Category: Semi-Core

Vibha Talwar

Sectors to Target, Resume, Placement Preparation, Experience

There are certain bullet points which you have to keep in mind during placements:

  1. This is not only your knowledge test, but a test of your overall skills, be it academic, be it personality wise, be it your emotional skills, so you need to be mentally and emotionally strong as well, if you’re, half of your job is done.
  2. Yes, you need to work. No matter how good you are, without hard work, it’s difficult to survive and get something positive
  3. I’d like to correct the hard work and would say you need to do smart work as in less time, you’re going to do much more.
  4. You need to be aware of the things, e.g. some people won’t know that there is a
    placement group across all IITs where certainly you get to know about tests happening and it’s content as well, sometimes. Constantly be in touch with your immediate seniors.
    Have good friends to prepare with. You need not have a fixed group.
  5. “GIVE UP” should not be in your dictionary for this complete while.

Sectors to Target?

I decided to go for finance and consulting. But somehow basic analytics which does not include machine learning, NLP, etc. is covered in the preparation for above. I was midway being distracted by the coding profiles as well, as I have the interest in coding as well but that should not be the case. Prepare well for the chosen ones and if you want to, you may go for at most 3 fields. This is what was suggested to me by my seniors and I would say if you follow the timeline provided, you would have sufficient time to prepare for 3 profiles efficiently and easily.

Start Preparing, but When?

There’s no fixed time. You’d be provided certain ideal timelines to prepare by your seniors. Honestly, I was curious during my summers only and I just saw what all was there in timeline but I never followed it. I was far behind it. I’d say if you follow that, you’ll have more time to do things and you’ll be less panicking and will be ready with more content for sure. So try and follow it. Do start collecting material in summers.

Resume

YES it is very important. Start in you summers itself. It’s the thing one is going to have look just for less that 30 second and you have to make a good impression to the person who is shortlisting. Just put in the things you did with numbers, this is the most important tip. Your resume should be impactful. When you’re getting it reviewed by seniors, do multiple sessions of reviewing but make sure you listen to all but follow upon which looks genuine and correct according to you, as you can not act upon everyone’s advice. I made 2 resumes- one for consult which included more of leadership qualities and one for finance which included some tech and coding. Totally depends upon you. But some people waste a lot of time on making resume.
Don’t do that. Start as soon as possible, get it reviewed and make changes. Repeat the process for 5-6 times. That’s more than enough. Don’t bluff with the resume because you have to submit proofs and checking is definitely stricter.

Placement Preparation

First, go and check out on previous year blog, who all are the people being shortlisted in the companies you are aiming at. Talk to them. You really need to talk to them. Ask them about the test first and then further if shortlisted. Tests and all will start from October end, it depends upon PT cell.
For tests, you can look at:

  1. Ask seniors about test patterns
  2. Check Inter IIT placement groups for the previous years as well
  3. Your friends in other IIT
    After seeing this, you’ll have a rough idea what to prepare in apti. Pariksha seemed easy to me as compared to some company’s tests, where apti was not that much required. You need speed, accuracy. Pariksha tests will help you definitely and do a bit high level as well. E.g. Mastercard test was at higher end in difficulty.
    Do puzzles from brainstellar. Puzzles are ASKED in test as well, like FinMechanics, JPMC.
    Probability puzzles are must. Practice as much as you can.
    Do everything daily in a time frame. Start watching victor cheng videos.
    For finance, I did nothing as such, except doing some institute coding challenges and reading the book- Day one.

my first shortlist was Nomura Consulting, which gave me a lot of confidence. Honestly, I did not expect but anyhow this was a golden opportunity for me as I was interested in consulting. Everyone was being shortlisted and I was seeing many many repeated names and wasn’t finding mine. I was hardly shortlisted for 7-8 companies who were visiting the campus till Day 3 Slot 1. That might seem good number to many but NO, it wasn’t. As 3-4 had selected everyone who filled JAF and their first round was GD. Proper shortlisting if I say, was just for 3 companies I think, Nomura, SAP labs, ABInBev. I wasn’t shortlisted for any of the Day 1 company and thus had no
interviews on Day 1. This worried me for sure, seeing everyone getting placed and here I am sitting preparing and not at all sure what is going to happen. In day 2 slot 1, I had one shortlisted company- Nomura and 2 GDs- Exxon Mobil and Alvarez and Marsall. I never never expected I would clear GD rounds and to my amusement, I did for both the companies.

