Internship Program @ TNBS

 Profiles Offered:

1.       Graphic designer

2.       Content Management

3.       Marketing

Procedure for selection:

·         You are required to submit your CV + previous work which you might have done in domain you are applying.

·         This is work from home voluntary internship.

For Content Management Profile:

·         Mail an article on “The most memorable day of my life/ My most memorable event” along with your CV. Short listing would be done based upon this.

·         The shortlisted candidates would undergo a final round of either Telephonic/Skype interview.

·         If you are an active blogger, do send us link to your blog.

For Graphic Design Profile:

·         Prior knowledge of either Coral Draw/Photoshop/Illustrator.

·         Attach your previous work along with your CV.

For Marketing Profile:

·         Resume

·         Kindly suggest an approach for the following case:

ABC Pvt. Ltd is a company that aims at delivering quality Ethical hacking workshops for college students. It is their first workshop for which they are targeting students in Delhi and NCR region. With an inability to invest capital in promotions, suggest a way to ABC Pvt. Ltd to market its offerings so as to cater atleast 500 students for the workshop.

Work Profile for Content Management Interns

·          Based upon your area of interest you would write articles on General Awareness.

·         The number of articles would be limited to 2 or 3 per week.

Work Profile for Graphic Designers

·         Making TNBS promotional posters & designs for motivational posters.

·         Facebook Cover Image & Facebook Avatar

·         In case you have good knowledge of Adobe After Effects, you can make promotional videos.

Work Profile for Marketing Profile:

·         Developing various marketing strategies and working on cases related to marketing.

Motivating Interns: Go for Gold!

Introduction to our Medal System: Gold, Silver and Bronze medals will be awarded to you on a weekly basis judged solely by your quality work.

In case any of them achieves a minimum of 5 Gold medals out of total 8 that would be awarded in total internship time of 2 months, you will be given a chance to work permanently with the TNBS team.

Each and every student will be provided certificate stating the duration and kind of work done by them.

How to apply:

Send your Resume and other work at admin@thenextbigstep.in by 26 August, 2012.

Subject of the mail should be: TNBS Internship_Profile (you are applying to)

For e.g., TNBS Internship_Content Management

For any other query, you can drop us an email at admin@thenextbigstep.in with Subject as ‘Query’.  

GD preparation at it's easiest

• Democracy has hampered India’s progress

• India’s Water Crisis

• Are Indians less quality conscious?

• Should the public sector be privatized?

• Globalization vs. Nationalism

• Euthanasia: To do or Not to do?

• Why can’t India be a World-Class Player in Manufacturing Industry as it is in IT & BPO Sectors?

• What we need to do to reduce scams is better regulatory bodies?

• Social Network: Boon or Bane?

• Has Cricket spoiled other streams of Indian sports?

• Indian Villages: Strength or weakness of the nation?

• Final admission call from a good institute: Is it the beginning or the end?

• Should India break diplomatic ties with Pakistan?

• Is Valentine’s day harming Indian culture?

• Small is beautiful

• Growing big: Boon or Bane?

How to prepare for ZS Associates?

ZS Stands for Zoltners and Sinha, a company that proudly declares that you will work with us for 16 hours a day but it will be a great experience. Founded by Andrea Zoltners and Prabhakant Sinha of Kellog Business School, ZS specializes in consulting pharma companies.

Last year, ZS Associates conducted an online exam which consisted of following sections:

·         Basic Quant,

·         Verbal,

·         Logical reasoning and

·         Kind of puzzles section (similar to the one asked in NTSC).

Last section included simple questions like finding mirror image of given figure or finding an image similar to the given image and other similar questions. Written test was easy in all.

Then there was short listing after the written test. After that they had Group Discussion. GD was normal and similar to other companies. You just need to focus on basic GD preparation tips. After the GD round there was elimination and final students were called for interview.

One of the topics asked in GD was:

Is fasting best way to achieve any political change?

Interview was conducted at their office.

P.S.: This was the case last year. It may or may not change this year.

To read more about the company, click here 

Click here to see more topics asked in GD by various companies last year.

Consumer price index (CPI)

It is an inflationary indicator that measures the change in the cost of a predetermined basket of products and services, (including housing, electricity, food, and transportation ) by comparing it with a certain fixed base period. The CPI is used as a benchmark for making adjustments in Social Security payments, wages, pensions, and tax brackets to keep them in tune with the buying power of the dollar. It's often incorrectly referred to as the cost-of-living index.
It is the most widely known index for measuring economic performance and inflation in the United States. The CPI is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them; the goods are weighted according to their importance. The contents of the “market basket” are determined by the Consumer Expenditure Survey of about 15,000 families and their spending habits over a period of time. The BLS (bureau of labour statistics) collects price information from 23,000 retail and service businesses. The CPI includes sales taxes, but excludes income taxes and the prices of investments such as stocksand bonds.More important, the CPI does not include sales price of homes. Instead, it calculates the monthly equivalent of owning a home, which it derives from rents.


