Actis Capital Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Interview
Experience: They are essentially looking for enthusiasm and courses you have taken.
Tips: One must know one's courses properly.  Read newspaper

Round: Interview
Tips: They spoke about general things and asked me what other interviews. Also, they storied speaking about why DB is a good choice.

Skill Tips: Know your content better. A little bit of economics and a bit about stock markets. Practice some puzzles and probability questions. Brush tip courses on Accounting, economics,marketing and maybe one core course
Skills: Finance fundaes, Presentation of facts in Resume, CGPA
College Name: IIT Madras

Round: resume shortlisting
Experience: The profile offered is not solely based on number crunching; rather, it is also focused on building industries by buying and selling market commodities. You are judged on your drive or excellence in any field, and on how good you are at convincing the panel.
Tips: Your resume will be scrutinized thoroughly and whatever you write in it must be well thought out.

Round: Interview
Experience: The interview is more like a conversation and you should try to direct it in the direction you like.
Tips: For puzzles: Approach important, not final answer,think aloud,take cues from interviewer,do not panic! They look for the ability to show that you can create an impact. Have knowledge on current affairs and happening around you- Overview + details about a few topics,take a stand on issues. Watch economic & political debates. Read blogs by economists, journalists as well as economic Times and magazine and discuss topics with friends.

Round: Interview
Tips: Have good appearance and posture,be professional and confident,know your resume well,relax and be yourself!

Skill Tips: "Need to be aware of the current affairs. One should know the top 5 headlines of the day before the interview and also on the day of the interview. As far as DB is concerned, there is no written test and CAT preparation should suffice. Even DB has a buddy program for shortlisted candidates. Brush up Probability & Statistics.""
Skills: Domian excellence, Ability to convince
College Name: IIT Madras

Round: Subjective Technical
Experience: Theory questions were asked in this round, like basic fundamental definition in java, oops, etc
Tips: should know all the basics of core java and Oracle.


Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Theory questions were asked in this round, like basic fundamental definition in java, oops, etc
Tips: should know all the basics of core java and Oracle.


Round: HR Interview
Tips: Be confident and be clear about what you say about your hobbies.

College Name: Shri Shankaracharya Engineering College, Bhilai

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: For CSE and EE students , CPI was not at all seem to be a criteria for shortlisting and almost all who have a decent profile got shortlisted for the test. However, for other department students they shortlisted above 9 CPI students.

Round: Test
Experience: It was a 2 hour test. It consisted of 3 sections-Quant , Machine Learning and Computer Science . Each section had 10 questions and 45 minutes were allotted for each section.
Being from non-CSE background I attempted only 2 sections ie. Quant and Machine Learning. Machine Learning section was fairly easy this time and almost all questions were standard. If someone has done an introductory course on Machine Learning and basic stats , this section was a cake walk for him. However , attempting quant section required some preparation of solving probability puzzles (computing expectations etc.) ,basic linear algebra and geometry base questions.
Duration: 2 hours

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I had 2 rounds of interview. Both were technical ones.
In the first interview , they asked some probability puzzles (from 50 challenging problems in probability book) . Since I had completed that book before , I was able to solve them . Then they asked 1-2 algorithm based questions like formulate an efficient algorithm for solving a particular problem. I was not able to solve them completely but tried to give them the overview of y approach. The interviewer didn't seem to be satisfied though. It lasted for around 20-25 minutes.He told me to wait outside . To my surprise, I was called for the 2nd round.
The second went better than the first round. They again asked questions on computing probability , expectations , constructing a Markov Chain for a a given problem etc. Since I had done 1 course in Fiance also , he asked me questions from it also which were quite easy. Then he began asking algorithms and asked me to explain a sorting algorithm and I chose Quick Sort. While explaining it , I got struck at one point but the interviewer was helping me by giving hints and I was able to explain it fully. The second round was quite exhaustive as it went on for around 45-60 minutes.