Placement Experience

  1. Nomura- They’re very unconventional people. Like more of jolly nature people.
    Interactive ones. First round- I was being questioned from resume only, e.g. they
    combined things and asked me, blockchain technology in supply chain, being a
    consultant what do you think? How can it be used. Rest they asked me to walk through my resume. Some HR questions, why I did this or that? Rapid fire, like leadership or team member? Questions like these. Then there was a case, client is an IAS officer, Narendra modi asks him to promote Hindi as a language, being a consultant help your client suggesting ways how would it be done. Then a guesstimate, number of traffic signals in a city, let’s say Delhi. Second round was a little bad one as they already had their selection before interviewing me and this does happen in interviews, so make sure you’re okay with it and do well. Second round, they were not much active and certain questions were from resume only, like explaining what I did in internships, why Nomura, one guesstimate- number of people wearing optical glasses.
  2. Alvarez & Marsall– GD topic- Impact of electric vehicles on economy. First round- walk me through resume. One guesstimate- market size of small packed fruit juices. Second round- walk me through resume. One market entry case- entry of a school in new place. Standard format. They look upon how much diversity is being included in your case being solved, parameters which have to be checked upon.
  3. Exxon Mobil– GD topic- something related to knowledge or values. I don’t remember exactly. Only one round- Resume. Toughest walk me through resume it was. They asked everything from resume. I would not say it was technical. It was more of things you should know from your resume and the current position of it too, e,g, I mentioned about cement industry in my resume and they asked me about the prices of it and I knew it has decreased but the reason why it happened and the current status of it, they did look for it as well. How much the person is up to date and how much genuinely the person is into things which he or she did in internships majorly and somewhat POR (not that focussed). I was asked about PLC as it was mentioned in my resume, so they majorly question you around your resume only. They would also try to build pressure certainly by forcing you to go for other field but you should have all HR questions prepared to answer them well. (know little bit about company) See, what happens, happens for good and it happened in my case. Profile being offered by Exxon Mobil really interests me and it’s a perfect mix of chemical with management. So, not having much shortlists or having many doesn’t depict your status of placements.

Probably, this was not detailed as I have not included HR prep, GD prep and Resume prep things. This should be a focus to a great extent as per my view. For more prep tips, do contact me and I would be more than happy to help.
At the end, it’s one of the amazing experiences and the most learning one as well in the institute. So, don’t get burdened by it, instead stay calm and keep working. 🙂

Ritesh Burde

Profile at a Glance

  • Inter-IIT Cricket team 2017
  • Internships at
    • Hokkaido University, Japan (STSI program)
    • Bombay Stock Exchange (Research Analyst)
    • Cogoport Pvt. Ltd (Business Development)
  • Position of responsibilities
    • Institute Student Mentor- ISMP and Department Academic Mentor-DAMP
    • General Secretary- Civil Engineering Association
    • Food and Beverages Manager- Aakaar, Civil Engineering Fest

I was shortlisted for Vedanta Oil and Gas (Cairn India) on day 1. They usually hire people for 3 profiles which are people from Earth Sciences and App Geophysics (not sure about the profile), Operations profile for Chemical, Petroleum Engineer profile for Civil and Mechanical.