Changes in CPI are used to assess price changes associated with the cost of living.The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures two kinds of CPI statistics: CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W), and the chained CPI for all urban consumers (C-CPI-U). Of course , the C-CPI-U is a better representation of the general public, because about 87% of the population comprises of the urban wage earners .

Merits of CPI :

1)The CPI is a measure of inflation, . Large rises in CPI during a short period of time typically denote periods of inflation and large drops in CPI during a short period of time usually mark periods of deflation.Therefore, it is used by the Federal government to determine whether economic policies need to be modified to prevent inflation. 
2) Secondly, CPI is used to adjust prices in other government economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. 
3) Also. the CPI is used to adjust benefit levels for recipients of Social Security and other government programs.

CPI has some demerits too which are as follows:
1) The predetermined market basket includes primarily items which do not see price spikes due to innovation, such as food, apparel, utilities, and education. 
2) substitution bias (variations in price can cause consumers to respond by substituting on the spot, but the basic measure holds their consumption of various goods constant)
3) product quality bias : The CPI measures the cost of purchasing a product without accounting for the quality of the product. 
4) some of the sale items are sometimes overweighed in sample rotation)

How to prepare for McKinsey Knowledge Centre?

Mc Kinsey has an excellent placement procedure. The competition is very fierce for this company. It has a long and extensive placement procedure which is as follows:

1.       CV shortlisting

2.       Written test

3.       Group discussion

4.       Interview rounds – 3 to 5

CV shortlisting: Company provides its own application form which asks your personal details, internships and few questions related to your career goals and understanding of the profile offered by the company.

Written test consists of case studies. These case studies are a mixture of data interpretation and reading comprehension. You need to practice these in order to develop speed and understand the fundamentals of solving case studies. Few sample case studies are given on company’s website. Just go through them and understand them properly.

Then comes the group discussion. There are three to four mediators for a group of ten students. GD is very well organised. Everybody is given time to introduce and summarise. For this you need to practice GD with your friends and be thorough with current affairs and basic terms of finance. Topic can be related to finance or current affairs.

Interview round consists of case studies, guesstimates and HR questions. Major focus is on guesstimates and case studies. You need to practice as much as you can.

Moreover, when you go for interview to any consultancy company, try wearing formal suits because these companies give a lot of importance to your personality. So behave and act your best during your interview of Mc Kinsey or any other consultancy.

All the very best!!!

P.S.: The entire procedure has been explained as per the recruitment procedure of the company in 2011. It may or may not change in 2012 or following years.

Few tips to improve your CV

1.      Keep the resume 1 page. (at the max 2 pages but still refrain from a 2 page resume)

2.      Give one or two line information about each of your work and internships.

3.      Use a Template while writing your headings.

4.      Organize the information in reverse chronological order.

5.      Standardize your resume with particular font style and font size.

6.      Don’t write about information such as ‘Won XYZ drawing competition in Class 2′ and the likes. Always write about those achievements which are significant and relevant to the profile company is offering.

7.      Don’t Try to fill the resume with unnecessary information (interviewer will ask for details if he requires them).

8.      Don’t Format your resume in fancy and/or large fonts

9.      Don’t fake the information in your resume.

10.  Don’t fill redundant data.

11. Be thorough with whatever you are writing. Don't write anything just for the sake of filling your CV .Your CV should be concise and to the point. Don't give detailed description of each and every thing in your CV.

What are your weaknesses?

·         I become too much of a workaholic sometimes that leads to me neglecting my family and my health.

·         I care about how other people perceive me.

·         I do trust my abilities but I become over confident sometimes.

·         Occasionally I over think and ponder too much.

·         Near the completion of my work I tend to stress out on details.

Questions which can be asked from the above answer are as follows:

1.       How has being over confident hampered your success?

2.       Is over thinking and pondering too much really your weakness?

3.       What are you doing to overcome your weaknesses?

4.       We don’t need workaholics. Instead we need people who work in a smarter way. How will you justify that?

5.       I personally don’t like those people who neglect their family and health because by doing so they ultimately decrease their productivity. This is going to be very harmful for you in coming future. You should really work on it and improve on it.

6.       How giving too much stress on details is your weakness? It is actually a good sign that you give importance to small things.

