the placement preparation goals was relatively easier.
b. My prep was majorly focussed on practising my coding skills, doing logic and
probability puzzles and learning enough about finance to be able to hold an intelligent discussion in an interview, alongside the usual practise of aptitude tests. I wasn’t really focussing on consulting firms, hence case prep was really not on my radar, which led to a rude shock during my AmEx interview.
c. Towards the beginning of November, I started working on HR questions. Having ready answers to the standard questions of HR interviews is a must and it helps if you have worked on framing answers to questions which are not the usual suspects, since, once in a while, some interviewer will ask you a slightly twisted question and having some extra ammunition comes in handy.
d. Try and find out if the companies you are targeting take GDs. If they do, form a group (with NOT your friends) and get together at least once every fortnight to practise your speaking skills. Even if your target companies don’t take GDs, form a group anyways as the practise would help you keep your thoughts collected and concise even in an environment pregnant with pressure, anticipation and urgency, something which you’ll be thankful for when one of your interview starts going south (and believe you me, it most definitely will.)

Placement Experience

a. I only had interview with P&G on Day1 and given their interviewing format that focuses solely on character traits and hence is essentially only HR interview and the fact that I wasn’t really interested in P&G, it offered me a good practise opportunity for my HR interviewing skills. Needless to say, I didn’t make the cut.
b. I interviewed with multiple companies in Day2 slot1 and didn’t even make it to the second round of interviews in any. I mention this only to impress upon you, the readers, that going into every interview with the same mindset and confidence as your very first interview is extremely important (more on this later).

American Express

AmEx interviews were scheduled in Day2 slot2. The aptitude test (no coding test) which they had conducted earlier comprised of 20 questions in 30 minutes. The questions were mostly easy, with some questions of moderate difficulty interspersed in them. Hence each incorrect answer could potentially knock you out of the shortlist. I think I got around 18 correct (just my guess, quite possibly could be wrong) and I was wait-listed for the interviews.
I wasn’t expecting to be called for interviews (rookie mistake – read up on the company even if you are waitlisted). So when I was called in for the AmEx interview, I read up on the company hoping that I’d have enough time before they called me in.
The first interview was resume based and a bit technical. After the usual ice breaker questions, the discussion turned towards the projects and internships I had listed on the resume. My third year internship was focussed on Natural Language Processing and I had mentioned the course project done in Machine Learning minor course on my resume too.
Since the profile being offered involved a fair bit of machine learning, the interviewer quickly latched on to it and the interview went from the details of my internship project to basic concepts of machine learning to some easy to moderate questions regarding machine learning techniques.
The interviewer also enquired about my proficiency with different programming languages and my experience as well as comfort while working with teams. Nothing too major league, just be sure to convince the interviewer that you are the best person ever for the job 😛
The first interview was limited to just these aspects of my resume as well as my technical proficiency and the interviewer ended the interview on a warm note, which was good indicator.
Pretty soon, I was called in for the second interview. The interviewer was, as I recall, Senior Vice President or on some similar post and was surprising chilled out person. Although the first interview was pretty relaxed and casual, the second one managed to be even more so. He started off the interview with the usual ‘tell me about yourself’, ‘why AmEx’ and pretty soon, he presented me with a case to solve.
Although it wasn’t really a core consult company level case and he made it ample clear that he just wanted to see my structure formulation and thought process, I had precious little experience approaching and solving cases. But thankfully, the chilled out interviewer had spiked up my confidence enough to start approaching the case with a logical approach. Although I myself wasn’t really happy with my proposed solution, the path I took must have been logical and coherent enough for them to offer me the position.

A common question across both interviews- why did you reject the PPO? If you are mentioning about your PPO, expect this question in almost 100% of the interviews. Prepare a good answer and tie it well with why the position for which you are interviewing offers better opportunities and doesn’t have the drawbacks you saw in the previous organization
(General rule – Don’t make it sound like the company itself was bad. As a matter of fact, as far as interviews are concerned, all my past supervisors, bosses, mentors etc had been very helpful, approachable)
Around 15-20 min after my second interview, I was informally told by the company officials that they’ll be extending me a job offer. Although I didn’t had too, I still interviewed for the companies with which I had interviews scheduled, just for the heck of it, to get the feel of interviewing without the stress or fear of getting rejected.

General Fundae

a. If you are decided on what field interests you, focus on that and don’t apply for every job profile just because everyone is. Not only will it weaken your preparation, it will either lead to unnecessary rejections or getting a more hectic schedule filled with interviews and tests you never wanted to give in the first place.
b. Don’t attend placement activities JUST for the sake of incentive points. I’m pretty sure most of you will disregard this advice (so did I ), but the initial JAF signing limit set by the PT cell is more than sufficient. You won’t miss out on any JAF because of the limit and sooner than you think, unlimited JAF signing will start.
That said, do attend events connected to your areas of interest. The alumni sometimes impart some insights that can be really helpful.
c. Try to attend the PPTs of your target companies. Usually it won’t have anything you couldn’t have gotten from their website, but they’ll give a clearer idea about the job profile being offered (and save you from some embarrassing questions during the interview) and well, sometimes, a random statistic from the PPT can come in handy during the HR interview.
d. Please try to get as clear idea about the job as possible. NEVER go in the interview without reading the job description and if possible, try to connect with the alumni working in that company. Not only does it reflect positively on you when you talk about this during the interview, some interviewers might themselves ask if you contacted the alumni already working there and coming up with a legitimate excuse then and there is harder than it seems (been in that tricky spot myself).
e. Do whatever it takes (well, not whatever it takes, but anything reasonable) to keep your spirits up during the process. Getting rejected again and again can be tough, but screwing up your future interviews because of them is just sad.
Remember, it is only your first job. So, de-stress whichever way you can, TRY and get enough sleep and don’t enter an interview room with the gloom and doom of your previous rejections obvious on your face. Believe me, it matters.
(This may sound a lot like self-help bullshit, but you’ll realize this too. Sadly though, it will be after you have been placed.)
f. This is mostly followed but just to reiterate- Be Empathetic. It is easy and frankly, expected to get lost in the joy of getting placed finally, but remember that some of your friends or batchmates or hostelmates might not be placed yet. So party as hard as you want on getting placed, because, well, you deserve it but maybe wait till December 15 before flooding everyone’s social media feeds with celebratory pics and congratulatory messages? Because if anyone understands the stress they are under, it is you.