Placement Experience

Technical Test-
The test was conducted by Cairn India one day before Day 1. Most of the questions in the test were technical but not related to Civil Engineering as the test for petroleum engineer profile and operations profile was the same. CPI cut-off of 8 was imposed to come out with a shortlist for the test. Being a joint paper for Chemical, Mechanical and Civil; questions were mainly from topics like Electricity and magnetism, Chemical compounds, some aptitude questions basically JEE questions.
Group Discussion-
All the students who appeared for the test had been called for Group discussion round. All the shortlisted Civil Engineering students were made to sit in a single group for the GD process which made it clear that they wanted to select at least 1 person having Civil Engineering background. Our topic for the discussion was ‘Is Management Art or Science.’ People who had put in genuine points and had good conversational skills were sought for.
Interview-
Shortlist for the interviews were out by taking into consideration both the GD and Technical test. I personally think more emphasis was given for Group Discussion. Interviews consisted of 2 rounds namely technical and HR but both the interviews for me were mostly HR
Interview Round-1
The Interviewers were testing me on real-life situations that I would face in the organisation and asking me to cite an example if I have faced such situations in my life. Although the people taking the interview did not seem to be from HR but they knew I wouldn’t have much knowledge about the petroleum industry and maybe that is why technical questions weren’t asked.
Questions like

  1. If you are hired as a PE Engineer you would be in a team who would have greater knowledge than you about the petroleum industry, so how would you cope up with it and cite an example wherein you have thrived in such a situation?
  2. Also, one more example being a PE engineer you would at times have to handle people or say labourers who wouldn’t have much experience into the job. So how would you work with such a group?
    This round lasted for about 40 minutes.

Interview Round-2
Coming into the second interview which was HR round, I think the company had almost had their selections. There was a panel of 4 people out of which 2 were the same from my previous interview while 2 were from HR. Questions were mainly focussed as to know me better as a person and about my family background. But the main thing which I noticed is that they were grilling me through each question and negating each and every answer. Typical questions like who is your idol, what is your family background, why don’t you opt for civil services were asked. This round lasted for about 15 minutes.

General Fundae

  1. Start preparing for aptitude and resume as early as possible (Have these things in mind right from your 3rd year Summers.) These two are the most important things which would help your name be in most of the shortlists.
  2. Don’t get sad and reduce your efforts if you do not see your name in the shortlist released by the companies. Remember Vedanta Oil and Gas came on 31st December to take their test.
  3. Have a group of friends who are utmost serious about their placements. Remember having a good group of friends (not necessarily wing mates) is an important factor. Plan well ahead of time by forming case groups even if you are not shortlisted into day 1 consult firms because many other companies do take case interviews too.
  4. Lastly, have a friend (preferably who hasn’t registered for placements) with you all the time during your interviews just in case if there is any need.

Arundhoti Nayak

PrePlacement Preparation, Procter n Gamble, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, General Fundae

Profile at a Glance

  • A bit about my background I have been involved in IIT Bombay Racing for past three years which makes electric race car which we take into the competition in Silverstone, UK.
  • 2nd year (Junior Design Engineer): Battery and battery management System
  • 3rd year (Design Engineer): Data Acquisition & Controller Area Network
  • 4th year (Core team member): Chief Operations
  • 3rd year summer internship at Monash University, worked on energy consumption for the production of H2/Cl2 in electro dialysis cell.

Pre-Placement Preparation

  • Practiced aptitude daily from Indiabix
  • Placement Aptitude Test (pariksha.com), from here I got to know what are my weak topics and practiced accordingly.
  • Core preparation from the material shared by Department Placement Coordinator
  • MOST IMP FOR PnG: “64 HR INTERVIEW QUESTIONS”
  • Read a book: “How to make friends and influence people“

The last 2 bullet points were the most important for my PnG prep. From 64 HR interview question I prepared/ discussed the first 45 questions, from here I got to know how to frame my answers (keep some loopholes in your answers from where they can ask the next question.)
Since I was sure where I want to work in I filled only 14 Jafs and PnG as my only Day 1 company (its okay to fill less jafs, don’t get intimidated by your friends filling 30+ jafs). Do your research well on the companies.

