CapitalOne Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: Test
Experience: The test was purely based on Data Interpretation. Every page had 3 charts and 5 objective questions based on those charts. There was severe time constraint in the paper and my selectivity among the questions proved beneficial in clearing the cut-off.
Duration: 1 hour
Total Questions: 30

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: "Tell me about yourself" was the first question asked to me. I just told him a few things about myself mainly focusing on the financial projects I did. Then he gave me a trivial case study as follows,
"There are two economical classes, Prime and Sub-Prime, and I had to give a Motorcycle loan to one of them. Whom should I give?"
I was supposed to ask him any information that I would require to solve this case study. Whenever I used to get stuck he gave me hints to work upon. And finally, based on the value he gave me I could compare the profit from both the classes. The main thing about the case study was the way of solving it and how interactive was I with the interviewer.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: "Capital One reached its customers for new offers through postal mail. They had 2 kinds of postal services, A class and C class. In A Class, if the customer had changed his address then the postal service would update the address on the letter and it would reach the customer at the new address. In C Class, if the address is changed then the customer would not get the mail. I was supposed to tell which one of the postal service was better in two conditions, 1st when no. of mail to be made is fixed and 2nd when amount to be spend in mailing is fixed."
I found this case simpler than the earlier one. I managed to complete the case in just 20 minutes. The interviewer was very impressed with the speed with which I was able to solve the case. It was enough to make me realize that I had made it.
Tips: The main thing that you need to remember in Case Study of this sort is that you need to speak your mind. It helps the interviewer understand the way you are thinking. So if you have made some calculation mistake he wouldn

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Don

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Resume Shortlist was strictly done on the basis of CGPA ! All candidates with CGPA 7.0 and above were shortlisted for the test.

Round: Test
Experience: A total of 30 questions were given to completed in a short span of 35 minutes. A set of 5-6 questions were based on a set of three graphs (generally line chart, pie chart, bar graph). Questions were based on simple calculations and test was aimed at keeping a check on accuracy and speed of the candidate
Tips: Practice a few Data Interpretation exercise to understand the graphs easily.
Duration: 35 minutes
Total Questions: 30

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case was about Market entry for a Money Lender in a village. The case included identification of potential customer segment, revenue streams. Then there was some data provided regarding the interest and various kind of loan models that would be used by the lender. I was then asked to work on the profitability. This case was more on the qualitative side.
Tips: - Keep communicating with the interviewer. Involve him in the case solving process.
- If at any point of time, you are unsure about the approach you are following, ask the interviewer.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case was about a credit card company who uses various kind of marketing strategies (mail, calls etc) for customer acquisition. The interviewer started with the discussion on the marketing techniques. The data included costs, acquisition rate, and the average profits. I was asked to calculate the break even point.
The case was numerical and easy to crack once the data was provided.


Tips: - Calculate accurately. Never answer wrong because of the speed.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case was about a bank who was observing a higher delinquency rate and fraud. The data provided was about loss per customer, average revenue etc. The case typically numerical after some discussion on strategy about reducing fraud.


Skills: Speed, Accuracy, Ability To Analyse
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Kharagpur
Motivation: Good Perks, Big Brand.

Round: Test
Experience: Questions are very basic and easy to answer .Algorithms should be implemented on spot but they are also standard ones
Tips: read Richie and kernigan
Duration: 60 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Nice question and very hard to solve .Though it is a standard problem but requires spontaneous thinking because there are some restrictions for it
Tips: Read cormen

General Tips: Learn all basic algorithms and be confident.
Skill Tips: Solve some puzzles
Skills: Problem Solving Skills, Approaching A Problem
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Madras
Motivation: i like data engineering profile

Round: Test
Experience: These were very simple questions if you are good at basic C.After all the hackerrank tests these felt very simple.
Duration: 1 hour minute
Total Questions: 15

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: It was a case study question, where i had to write the pseudo code for the execution of it.
Reasoning, the final numbers, and the pseudo code has equal weightage

Tips: You will be kind of judged based on the first case. It that is done well, you are mostly in.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This was tougher than the previous case, took quite some time.. Kind of figured it out. But there were some mistakes, but it didn't matter that much
Tips: Express whatever you have figured out clearly, even if you have made any mistakes, if you clearly explain the way of approach, that will be fine.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: It was more of a job fit cum resume interview. He told me about the work i am going to do once i join, and he was checking if my interests match with the requirements of the company.
Tips: Be confident, think out loud and you can easily crack it.