Skills: Problem Solving Abilties, Mathematical Aptitude, Algorithmic Approach To Problem Solving, Machine Learning, Statistical Method Basics
College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: They shortlist around 300 resume from whole batch for next round.
Tips: Basically add your projects related to Machine Learning and coursework related to Math. GS is one of the companies which reviews resume carefully (At least I think so :P), reason being me selected even after a low CPI. Around 250 to 300 students were shortlisted from resume for second round.
GS is one of the rarest firms that will go through your resume thoroughly. Most important part is that GS is a firm you want to go for if you have a modest CPI and are genuinely interested in global markets.
They hire for Strats and Quants division. So highlight projects related to Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Techniques. Mathematical coursework and internship in related field could be elaborated too. Even students with no internship experience whatsoever were selected due to their background in Machine Learning related coursework.
I have a little or no idea about programming division as it revolves around networking and related projects.

Round: Test
Experience: They started hosting test online on hackerrank. It includes three sections with equal weightage to each of them. You have 45 minutes for individual sections. There are three type of questions asked - MCQ (+10, -3), Fill in the blanks (Numbers upto 2 decimal places; +10, -0) and 2 coding questions in programming section (+20, -0).
Programming - 2 coding questions. Questions about networking, cache and DSA (postfix and prefix expression from stack related algorithms).
Quant - Cattle grazing the circular field tied from a pole at the corner of a rectangular shade with a rope. Some about practical probability problem of die throws. Other about matrices and determinant. Theoretical questions in probability covers a major portion in form of expected value, correlation and covariance calculations. This section had some integer type questions.
Data Sciences - MLT theory should be a stronghold. Particularly confusing theoretical questions. Some of them had 4 statements and then 4 options asking correct statements so you have to be good at multiple topics. Typical question include possible solution to account for missing input data and regularization among others.
Tips: You have to be good at any two of the sections. Quant is quite competitive as the questions are easier and CSE guys can attempt these too from mathematical coursework on prob and stats. Typically whole batch is rooting for this profile because of lesser chance in CS related profile.
A little brushing up old DS notes won't hurt anyone. Specially tree, graphs (algorithms like Bellman Ford, Djikstra and Prim's algo), complexity of standard algorithms and postfix, prefix expression derivation will help a long way. Coding questions demand efficient solution, otherwise you won't be able to clear all test cases because of TLE.
For quant, Prob Stats and Linear Algebra course review is highly recommended. A little aptitude (CAT related although a lot higher standard than that) will help too.
In data sciences, ML lectures will help a lot as most part is theoretical which can be solved if you have your concepts strong. Gaussian distribution, Regularizer, PCA are some of the topics which were asked about.
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: At first I couldn

Round: Test
Experience: 28 questions, 18 quantative + 10 financial awareness, negative marking. I took one pass through the Quant section, leaving about 5 questions, went on to the financial section, realized I wasn't going to score that well there so went back to Quant eventually attempting all 18, having to guess 1 answer since I ran out of time. I attempted probably 2-3 in financial. The test matters a lot to get shortlisted - some CSE students didn’t get shortlisted apparently because of a low test score. I would suggest that focus should be primarily on the quant section rather than the finance section - a friend in CSE who said he did well in the finance section didn’t get shortlisted.

Quant
1. Find next in sequence : 10,1,.......7,7...11,5 - don't remember the rest of the sequence but it looked random
initially it but if you take the difference between alternate terms an obvious pattern emerges .
2. Probability of two people telling the truth = 0.4,0.6 - what is the chance that they are inconsistent in what they say ?
3. A 3 digit number is a square less than 500, the reverse of the number is also a square. on repeating last digit still a square. What is the difference between the initial square, its reverse.
4. In a 1000m race if x gives y a head start of 40 meter, x wins by 10m. how much will x win by if y gives x a head start of 40m
5. With 16 matches, how many distinct triangles can you make?
6. You row at 7kmph in a calm lake. fisherman drops something 14 km upstream and the river current is 3kmph, how long will it take to reach you (14/7 = 2hrs ).
7. The sum of the multiples of 7 between 200 and 400 is what (trick was instead of calculating, to observe that the answer is odd and of the 5 options, only one was odd)?
8. Sum of consecutive page numbers in a book starting from 1 to n is 1000 - one page was repeated. which page was it? (idea was to subtract each choice from 1000 and see if it was n _ (n + 1)/2)
9. Last digit of 508508
10. 6 men + 4 women. Make a committee of 3 from them - Guy X wont be with Guy Y. Guy Y will be only with Woman Z in committee. How many ways of making the committee?
11. Run in circle of radius r. 1st 30 seconds at r meters/min, then next 1 min at r/2 m per min next 2 min at r/4 and so on. ratio of times taken in round n, previous round
12. |(x ? 11)/2| < 3 what is the range of x?
13. number of integer solutions to 3x + 6y = 13 (take 3 common on LHS and the answer is clear).
14. 5 students give an objective exam (+1 for correct, 0 for wrong) with 5 questions each with 5 choices. Their answers were given in a 5x5 matrix. Given they all got different marks, who got the lowest.
15. A,B,C,D stand in a line in increasing order of height. Given that X was shorter than Y but didnt stand first, and (a few more conditions) , who stood last? (X and Y had been specified as one of A, B, C, D - I don’t remember exactly since I gave the test 10 days back).