Procter n Gamble

Round 1

The interviewer gave a brief intro about himself.

  1. Tell me about yourself.
  2. What does your father do?
  3. In which places have you stayed during your father’s transferable job? What is your hometown?
  4. Proudest moment of your life.
  5. Tell us about a situation where you had to present something in front of a panel (the question was something related to it). They wanted to know where I have defended myself before.
  6. Tell us about a situation where u have saved significant amount of resources (human, money and time). Told them about my 2nd year in IIT Bombay Racing where we designed BMS (in house) saving 1 lac and got it done in a couple of months. completely technical
    a. What is a BMS?
    b. What exactly does it do?
    c. What is passive balancing? Why does the measuring temperature of cells help?
    d. What is the definition of power density?
    e. Why don’t you use high power density cells?
    f. What is iso-spi communication? Why do you use it instead of can?
    g. What is spi communication?
    h. How the BMS data does exactly helps? Can the driver manipulate anything in the BMS from the dashboard?
    i. How do you calculate the total energy required by the battery?
    j. How do you cool you battery? What are the total number of cells
  7. Explain a very difficult situation and how did you overcome it. explained an incident from racing
    a. What are the types of motors?
    b. Is it two wheel drive?
  8. How do you ensure knowledge transfer in your team?
  9. Explain a decision in which everyone wasn’t on board, how did you explain others and bring everyone on board.
  10. Tell us about a situation where you had very limited resources with a time limitation. How did you overcome it?
    There were 2 situational questions among which I remember only 1.
  11. How would you prioritize 4 projects whose submission deadline are as follows: next day, a week after, a month after, a year after respectively.
    The interview ended with me asking him what exactly does his job description is, just to gain an insight and to end it on a good note.

Round 2

Interview started with a brief introduction of both of them. They gave disclaimer that they will be taking down notes on my answers and I shouldn’t be bothered about it.

Tell me about yourself.

Explain us about the summer internship project
a. How was it impactful?
b. How did you base your data from? Is this the only way to get your results? How did you validate your results?
c. What is the innovation you did?

Explain about your current position of responsibility- core team member, IIT Bombay Racing.
a. How did you inspire your team members after the disaster in dynamic events in UK this year?
b. Why do you think people should be there in team, what is in their minds to stay in the team

  1. What is one of the situations in which you have taken a lead, and how did you overcome the situation?
  2. Tell us about a very difficult decision
  3. Tell us a difficult phase in your life, when no one was standing with you. How did you face it, what did you learn from it?

Now starts the situational questions. They told me now we are starting the situational questions, we want to study your behaviour, your body language, how you react in the situation and your thinking process.

  1. Given you join in PnG in a managerial position, there are 15 employees working in the company for past 5 years, there is a reform in the company’s rule, 5 of them are neutral, 5 of them optimistic, and 5 of them pessimistic about it. The 5 of them who are pessimistic are working at the end of the manufacturing line (i.e. if they don’t work no product gets delivered). How do you convince them?
  2. Suppose you work in a group of 2. Your co-employee is always behind your tail, disagreeing with you always. Now one fine day she started shouting on you in the cafeteria because you forgot to give her some update on something. How do you deal with the situation?
    a. Will you be able to keep your calm?

Then the interviewers wanted to know if I had any questions for them so I asked again from both of them what their scope of work is. Each of them explained their work in jest. But interviewer 2 wanted to know why I asked them these question so I mumbled that oh my god that’s a lot of work. They laughed at this comment and we started talking about general life. The interview ended on a good tone.

Round 3

Again started with brief introduction and tell me about yourself

  1. Proudest moment of my life.
  2. Do you want to be in manufacturing or supply chain
  3. Will you do an MBA in future?
    It was a general discussion about my likes and dislikes.

