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.

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.

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.

How to apply for off-campus Placements?

There are three kinds of students who go for off-campus placements:

1.       There is a category of genuine students who do not get on-campus placements and therefore, they have to try for off-campus placement because they don’t have any other alternative.

2.       There is a second lot of students who get placed during on-campus placement but due to some genuine reason they don’t want to or cannot join particular company and so they wish to go for another placement.

3.       Third category belongs to students who despite of having amazing placement go for off-campus placement in order to flaunt the number of placements they get and similar other reasons.

Let me leave this thing here only because this is none of my business to talk about these students. My task is to tell you about the various ways to go for off-campus placements.

One can go for off-campus placements in various ways. But for most of the ways we need to have some reference in order to apply to a company.

1.       First way is to remain in touch with company people (your seniors, friends, relatives or anyone else) because many times when companies have vacancies, they recruit people referred by present employees. So, if you are in touch with them, you will come to know about the vacancy and will get chance to apply. In this case, having contacts is the most important factor. Remain in touch with your seniors and ask them about any opportunities in their companies.

2.       Sometimes companies post vacancies on their websites and relevant pre-requisites for the candidates. So you need to check the company’s website regularly and apply whenever they have suitable vacancy for you.

3.       Other way to go for off-campus placements is when companies pool various campuses and call students at one central location. In this situation, students from various colleges and in large number come and apply. This is generally applicable to small colleges where placement is a rare phenomenon and students have to seek external support to get placed.

4.        Other option is to apply on various job hosting sites like naukri, monster, etc. You can develop your profile and upload your resume and then go for the desired companies.  

Above four are the major ways to apply to a company for off-campus placement. But remember one thing: sometimes going for off-campus placement can be very tedious and tiring task especially for those who do not hold degrees from so-called elite colleges. 

Getting started with placements: How you can do better?

In continuation with the article written before, Getting started with placements: What will you do?, I have come up with it's second part. This article basically focuses on the mistakes made by students in the placement scenario and how those can be improved.

Now let us look at this entire process in retrospect. Why did it happen that you were not able to get a good placement whereas the other guy (whom you consider far less intelligent than you) got placement in the beginning itself? There can be many different reasons which resulted in you getting such placement and see where you could have improved.

1.      Most important thing which lacked was a goal. You never cared to decide the type of company you wish to join. You just wanted to go into a company which offers maximum amount of money. For this reason, you sat in companies and for profiles which were alien to you.

2.      You compared yourself with your friends and other students. Never ever compare yourself with anyone. It does not matter that the other person is more or less intelligent than you. Once you are out of college you will be least bothered about his company or package.

3.      You considered your success as being directly proportional to the package you get. If you feel that you have the caliber, knowledge, intelligence and smartness then why you are worried?  You will get promotions at lightning speed and within no time you will be more successful than your other friends (I am using your analogy here which states that success is directly proportional to package). Don’t worry about these small things. Most importantly, you have to set your goals and work on achieving those goals. Don’t run after these petite goals which will be futile in the long run.

4.      You did not care about the profile offered by the company. If I ask you to a test in Latin language, will you be able to give? On the contrary, you would call me a fool. Similarly, in this context I will call you a fool. When you don’t have any idea about coding and programming, why did you sit for such profiles in the first place?

5.      After a certain amount of time, all the rejections made your life miserable and you made the lives of your dear ones miserable. Each and everything started making you irritable and you reached a situation where you would resort to any method to get placed. There were few friends of mine who went to some BABA because they were not getting placed. And BABA said very obvious thing, “Beta. Padhai kro aur naukri lag jygi!!!” (son, just study and you will get good placement). Isn’t it obvious that to get good placement, we need to study and work hard?

6.      If you would have set your goal and sat in few companies which offer profile as per your interests, then I am pretty sure you have secured much better placement. The reason being, in such situation you would have directed all your energy into one direction and focused on that and in such situation, fruits are very sweet. But what actually happened was very different. You focused your energy in all the direction which created energy sinks for you and this delayed you from achieving your so called success. If I talk in terms of Physics, you have to act like a red light which is highly directional instead of acting like a yellow light which scatters in all directions.