Financial
1. Rupee-dollar exchange rate (options were ranges of 1 rupee answer ws 39-40)
2. value of some index (some non-Indian East Asian country’s stock market - I forgot the name)
3. Effect of interest rate cuts on a bond coupon
4. Simple question on call option - which of following is not true about it
5. 1st Indian IT company to be listed on Nasdaq

6. Given a pie chart where it showed that for capital, a company relied 80% on equity and a small fraction on debts, what investment strategy is the company using? Conservative/Aggressive?
Duration: 40 min minutes

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I was the last person DB interviewed that day. Towards the end, the interviewer said “I am sure you are going to join Tower Research and not DB”. They also seemed to have decided before I came in to the interview that I would get an offer with some other company and would not choose DB - kept attacking the answers I gave to ‘Why not Microsoft/Tower’. In hindsight maybe I shouldn't have listed all the 4 tech companies I had interned with.

College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Test
Experience: The test had 2 parts. 1)Objective (90 mins) 2) Subjective (90 mins). Both the paper were divided into 3 sections 1) Computer Science 2)Math & 3)Data Science .

To get shortlisted you need to do well on only one of the section.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Probability Interview and discussion on projects that I have worked upon on in the institute.

Probability questions were given a quadratic equation whose coefficients are RVs , what is the probability that the roots are real.

College Name: IIT Madras

Round: Test
Experience: They had two rounds of test, one all objective and the other one all subjective. You had to clear a minimum cut off in the objective in order to get your subjective checked
Duration: 3 hours
Total Questions: 40

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: CV grilling, no hr questions

Round: Test
Experience: You are not supposed to know everything. If you do exceptionally well in one or two sections in each paper and even leave third section completely (which I did) then you are through. Third section was mainly for CSE guys. In subjective part Algorithm section had 5 questions and maths section had 4 questions. Questions in maths section were based on probability, linear algebra, differential equation and discrete maths. Randomized algorithm course taught by Baswana sir was really helpful in doing probability questions. Questions were doable if you knew the concepts well. For algorithms part concepts taught in basic Data structure and algorithm course were enough. Questions were based on linked list, binary tree, stack, queue, sorting, Dijkstra etc.
Duration: 75 minutes minutes

Round: Test
Experience: Each section in objective paper had 10 questions and there was negative marking. On the basis of test they selected 75 candidates.
Duration: 75 minutes minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I was asked about my thesis 3-4 times as I had done some good work in Thesis and had submitted 2 paper based on it. Also as my work was on (Data Compression) Information theory which involves a lot probability and the problems I worked on was of theoretical nature, so I was able to relate it with them. So it was one of my plus point. They asked some questions from topics related to my thesis.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: They asked some algorithmic puzzles and some probability and other maths puzzles. At no point of time I was asked to write the code (but it totally depends on the team they are looking you for) I just had to tell them how to solve the problem.
Tips: Don’t hurry in interview and take your time to solve the problem. Also at every point keep interviewer engaged and keep telling him in which direction you are proceeding and also why you are doing this.

General Tips: Start preparing from summer itself. If you are targeting quant companies I will advise you start preparing even before for probability and puzzles as you can’t become good in these things overnight. I am not saying you to give 1 -2 hour daily for puzzles rather I will advise you to do just 1-2 puzzles whenever you have time and enjoy it.

Don’t leave everything for the last time you will for sure run short of time so finish the important tasks first. Make goals which are practically achievable.

Skill Tips: Focus on your Study.. Revise the subject that you have studied at the time of Interview
Skills: Technical Skills
College Name: IIT Kanpur