General Fundae

  • Have a chewing gum before you enter the interview, it eases your mind.
  • Sit upright, back’s straight (practice it if necessary)
  • Don’t cross leg (an extremely defensive position)
  • Don’t lock your hands (again extremely defensive position)
  • It’s okay if you stammer a bit, but rectify it and consciously keep in mind not to do it again.
  • Be patient, don’t show a slightest amount of annoyance on your face though however pissed off you are at inside
  • Try to say limited and important things, mention the points you want them to know, keep the ball on your side of the table. Maintain eye contact with your interviewers.
  • Be confident, don’t be afraid, smile a lot, you can even crack jokes if you want. Take your time to answer the questions.
  • Last don’t follow any of the above and do the way it naturally comes to you. In the last minutes whatever others say doesn’t matter a lot.

Philosophy

Think consciously about what you like and what you don’t like. A bit of soul searching never hurts anyone.
For me I was very sure that I want to work in either supply chain/core companies, and don’t want to do my Masters/PhD right now.
Talk to your friends/ seniors whom you trust, and limit those number of people whom you turn to for suggestions, because too many suggestions can be confusing!

Atharva Modi

PrePlacement Preparation, Deutsche Bank, Bain, ITC, Cairn India, General Fundae

Profile at a Glance:

  • Top 10% of the class
  • 3 internships:
    • 3rd year summer: R&D at Dr. Reddy’s Labs
    • 2nd year summer: Supply Chain Lead at Xynteo (Plastic Maker Hubs)
    • 2nd year winter: Analyst at NextGen PMS (worked on impact assessment and conceptualising CSR projects)
  • General Secretary, Hostel-5
  • Core experience in form of two electives: ‘Course on Wheels’ and ‘Techno-commercial aspects of fine chemicals’
  • Always involved in sports and adventure activities

Pre Placement Preparation:

Decision of Profile to apply for:

After my diverse experiences, it was difficult for me to choose any of the field. I liked bits of every one of them, but was highly unsure about core or consulting or management or finance or even opting for civil services. But, I was clear that I will not apply for software, coding & trading profiles. This automatically left me with fewer options in finance profile. Also, my internship at DRL taught me that somewhere I lacked the patience and grit for research.

It was somewhat clear to me that I will not sit for CAT or GRE this semester partly because I wanted a break from studies and want to explore the practical world, and partly as I didn’t want to create more options for me.

Going for civil services is still in back of my head. I felt in the end that one can afford to prepare for the exams like CAT and simultaneously get an upper hand at placement tests (Aptitude+Verbal).

Balancing Between Different Types of Preparation:

In the mid-semester I was inclined towards consulting and keeping core profiles as my backup. But, as shortlists of companies uncovered around mid-October I found myself shortlisted in only one Day-1 consulting firm and again the indecision creeped in. I did not have many friends who got shortlisted in consulting firms which halted my preparation with the case interviews.

I consciously attended most of the relevant pre-placement talks and alumni talks. These ppts and sessions gave me an overview of work each type of firm and its employees do. I took notes in each of them which proved to be helpful down the line. They also helped me to show several ways to prepare for placements, but in the end we must devise a way of our own.

Also, for group-discussions preparation, we formed a group and discussed at least 10 topics of different genres in the group. By the end of October, I was facing aptitude tests and buddy meetings (consulting; (un)fortunately I had only 2 of them, but people with more shortlists were really busy with these). I was not prepared with any of these and they went not up-to the par. I was not shortlisted in the most tests in this time range and if buddy reviews are a truth (and yes they are), then they must be not so good for my performance.

Just after the end-sems we were facing a mountain of tests and they kept us engaged from 7 in the morning to 1 in the night. There were breaks in between but the whole process was tiresome and I could barely manage any time to prepare for interviews, core or case interviews in the last week. Suddenly, I had to come out of the hibernation and as always being a last-moment performer, gave my best shot to prepare stories and HR questions in the last two days.