So, these are few examples experienced by me during my placement season. There were so many mistakes made by me, so many mistakes made by my friends, but at the end what matters is the learning process. I learned so many things during that time and therefore, I am sharing my experience with you so that you don’t commit the same mistakes. 

Getting started with placements: What you will do...

Last year XYZ Sir got package of 30 lacs in Europe, ABC Madam got package of 15 lacs in India. We are studying in IIT/ NITs/ DCE/ NSIT so, it is natural for us to expect us to get package of at least 10 lacs per annum, after all we are the so called best Engineers of India. I feel sorry for you people but I don’t blame you people for this kind of thinking. Even I had similar thinking sometime back but now I am well aware of the entire scenario and thus I am writing so as to familiarize you with the harsh reality of placements.

Now, let us come back to ground guys. If life would have been that much easy, then everyone one would have worked hard and got into the top colleges and secure a placement which pays you more than your professor could earn in his entire life time.

Let me describe you the first few weeks of placement season (this applies to most of the guys who do not get placed in the beginning).

1.      You come to know that some company is coming to your college, say XYZ Company. And you are lucky enough that this company is open to students of your branch.

2.      You will find out the package it offers. Let us say, it offers a tempting package of 15 lacs per annum.

3.      You get excited and you are least bothered about the profile offered by the company.

4.      D-day comes and that company visits your college. You get up and dress up in neat formals, with an expensive folder carrying all your certificates ranging from college to class 5.

5.      Company executives come and speak so pompously about their company. Then the writtentest starts. As soon as you see the paper, you realize that paper is full of coding questions which is an alien language to you. Now what?

6.      Thank god! Examiner said that there is no negative marking. You feel as if everything is going in your favor. You very audaciously mark all the answers and wish (just wish to) to clear the written examination. (Your mind knows that it is next to impossible but still your heart says that it can happen. You just recall all the quotes you have seen on Facebook which says” BE OPTIMISTIC”).

7.      Result is declared and you are among the other tens of students pushing each other to see their name in the list. Unfortunately, at this time stars have turned away from you and your name is not in the list. To add to your miseries, one of your so called friends got shortlisted for the next round whom you think to be far less intelligent than you.

8.      Next step is to come back to your room and wait for the next company.

9.      Next company is visiting your college after three days. Let’s call this company PQRcompany (I guess I will have to use all the alphabets). This company is offering package of 14 lacs per annum. Hearing the package, you gain back your energy and have strong intuition that this time you will make it. (Let us hope so)

10.  Entire process goes again: dressing up neatly, going for written examination, pre placement talk, and then written test. Last time, your hurdle was programming but this time it is case studies. You are sitting in written examination of a company which offers hefty package of 14 lacs per annum and you are wondering “What the hell are case studies?”

11.  To mitigate your woes, examiner announced that there is no negative marking. You marked all the answers (obviously not blindly but using a concept which we call as LOGICAL GUESS). Now, it’s time for the result.

12.  Exactly same scenario repeats. Only difference was the day and the company. You push your friends anxiously to look your name in the list. Again the conflict between your mind and heart goes on. As I said earlier, the only change was day and company, result was also same.

13.  Now this process continues, you sit in some 7-8 companies. Your friends have got placement. And that guy also got placed whom you consider far less intelligent than you. You start considering yourself a looser. Frustration is building up in your head. You start sitting in each and every company that visits your college. The only good thing is that you have crossed the stage of aptitude tests and entered into another era where clearing interview is creating problem for you.

14.  All the dreams of having 15 lacs package have been left behind. All you want at this point is a placement irrespective of company, package, place or profile.

15.  Finally, after this tiring fight of four months, your name is announced. You are placed and you are extremely happy to hear that. You go for a party and have fun. It seems as if the some heavy load has been lifted off from your shoulders. It does not matter that you have placement of 4 lacs, all you are concerned about is that you have placement. 