P.S.: You should justify each and every weakness and you should be able to explain what you are doing to overcome it? Moreover, you should not tell more than 2 weaknesses to the interviewer. Accepting your weaknesses is never considered negative rather, defending them goes against you. 

How to compensate for your low grades?

My last article scared many students to the extent that my mail box was flooded with mails asking me to write the next article asap. I am writing this article as a reply to all those queries. I will try to cover as many things as possible; in case, something is left out then do ask by commenting under this post.

Until my fourth semester result, I was also worried about my percentage. How to improve it? Situation has stooped to such level that my aim was to get just 70% anyhow (in any one semester and not cumulative). But it happened and I scored pretty well in my fourth semester exams. And since then I have always scored more than 70% in college exam. I will share few things which I used to do.

First of all, look at the previous year question papers because most of the time syllabus is same and topics are very limited from which questions can be asked. Go through as many previous year papers as possible and prepare all the questions and topics asked in them as major chunk of your exam will be similar to it (considering that no experiment has been done with your batch).

Secondly, no need to read the entire book again and again. Just go through it once, understand it and mark the important topics and revise them.

Third, keep an eye on the topics which teachers (or professors) teach in class. Those are the most important topics and they will definitely be asked in the exams.

Fourth, try to find out the sources of questions asked in the previous years. Generally, questions are asked from the exercise portion of standard books. In case, this happens with you then go through the important exercise questions and their solution (It would be best if you solve those questions on your own but that would be pretty ideal situation for many students).

Now, let us say that you have tried all the above mentioned activities but still you are not able to achieve good score (value of good score varies from person to person) then you need to work as per your goal. Find out what you want to do in your life or what are your career aspirations?

Let me explain this point by taking few examples. Suppose you want to go for GMAT or GRE after your graduation then you need to work on your profile. You need to have healthy profile which shows dedication towards your long term goals. If you want to go in to Education sector five or seven years down the line, then you need to work a little in this sector and this should be reflected in your profile.

If you want to go for GATE or MTech., then you need to have strong knowledge of your core subjects.

If you want to go for Indian Administrative services then you need to work on general knowledge and reading habit. You have to read and learn more than your capability.  So these are the few examples I have taken to explain how you can improve or compensate for your marks.

P.S.: All the above mentioned activities were done by me and were beneficial to me. It may or may not help you. Moreover, while following the above mentioned tips do not forget to develop a strong base of your core subjects.

Click to read : How much marks matter in your career?

Tips to excel in Interview

·         Always study about the company and the job profile before you go for the interview. Interviewer might ask you about the same.

·         In stress interviews, the idea is never to loose calm and be relaxed always. Interviewer will definitely irritate you by asking stupid or irrelevant questions. He just wants to check the temperament in which you handle such situations

·         Interview is a conversation between candidate and panel (may include one or more interviewer) and nothing more than that. Your rejection in interview does not mean that you are bad. It simply means that you did not match the criterion of the company (may be you were over qualified for the job).

·         Always keep your certificates folder in your lap. Never keep it on the table.

·         The answer to "Tell me something about your self" should not be of more than 2-3 minutes.

·         Always prepare standard HR questions before hand like tell me something about your self, your strengths, weaknesses, etc. Preparing does not mean you have to learn them and recite during the interview, it means that you should have basic idea and framework in your mind.

Gross domestic product

It is an economic wealth indicator that stands for the total (gross means total) economic value of the final goods and services produced in a country in a well defined time period (generally a year). Sometimes the GDP is also expressed as a percentage which indicates the percentage growth or decline in the financial economy as compared to the previous defined time period (usually a year). GDP can be calculated in numerous ways which are logically identical. 

1) Income method: here the total value of all goods and services earned within a country are summed up.
2) Expenditure method: in this method, the total value of all final goods and services spent by the consumer, investment and government are summed up.
3) In this method the value of the total goods and capital sold are summed up.
the formula to calculate GDP is:
o GDP = C + G + I + NX
Where:
o C = All private consumption
o G = All government spending
o I = Investment by businesses
NX = The country’s net exports (total exports – total imports)


GDP is highly essential because GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living, or in other words, the GDP is an indicator of the country’s economy . a declining GDP warns the business men and the federal government to build up policies to prevent inflation, which is a major threat to the economy. 

But THE GDP is even condemned upon its inefficiency to account for the real world living conditions. It is said to reflect only the wealth expansion (economic growth) of the country or the capital consumption only. Sometimes a thing may contribute nothing to the well-being of individuals but still the government takes it into account in the GDP calculation.