I got shortlisted in 4 firms on Day-1. All of them were in slot-1:

  1. Deutsche Bank
  2. Bain
  3. ITC
  4. Vedanta (Cairn) Oil & Gas

Deutsche Bank

Round-1 involved a panel of 2 equally participating members (A & B):
A: Hi Atharva, I also wanted my son’s name as Atharva, it is a nice name but people suggested that it’s very difficult to pronounce, so we chose another one. Is it really that difficult for people?
I: I don’t know if it is difficult to pronounce as no one calls me by my first name. Even my mom sometimes calls me Modi. Actually, my teacher in 10th class also changed the name of her son to Atharva. It seems she was inspired by me.
A: So, what’s the meaning of your name?
I: (with little stutter) The name is derived from name of Lord Ganesh and even is name of one of the four Vedas. If we go by literal meaning it means “a spell of holy magic”.
A: So, let’s see your magic then
I: Of-course!

After this feel-at-ease start to the interview, the next part of interview went pretty normal including general questions like:

  • Tell us about your background?
  • Explain your project at DRL.
  • How did you benchmark the supply chain in your project at the intern at Xynteo? (“Benchmark” was a word I used as an exaggeration in the resume and later needed good preparation to defend the word; SO BEWARE!)
  • Why Finance and why not supply chain? (Supply chain profile was protruding from my resume) (I should have been well-prepared with this question, but spontaneously I generated an escape relating to the power & impact of finance guiding the market and supply chain projects.)
  • Why not become our client instead of joining us? (Based on my impromptu answer to above question)
  • What is the difference between a point and a line?

Questions for the interviewer: I asked the interviewer about is there a possibility of a recession in recent times and will it affect their work as an investment banker and another question on the effect of new technologies like AI on value of their work. Both questions received interesting responses.

The second round also involved few probability problems and an unconventional pricing case.

  1. We have a bus with seats numbered from 1 to 100. There are 100 passengers waiting outside numbered 1 to 100. The passengers enters the bus according to their number and the seating policy is such that each ith passenger is obliged to seat in ith place if its seat is empty. If the seat is already occupied it can take a seat on any of the empty seat left. Only the 1st guy has a privilege to have a seat of his choice irrespective of seat’s number. Find the probability that 100th guy occupies the 100th seat.
  2. You are selling your institute. Estimate the value of IIT Bombay.

Questions for the interviewer: Again I asked the same questions to the panel this time and I think here even they realised the danger AIs possess to their job!

Bain

I was aware that I did not have enough practice for the Day-1 consulting interview but I was ready for any kind of “humiliation” I may face. The interviewer began with questions like “Why consulting?” and “Why Bain?” to which I stammeringly responded via my prepared answers. Then we started with the case which went as follows:
“We are a regional parcel company and we decided to lease driverless electric trucks as a substitute to diesel trucks and in the pilot project we faced additional costs more than the expected. Should we go ahead with the project?”
The interviewer basically tested how I will compare the costs of both the fleet type and how comprehensive my segmentation is. Then she provided me data about the segmentation of the costs and asked for what factors to consider to improve the costs. We settled on the long-term financing of the project instead of single-year project to get a discount from the vendor. The case ended with pretty bad calculations from my side and I was much assertive for my kind of brute-force calculations for simple oral problem. The interviewer didn’t like me a bit and even I didn’t adored her expressions. My review came out that I should try for other firms and I was out after a single round. It was an experience for which I was pretty much ready.

ITC

I knew after the GD that ITC was my best shot. I was not prepared as I should have been with my resume and core aspects. Thus, I was left with the only good choice of being confident on my 3 years of engineering studies and prepare for every word in the resume. Guide the interviewer your way, and this can be done by writing down answers to all the common questions and discuss them with your friends to see which way they can go ahead.

ITC Group Discussions are generally based on ranking of characters or importance of things in the given case. There are fixed 6 cases from which they ask each year. You can get these topics from google or seniors or internship junta. We practiced two of these GDs in the group and for the rest I personally prepared a framework.

General tip: Of-course giving a direction to the discussion shows your skills and increases your chance of selection, but don’t initiate just for sake of doing it. Create a solid base for the discussions clarifying the case to all the members of the group.

