Positive Attitude and Hardwork Pays: Experience
Sharing
- Tanay Kumar Pandey, Student, IILM
It
was a jubilant feeling when I was selected for the post of analyst in The Smart
Cube on 10th October, 2012. My life in IIL started on 11th
May 2011 when I got admission and scholarship in this college. My session
started in June 2012. It was really very tough for few months due to excess
workload. Gradually, I became accustomed to late night study, assignments,
projects, presentations and many more stuff. At the end of one year I was the
second topper of PGDM and I was satisfied with my academic performance.
In
May 2012, my SIP was scheduled to start. Many companies started coming for
conducting interviews for management trainee. I got an opportunity to give
interview in KPMG. I went to Gurgaon for the interview on scheduled date. I was
quite confident of getting selected. I felt devastated when I was rejected by
the HR in the 1st round only. I went to the HR and asked him
politely to tell me about my shortcoming. I was stunned with his single line
statement. “You have attitude problem”. I came to hostel and analysed that He
was right and I had some problem which cannot make me employable.
I
did my SIP in Irys Securities at Gurgaon. I had identified the problem in me
and now it was the time to rectify and mend it. I did it successfully. After
completing my SIP my main learning was “How to be polite?” It is very important
to show employability skills at the time of interview. For final placement, I
applied in The Smart cube. The profile was of analyst and the package offered
by them was very lucrative. I had heard from seniors that from the last few years,
no one cleared the quant round of The Smart cube. Our online aptitude test was
scheduled on 6th October 2011 .at Gurgaon. I was quite excited to
appear for this test because I was good in quant. I revised all the concepts
once again. I searched for quant paper of The Smart cube in the internet. I
refreshed my current affairs. I am a regular reader of The Economic Times. It
helped me very much. It is advisable to all the first year students to read
this newspaper every day. I can assure you that if you are a regular reader
then your job is half done. I revised all the basic concept of Accountancy,
Economics, Finance and Marketing too. Since it was a research profile, I also
revised concepts of strategy and marketing research.
On
the scheduled date of online test, I went to Gurgaon in the bus with 19 other
students from our college. I revised all the basic formulae of Mathematics in
the bus along with Avinash. Our test was scheduled at 11 AM. We reached test
centre at 10 A.M. Due to some technical delay, our test started at around 12:15
PM. I had thought test to be of 20 minutes, as earlier was the process adopted
by The Smart Cube. I was surprised to know that test will be of 2 hours.
Anyway, I went for the test. There were four sections in the test. . It was not
possible to go back to any question after that particular question was passed.
So I had to plan it accordingly.
First Section was verbal ability and reading
comprehension. Questions were pretty easy. 30 minutes were given to solve this
section. Next was personality test. It was same like psychometric test. 80
questions were there and the time duration for this section was 20 minutes. It
was quite simple to solve this within this time because questions were directly
related to behavioural pattern followed by me.
Third
section was quantitative ability. Questions were simple. Questions from
percentage, average, number system, Time and work, Time speed and distance probability,
permutation and combination were mainly asked. It was easy to complete in the
stipulated time frame if the proper logic and shortcut methods were applied.
Leaving out some questions and guessing some time consuming questions helped me
to clear this section. Last section was Logical Reasoning. Questions were of
moderate level. Some questions were tricky and time consuming. Preparing a
proper framework helped me to clear this section.
After
completing the test, I was quite satisfied with my performance. I came back to
hostel at night. I got a mail that the result of the test will be announced on
10th October in Lodhi Road Campus. I prepared for interview till
then. I solved around 50 guesstimates questions which were earlier asked in the
smart Cube interview. I prepared a list of questions which can be asked from my
resume. All the basic concepts were revised by me once again. I studied about
the company and their work in detail.
On
the D day, I went to lodhi road campus. Presentation about the company was
going on at that time. After the presentation got over, results were announced.
I was astonished to hear that only 9 students were able to clear the first
round. My name was 4th in the list. I was exhilarated after hearing
my name. I had to go to The Smart Cube office at 03:00 PM for interview round.
I
reached The Smart Cube at around 02:45 PM. First round was just to check the
communication skill. Questions were asked mainly from the resume. You must have
explanation of everything written on the resume. It will be beneficial if you
are able to justify the point written on the resume with examples. Next round
was HR round. It lasted for around 25 minutes. The interviewers were trying to
judge the resistance level of mine. They asked questions from euro zone crisis,
CAPM model, and Dividend discount model, some basic concept of economics,
concept and application of strategy. I was given the task of making BCG matrix
of Tata group. We discussed about telecom, retail, packaged food, and apparel,
pharmaceutical and cement industry. Comparative analysis of these industries
was done by me in this round. At some point of time I went completely blank but
panel was supportive and they gave me time to answer some questions using pen
and paper.
Only
3 students were selected for final and technical round of interview. I went in for
the last round of interview. I took a paper with me to solve the question related
to guesstimates. I was asked to introduce myself once again. Around 5
guesstimates questions were asked. I was asked to estimate the size of retail
market in India, Number of bisleri sold in Delhi every day, Number of
disposable cups used in The Smart Cube everyday etc. Around one minute was
given to solve each question. He asked me questions related to my SIP. One must
be prepared with the questions related to SIP. He asked me to apply five forces
model in Steel and Power Sector. In the
case of guesstimated questions they were not concerned about the correct answers.
They wanted me to show the correct approach and framework to solve those
questions. Presence of mind plays a key role in solving guesstimates questions.
This round lasted for around 40 minutes. In this round, there was a rapid fire
round in the end. Questions from current affairs were asked. Questions were
pretty simple. Being a regular reader of The Economic Times helped me very much
to clear this. Some of the questions related to current affairs are as follows:
#
Who is the secretary general of UNO?
#
Who is the chairman of Infosys? Tell about the recent acquisition done by this
company.
#
Governer of RBI ?
Questions
were also from the key rates like SLR, Repo rate and reverse repo rate.
Questions from recent economic reforms were also asked. I was quite satisfied
with my performance in this round. After waiting for around 30 minutes, results
were announced and I was selected for the post of analyst. It was jubilant
feeling when I went to accept the letter and the cup given by them. It was very
happy because I got the dream job. I was passionate about research work and I
finally got what I had dreamed for.
I
want to share few points which may be very much helpful to clear the selection
process in any company.
*
Be clear with your goal. Try to have all the information about the industry in
which you want to build your future. It helps very much.
*
Read newspaper every day. This is the key of getting success. Write your own
analytical thoughts about key issues.
*
Be clear with the basic concepts of Finance, Marketing, HR, Economics and
Strategy.
*
Make a list of questions which may be asked from the resume. Be ready with the
best possible answers of them.
*
Be in regular touch with the faculties of our college. Try to take feedback
from them and work on shortcomings told by them.
*
Try to be a team player. You can make your own group in hostel to have Group
discussion on latest issues.
*
Have a thorough understanding about the company and their work, before going
for the interview.
*
Never play blame game in college. It will distract you from your goal. College
is doing its best for us.
I
hope that the above mentioned points will help you to achieve your goal.
BEST
OF LUCK !
For
any further help please feel free to contact me. My details are as
follows.
-Tanay
Kumar Pandey
Contact
number-09015307023
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