PGDBA 2016-18 Interview Experiences Part-2

This is in continuation with our previous blog post, adding some more interview experiences from the batch of 2016-18.

Adhikari Vushesh Babu – Dual Degree ( B. Tech. + M. Tech.) in Information Technology, ABV IIITM Gwalior, 2016

Duration: 40 mins

1. HR question about the following scenario- Let’s assume many companies are willing to visit your college this year and you are made the placement representative for your batch. What Steps would you take so that you will get all the credit for your batch placements and not placement season? List some of your initiatives which you think will help you in taking that credit.
2. Having completed post graduation in Information Technology from IIIT, why do you want to pursue Career in Business analytics?
3. Questions in core engineering part- Merge sort or Quick sort and in what cases would they work better with examples, also explain their worst case complexities. Explain Dijkstra’s algorithm with an example.
4. Questions in probability and statistics part-If I were to toss an unbiased coin 10 times, how many heads should I expect? If the coin is biased and the probability of head appearing is 1/3, then how many heads do I expect in 30 trials. Explain Taylor’s series and its uses. Where are complex numbers used in real life?

SUGGESTIONS – Just brush up your knowledge on probability, Statistics and your engineering mathematics. Have a look at sorting and search algorithms. Also be prepared to answer why a career in Analytics.

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Shubhodeep Dey – B.Tech, Chemical Engineering, NITK, Surathkal, 2013; 33 months of experience in Petrochemicals, Reliance Industries Limited

Duration: 20 mins

I had done a lot of projects during my job so they started with what is the most innovative thing you have done. As soon as I started with my answer, they started asking me random questions on the assembly line (petrochemical industries don’t have anything related to assembly lines). I was able to answer some of them. Then they drew a curve on the sheet and asked me what is the covariance between the data points. I had a good idea about this concept so I could deliver. They moved on to probability and wanted me to visualise a binomial distribution for the number of defectives being produced by a lathe machine given a probability of finding a defective. I could satisfy them by writing down the equations. Some more probability questions followed on coin tosses. My interview ended with a concluding question – what are the major oil producing economies which are not a part of OPEC?
All in all, it went fairly good, I got stuck on few of their questions but they were kind enough to guide me. You don’t have to know everything, what they are looking for is the approach to the problem. Confidence and clarity of thoughts are key factors. The written exam had a heavy contribution in the final selection.

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Parag Bhandarkar – B. Tech. in Electronics Engineering, VJTI Mumbai, 2014; 23 months of experience as a Software engineer, Diebold

Duration: 20 mins

1. Describe your work experience. What are the skill sets learnt during work experience? Domains worked on? Who are the competitors for my company (Diebold)? How will you use Analytics for ATM Industry? What is the reliability in Software domain? What factors affects it? Which affects more – Software / Hardware? and why?
2. 2 basic mathematics questions-Based on definite Integrals of some box function, Integration of some trigonometric function

SUGGESTIONS-I think admission committee looked for a balanced profile. It was also written on the website that they will look for Academic, test score and interview performance. As my academic performance was very good, despite “only-good” performance in test and interview, overall weight got balanced.

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Prem Krishn –  B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering, IIT BHU, 2011; 54 months of experience in Tata Steel (Manufacturing industry)

Duration: 25 mins

1. Based on my design experience in 3D modelling of Electricals at Tata Steel, they asked about my work in detail, then they gave the equation of a solid geometry and asked what does it represent exactly,
2. Based on a certification I had in Data Science and SAS from Jigsaw Academy,
   What is p-value? (Some questions to test that I really know it), What is the lacking point in R? (I told about memory issues.)
3. They asked about my role model, some Current Affairs questions about him.
4. They seem to focus majorly on my prior knowledge about Analytics, genuine interest in the course and balanced answers.