The first round of interview had a 2-memebered panel- probably one HR and another relatively recent alumnus of IIT-B. They started with asking about my background right from family to college life. Then they moved on to the core internship and I explained the internship using a flowchart I prepared. At last the interviewer offered me his coffee which I graciously accepted.
Below are the questions (in order) they asked me:

  • How did you plan your experiments? How many experiments did you perform? Can you give us a number of papers you read on the topic?
  • How the levels of variables were decided (related to Design of Experiments)? Was some statistical analysis involved in it?
  • So, why were you late in obtaining results from your experiments?
  • How were you elected as the General Secretary? Was actual “polt” involved?
  • What is your favourite subject? (I said that I liked the most practical applications of engineering. Do this daring act only if you are confident enough.)
  • Tell us practical examples of isobaric, isochoric and isothermal process. (I converged my whole answer to the tea making procedure. They were seeking for something more industry related, but it worked)
  • Draw refrigeration cycle. If we open the door of a refrigerator in a closed room, what will happen to the room’s temperature? Which law governs it? (I stumbled in drawing the refrigeration cycle, but later part of the answer was answered handsomely.)
  • What else you do apart from your academics and work as General Secretary? (I mentioned my hobbies of sports and music and was able to convince them that Ultimate Freesbie is actually a game and its tournaments are played in Mumbai.)
  • Explain the event you wrote in “Mind over Matter” section of the application form. (They read your application before the interview. Be prepared with it.)
  • Are you comfortable if you get a job in Mumbai? (Quite a weirdo from a manufacturing job, but answered in a positive.)

Questions I asked: We all know that IoT and AI will bring the next big disruption in supply chains globally. How this incoming technologies affect ITC? Are we working on the same?

The second round of interview had 2 senior members from the company and both looked knowledgeable in every aspect. I entered the room along with a Mongini’s guy, which brought a genuine big smile on my face and our conversation started with the charming cake.

  • Where are you from? Why are not you going for an MBA like your brother? (Hearing in their ppt helped me answering the second part.)
  • Are you a chemical engineer by a chance or by choice? (I said partly by choice, and related the versatility of Chemical Engineering to my likings.)
  • How can you apply Bernoulli equation to the Wall Street? (This question was coming from my last answer. I just said it is a differential equation which can be applied to any type of flow in different forms being money, energy or material.)
  • Give an example you use Bernoulli’ equation in real life? (I moulded the answer from basics of flow in a convergent pipe which finally went to Venturimeter with the help of interviewer.)
  • How do you manage to get such good grades handling this PoR and other stuff? Din-raat Mugte rhte ho? (I said that I have cracked the grading system in the institute and good grades require a very different kind of study. I moulded my answer towards my habit (not really :P) of scheduling things and studying attentively in the classroom.)
  • What is your favourite subject? (I said that I like most practical applications of chemical engineering, but if they force me to choose one I will go with Mass Transfer.)
  • Tell us names of different types of column you studied? What is the use of packing in a column?
  • Why did not you get a PPO at Dr. Reddy’s? (The question came as a shocking end for me as I had prepared an answer for consulting firms as “I wanted to reject core sector so I made it clear at the end of the intern”. Now spontaneously I had to prepare an escape about my choice to go to a manufacturing unit rather than R&D sector. It was a genuine belief and thus went all good. I will highly recommend being thorough with such questions beforehand.)

Questions I asked: Are we allowed to change the divisions in ITC? (This question was accompanied with a lot of knowledge I gathered from their website and talking to an alumnus between the interview. The interviewer looked surprised by my knowledge about their work culture, but in reality it was just a glance on their ‘careers’ webpage.)
We all know that IoT and AI will bring the next big disruption in supply chains globally. How this incoming technologies affect ITC? Are we working on the same?

Cairn India (Vedanta Oil and Gas)

I was the last person to go for Cairn’s interview. I was already feeling hungry and tired and will suggest all of you to take enough food with you. I knew that interviewers are focusing more on core knowledge related to upstream processing of oil & gas and adaptability of work on the drilling site.