Few tips to crack GD

These are the few basic points which should be taken care of while you are having a GROUP DISCUSSION:

1.       If you start GD, then always try to give structure to the GD in the starting itself. If you do that, then your half work is done.

2.      Never start GD with useless points. Start the discussion only if you have good and valid points or if you can provide a framework to the discussion.

3.      When you feel that discussion is getting monotonous, try to bring in some new and creative point. That, for sure, will be noticed by mediator and will provide you advantage.

4.       Never directly disagree with other's view point. That shows lack of team spirit and leadership skills.

5.       While summarizing, try to state view points of other members. This will show your attentiveness and alertness during the GD. (In real GD, try to note down points said by others whereas in virtual GD you can see points anytime you wish to.)

6.      If you don’t have any idea about the topic, then sit silent and listen to other members for sometime and then paraphrase and extrapolate the points said by others along with your own view point.

7.      If the topic is related to economics or is an abstract topic, try to define the topic and give a structure to the GD in the starting itself.

8.      Never get into an argument with a particular group member. It will ease the task of mediator to eliminate you from the discussion.

9.      When you feel that discussion is getting monotonous, try to bring in some new and creative point. That, for sure, will be noticed by mediator and will provide you advantage.

10.  Do not look at the mediator during the GD. That will confirm your rejection for next round.

Tell us something about yourself. - 1

Whenever you go for interview, first question you generally face is : “Tell me something about yourself”.

This question is basically an ice breaker so that you feel comfortable for the rest of the interview. But along with it, this is the most important question of the entire interview. You have to answer it very sincerely and cautiously because your entire interview can take shape depending on how you answer it.

Here a sample answer is given and questions which can be asked from it are also mentioned.

My name is ABC…, doing mechanical engineering from DTU. I have done my schooling from S.D Public School,Delhi. I have been the topper of my school since primary classes and secured 90+ in C.B.S.E Boards. I chose mechanical engineering as my branch because of my passion in cars. I had always dreamt of making my own vehicle. I am very much fascinated by speed, actions & stunts. Coming on to my academic performance, I would like to share my internships. I did my summer internship at XYZ industry- which gave me training about vehicle dynamics and taught me latest designing softwares and newest technology introduced in India i.e. Reverse Engineering. Besides that I have been also actively indulged in extra- curricular like conducting workshops & seminars, participating in various tech- non tech competitions & cultural fests held at IITs, DCE & NSIT. My source of motivation is my parents who have been very friendly and supportive. Moreover, Rahul Dravid, Steve Jobs and Dhirubhai Ambani are some of my idols.

Now, following questions can be formed from the above answer:

1.     Tell me something about your school.

2.    What do mean by topper? Does securing 90+ percent make you suitable for this job?

3.    If you are so passionate about cars, then just tell us few things which you have accomplished in this field?

4.    Name any five types of stunts which you love doing.

5.    Why did you choose to do internship at XYZ Company?

6.    What did you learn in your internship?

7.    Did you notice any improvement which could be done in the company to improve its productivity?

8.    What is reverse engineering? How it is better from the conventional technology?

9.    What all do you need to do to conduct a workshop? What did you learn by conducting a workshop? Did you have any monetary motive behind it?

10.  Tell me something about the life of Dhirubhai Ambani. How did he reach to this level?

P.S.: Above questions are just to provide you an insight about the questions that can be formed from your answer. More questions can be asked from the answers you give to the above questions. 

How to prepare for Futures First?

The only company which tests your ability to handle stress? How you work under pressure? How you react or act to the best of your abilities with limited resources?

The procedure consisted of two written tests and interview.

1.      Test 1

2.      Elimination

3.      Test 2

4.      Elimination

5.      Interview rounds

6.      Final selection

Test 1 is speed and calculation based test. In 2011, there were 30 questions to be answered in 5minutes. Main thing to consider in these types of tests is selection of question. Few questions are given deliberately to waste your time. So refrain from getting stuck there. You can definitely clear the cut off if you attempt 20 questions correctly. So take care of accuracy.

Test 2 is based on Probability and Permutations and Combinations. Work on these two topics to clear this round. Then comes the interview round. This varies from person to person. But this company is famous for its stress interviews. They can ask you anything during the interview. They can ask you to jump from first or second floor and offer you the job. They can give you three or four questions (like: 331 X 447=? ; 999 X 154 X 534=? ) with a gap of three to four seconds. One question they ask inevitably is the most adventurous or craziest thing you have done so far. So be prepared with all these things in advance if you want to crack through Futures First.

All the very best!!!

Click here to read interview experience of students who got selected.