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Anshuman Roy – B.Tech. in Electronics and Communications, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, 2011; 4 years of experience in TCS (IT industry)

Duration: 15 mins

1. Why do I want to go for analytics field after 4 years of work experience in IT? Which technologies and programming languages I worked on?
2. General formula of permutation and combination with their meaning and explanation with example.
   Draw as many dots on a sheet of paper and asked how many triangles can be drawn in that many number of dots.
   How many lines joining 2 dots can be drawn in that many number of dots.
3. Those days state elections preparations were going on in West Bengal. So I was asked 3 popular political parties of West Bengal, Delhi and Punjab, what are the major issues affecting people in these states, what was the issue going on among Kejriwal, Punjab and Haryana related to the water supply to Delhi.
4. Questions related to programming as I had programming background. He wrote few numbers and asked me what will be the best algorithm to bring 6(a number which was in the middle of the series) to the second position. It was a question on sorting. They asked me to write down the algorithm.

SUGGESTIONS – I guess they are judging your willingness and enthusiasm for this program. How much you can think to get to the answer. Sometimes they also look for your thought process instead of the right answer.

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Swapnika Vajrapu – B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, 2014; 2 years of experience in Analytics in Banking sector, Crosslink Analytics

Duration: 25 mins

1. Questions based on my project at workplace which was related to predictive analytics like-
   What were the dependent variables considered and what were the trends noticed? What was the mathematical equation used? Which tools were used? What algorithms were used? (Detailed description of the whole project)
2. Some basic questions related to machine learning algos which I told I was aware of. Mainly linear regression. What does the SAS output of linear regression model indicate? What’s the difference between causality and correlation?
3. 1 basic question related to geometry- if you move 5 km towards North, 5 km towards South-West and so on, finally where would you be as compared to the starting point?
4. SUGGESTIONS – They don’t expect the final answer to be correct always, they see the thought process involved in solving a problem. Be very confident about the projects you have mentioned, mainly which are related to analytics.

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Shrey Manish – B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering, NIT Allahabad, 2015; 1 year of experience in finance (trading), Futures First

Duration: 40-50 mins

1. Why PGDBA over other things?
2. On my work experience in the trading industry, I was asked about the specifics of the products I traded, the different types of derivatives and how to take a buy/sell decision for an option class given a hypothetical scenario.
3. What are some probability distributions you know? Explain the Poisson and Normal distribution.
4. A couple of questions on linear algebra were asked which included solving a system of equations.
5. Discussion on the JNU row, wasn’t asked anything objective.
6. I was asked about the HR policies at my workplace and which of these were liked/disliked by the employees.

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Sakshi Agarwal – B.Tech + M.Tech. in Biochemical Engineering & Biotechnology, IIT Delhi, 2014; 2 years of work experience in Analytics (CPG sector), Fractal Analytics

Duration: 20 mins

The interview started with a brief introduction about myself.
Questions on work experience:

• What projects did you work on?
• Can you specify few important variables in the data you used in this project? How did you use these variables? What variables, you think, can affect sales of a company?

Questions on Statistics and Maths:

• Do you know basic statistics?
• What is hypothesis testing? Type-I, II errors? Test statistic? significance level? How do you define risk and decision making?
• Given a signum function, discuss its limits and continuity, differentiability.
• Some basic puzzle

In my opinion, they were mainly concerned about the confidence and clarity in the mathematical concepts and the reasoning ability of the candidate.

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Mukul Sonker – B.Tech. In Electrical engineering, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, 2016

Duration: 20-25 mins

There were 3 questions from statistics:
What is CDF? At a given point what will be the pdf? Can you derive standard deviation?

They asked most of the questions from maths after knowing my interest in mathematics. The questions are (not necessarily in order):
1. What is the differentiation of X!?
2. One question from definite integral.
3. Differentiate log X by first derivative method.
4. Integration of log X ( I was also questioned for a particular method to find the solution).
5. Sketch the curve of log X+1 with steps.

Few questions on current affairs: Currencies of different countries . About maps. US elections?
They asked a few HR questions as well – why we should not select you? Why I am not going for a job? My final year project.