GD for Cairn had 8 people with 10 minutes to speak. The topics were very vague. Some groups had a lot to debate and our group did not even had much to speak for the whole time.
Our GD topic: Have the nuclear tests of Pokhran in 1999 helped India or not?
The selections at the end were much random and people who spoke well enough or even initiated and directed the conversation were left out. Don’t get disheartened if you are the victim in such a case.

Tell us about yourself.
 Why it is important to remove water from natural gas?
 What are the methods used to remove water from Natural Gas?
 Can molecular sieves be used for extremely low concentration of water?
 What is ethylene glycol? What are its industrial uses? Can it be used to remove water from NG?
 Which will need more work: Same flow rate of API 35 crude or API 20 crude at similar conditions? (I clarified them if it was same mass flow rate or volume flow rate. This was something I learnt from case interview preparation.)
 This job will require working on the site, are you fine with it? (Again, I did not say a yes or no directly but went on to ask questions on which my decision will be based on.)

Questions I asked:

  • The work profile just mentions ‘Operational Excellence”. What does the work actually include? I want an exposure to overall process from raw material procurement/extraction to the consumers; will I be able to get this in the role? (As the jaf did not include much information in it and they did not have a ppt, this questions become relevant and actually shows your interests in the job.)
  • You can easily afford living in a metro city. How you manage your life switching between site and home?
  • What is the individual’s progress in their company? How many years does a person have to work on site?
  • Why Vedanta merged with Cairn?

The second round of interview was very chill and I even didn’t carry my resume in there. There were 3 people in there, most probably from HR department. They asked me to describe my 21-22 years of life and later I went on explaining them my and family’s whole journey from childhood to being a 19-year old job applicant. At last they just confirmed if I was fine with working in a 21 day work 21 day off format.

General Fundae:

  • Make resume realistic and simultaneously write down explanations for each and every word of it to a depth of 3rd level. This means you must be able to explain every term in the explanation of the description of your projects. Brag about yourself by playing with words and mention well-thought explainable numbers in the resume.
  • Make notes in every PPT you attend. They will help down the line.
  • For consult preparation, one has to be interactive and proactively practice with friends and seniors. If you don’t have any friends preparing for it, making new friends is the best thing you can do here or else you can also take help from several online case practice platforms. Form one or two case groups, practice and monitor the performance regularly. Analyse the practiced cases individually and give as much time to this crucial step. Analysing the cases means seeing how others have solved it, what was the best way for you, what factors you missed in the case, trying different types of frameworks on the same problem, etc. Finally, you have to be firm in your aim to join consult which keeps you going all the way.
  • I will strongly recommend solving guesstimates and basics of profitability and market entry cases to everyone irrespective of their target companies. They can be asked in a different format in any interview and become an important metric of rejection by the company as it happened with my most friends.
  • Preparing a timeline and most importantly sticking to it will surely take you places. Read this book, get experiences from seniors, attend sessions and make your own tailored plans from mid-October. Timelines may include preparation for tests, group discussions, case interviews, etc.
  • For the last 2 days I was preparing the HR questions and brushing up my resume points. Fortunately, I got help from my friends at the last moment to make explanations for resume points which will not generate doubts in the mind of the interviewer. I should have done this preparation much before I did. I penned answers to most questions linking them through “stories and events through which I learnt this…..which led me to believe this…..”. Writing down your answers is an excellent way to refine your answers and making them perfect. Instead of keeping generic answers try to relate all your answers with experiences from your life. This makes a good connection with the interviewer and also make you stand-out from the crowd.
  • People facing problems in communication in English language must improve upon it as at last what matters is how you express your views in the interview in this language. You can start by regularly reading newspaper and at least one article aloud each day. Don’t hesitate in conversing in English with your wing-mates and close friends. Encourage, Not MOCK!

ALL THE BEST!