Click on the link to read second part of this article: Getting started with placements: How you can do better?

How to prepare for The Smart Cube???

The Smart Cube (TSC) is primarily a Knowledge ProcessOutsourcing (KPO), and it specializes in detailed market research. It is one of the most sought after companies at DTU and is also one of the few companies who pay you moderately more than its competitors and at the same time does not overburden you with work.

What is a KPO?

A KPO is like back office of a consulting company. Consulting firms provide them with data or ask the KPO to collect data for them and then the final job of the KPO is to organize and sort the data and provide insights and interpretations from that data. The work is not limited to the described domain but it is what majorly a KPO does.

The entire process of recruitment consists of three steps:

1.       Written test

2.       Group Discussion

3.       Interview

Written test:

Written test of TSC consists of general awareness questions and aptitude questions. There was one essay. The topic was similar to “What is your ultimate destination?”

Aptitude questions were easy. Those preparing for CAT are going to find them pretty simple. Some of the general awareness questions asked were:

1.       Who is the chief of SEBI?

2.       Tide is a product of which company?

3.       Which company took over Motorola in the recent past?
4.   A question was based on the relation of demand-supply curve.
5.   There was a question in which students have to match the names of the personalities to the companies with which they were associated as CEO.

We recommend you to prepare following few questions as they can be asked at any stage of the procedure:

1.       Which company filed for bankruptcy on 18 January 2012?
a)    Kodak           
b) Canon              
c) Sony                 
d) Nikon

2.       Which of the following group countries include the ‘PIIGS’ group in Europe?
a)      Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Germany, Spain
b)      Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain
c)       Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Spain
d)      Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Spain

3.       Who is the first Non-American to join board of Bank of America?
a)       Sunil Mittal  
b)    Indra Nooyi                            
c)    LN Mittal                       
d)    Mukesh Ambani 

4.       Vicks Vaporab is the product of which company?
a)   Procotor & Gamble 
b) Hindustan Unilever    
c) Ranbaxy                
d) GlaxoSmith Kline

5.       The Manesar plant of which automobile company witnessed a prolonged strike in September 2011?
a)   Maruti Suzuki           
b) Tata Motors             
c) Hero Motors          
d) Hindustan Motors

6.       Which of the following is the latest country to join WTO?
a)   Vietnam                   
b) Cape Verde             
c) Nauru                     
d) China

7.       Questions on Euro Zone crisis can be asked.

These are just sample questions. Do not consider that only these questions will be asked in the exam.

Group discussion:

Topics of GD in 2011 were:

• BRIC Countries
• Honor Killing 
• Should our Ministers use Social Networking Sites?
• Is Pink the New Blue?

Just work on normal GD preparation. Topics asked were very general. Sit with your friends and practice GD. Learn the basic fundamentals of GD and work on them.

For GD tips visit: http://thenextbigstep.in/group-discussion-2/

Interview:

1.       For interview, you need to work a lot on Guesstimates and case studies. These are asked inevitably in every interview.  To learn more about case studies and guesstimates, visit following sites.

http://thenextbigstep.in/case-studies/

http://thenextbigstep.in/guesstimates/

One of the guesstimate asked in interview was to determine how many 500ml water bottles will be sold in Rohini, the next day.

2.       Apart from these, you should go through some case study guide like VAULT’s Guide or any other. This is must to understand Guesstimates and Case studies in a better way.

3.       Prepare standard HR questions before hand. Click on the following link to get the list of HR questions.

http://thenextbigstep.in/interview-questions-placements/

4.       Be thorough with your internship and projects if you have any because interviewer might ask you basic questions about your branch and internship.

Advice from the students who got selected last year:

Be thorough with the prevailing economic situations and with your internships. No need to worry about tech questions because the interviewer himself or herself does not know the correct answers to them.

To read complete interview experience of students who got through TSC, visit http://thenextbigstep.in/the-smart-cube/