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Gunja Agarwal – B. Tech. in Computer Science, Jaypee university, 2015

Duration: 35 mins

1. Tell me about yourself. Do you have other interview calls?
2. A puzzle was given to solve – there are 3 bottles and a coin, so the probability of choosing a bottle is 1/3 but you have to get this probability by flipping a coin. What is the method to achieve the desired result?
   Answer: flip the coin twice and assign each bottle a unique id i.e TT, HT, TH, HH. But there are only 3 bottles, so create a dummy bottle and assign HH to it. Whenever while flipping a coin HH comes, you need to flip it again till a bottle is chosen. This way we can form an infinite GP series.
3. Opinion on JNU event
4. Questions on Computer science subjects like- what is deadlock and some famous problem which is yet not solved? Name the layers of networking in order? What is a graph and difference between a graph and a tree? I was asked to write the pointer program in C and was also asked to explain it in detail

Feedback: In my case, I think my higher secondary school marks in mathematics and graduation marks help me to grab some brownie points. Also, I was able to crack the puzzle confidently that they asked in the beginning.

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Kaustubh Daware – B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering, COEP, 2015; 11 months of experience in FCA (Automobile industry)

Duration: 20 mins

1. I was asked about my work as testing and validation engineer in my company. They tried to relate statistics with my work.
2. Panel had given me a riddle and I was asked to calculate the probability of the event specified in that riddle.
3. I was also asked to solve a problem on limits.
4. The interview panel asked me about my hobbies. When I told them that I like reading books, they questioned about my favourite books and what are they about. I was also asked that why am I pursuing PGDBA instead of masters in electrical as I had published few IEEE papers in my undergrad.

FEEDBACK: According to me, a fair idea on probability and calculus would suffice in cracking the interview.

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Harsh Kumar – B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering, IIT Delhi, 2016

Duration: 15 mins

1. What is linear regression?
2. What is the complexity of Dijkstra’s algorithm?
   What is BFS (Breadth first Search) and its complexity?
3. Why do you want to be in this course?
   One particular thing that you like the most and why?
   Tell me something about you that is not mentioned in your CV?
4. What is the pattern of variations in oil and natural gas prices? (Based on an economics project which I did during my B.Tech.)
5. Their major focus was on my knowledge of data structures and algorithms and some knowledge in economics.

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Sidharth Kumar – B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering, NIT Patna, 2015; 2 months of work experience in Accenture (IT Industry)

Duration: 10 -12 mins

1. What’s your position and responsibilities?
2. Warm-Up Questions – Expand CBSE, NTPC
3. Questions on Mathematics – 2 Puzzles(simple ones), Questions on Complex numbers (gave an equation to solve having complex roots), functions and differential equations (Gave a weird function to plot and then determine its tone with intervals)
4. Current Affairs were asked as well – Current Transport Minister, Defense and External affairs
5. Any extra -curricular activities done?

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Ranjit Kumar Malloji – B.Tech. in Computer Science, VNR VJIET Hyderabad, 2015; 1 year of work experience in CA Technologies (IT industry)

Duration: 25 mins

1. As I was from Computer Science background, there were few questions related to the same. They asked me to choose a subject which I think I’m good at and I chose Database Management Systems. They asked me to explain different joins; how each one is different from the rest and asked me to write few queries ( 2, as far as I can remember). They also asked me to solve a problem on Bayes’ theorem which we discussed for 10 minutes.
2. Based on work experience, few questions about my role at workplace and the technologies I was working on.
3. Few questions related to my hobbies, I told them that I am a gaming enthusiast to which they asked me what games I play.

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Sumit Kalaskar – B.E. in Computer Science, Pune University; Freelancer

Duration: 35-40 mins

1. Future of SAP ERP systems and impact of analytics on its design. Analytics in SAP and other ERP systems in the industry. What were the challenges faced during my assignments?
2. How can Statistics be useful for a programmer?
3. Which is the worst managed City in India according to you and why?
4. Why analytics? Some random questions like tell me about your weekend plan.
   You appear to be friendly, is it possible to be friendly and still be an introvert?
5. Questions on NBA, Lebron James (basketball)

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Here are the links to the interview experiences of the first batch of PGDBA:
PGDBA 2015-17 Interview Experiences – Part-1
PGDBA 2015-17 Interview Experiences – Part 2

Wishing you all the best for the final round! 🙂