Skills: Algorithmic Approach To Problem Solving, Case Solving Ability
Duration: 2 months
College Name: IIT Madras

Round: Test
Experience: The test basically involved solving 15 Data interpretation questions. The test was pretty easy, and hence accuracy was very important to qualify for the next round.
Tips: Solving DI questions from any CAT practice book will be more than enough. The actual questions in the test are much easier. Just be read the question carefully and you will be able to solve it.
Total Questions: 15

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Initially the interviewer tests your basically conceptual knowledge regarding the cost and revenue streams for a loan and then expects you to calculate the average profit given the required data. This was a pretty small interview lasting only about 10-12 minutes or so.
Tips: Keep conversing with the interviewer and clarify any doubts. Do not mess up with the calculation.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Again, the interviewer tests your basic understanding regarding making a decision to select between two marketing schemes. Then, after being provided relevant information, you are expected to make an informed decision, do the break-even analysis and plot a graph.
Tips: You need to show the interviewer your grasp of business concepts. A good knowledge about economics and a business acumen helps. The math is easy, just be careful not to mess it up. Also, keep conversing with the interviewer and help him understand your line of thinking, this would enable him to assist you and get you on the right path.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: You are expected to do the math to assess the profitability of an ATM and qualitatively discuss the factors to be considered while setting up a new ATM.
Tips: Again, think aloud and use your common sense if ever you feel that you do not know an answer. But mainly be confident.

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: The interviewer is very friendly and it is more of a chat than an interview. Also, they will get into the specifics of the example you provide just to understand the situation better and to know how you handled the situation.
Tips: Be well prepared with all the general HR and behavioral questions and think about specific examples that you would like to bring up.

General Tips: To sum it up, more than anything, just be confident.
Skill Tips: If you are selected for the interview, chances are that you already have the necessary math skills to succeed. Remember, the only things which are going to get you through are confidence, alertness and business acumen.
Skills: Confidence, Communication, Basic Mathematics
College Name: IIT Bombay

Round: Test
Experience: Adaptive DI test. Level of difficulty less than CAT.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This is a very simple case interview. The case was as follows: Client is a micro-lender, they loan funds from a big bank @ 6% SI and loan out the money to farmers at 10% and 20% SI. The segmentation is 60% and 40% respectively. Calculate profit/customer. What is the profit if 2% customers default (uniformly from both segments) on the loan? (Ans: loss incurred)
Tips: This is a very simple round, just stick to the essentials of keeping your structure + calculations neat & clean. Communicate well. You'll get through.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case: We are a telecom company, planning to launch a new subscription plan. Decide if we should go ahead or not. The plan is as follows: We charge the customers $0.99 for the first 20 minutes and $0.08/minute thereafter. The cost incurred by the company is $0.07/minute. Should we go ahead with the plan?
You will be asked to draw a graph between Profit and minutes spent on a call. To come to a decision you might ask the interviewer for some more data like the distribution or the average time spent by a customer on a call. But none of this is information can be used to decide if we should go ahead with the plan. Unless you have a distribution of percentage of customers vs time spent on an avg call, you can not decide the fate of the plan.
On our campus, almost everybody answered a yes(go ahead) or a no for the plan and still got rejected. I think the actual answer is "None of the above. With the present information nobody can predict if the plan will be profitable in the long run.
Please do not say we can use historical data to come to a conclusion, I did, the question he then posed to me is can we really use historical data to predict the usage pattern of this plan by our customers?? The answer is no, we can not use historical data, as the customers will have an incentive to speak for close to 20 minutes per call.
I also looked at the problem from a customers point of view to check if a customer has an incentive to pick this plan over the others. I asked for the cheapest plan/s out in the market currently, so the interviewer told me that the cheapest plan cost the customer $0.08/minute.
After getting this data, I looked at intersection of the time band at which it becomes cheaper for the customer to pick our plan over the 8 cents plan and the time band which is profitable for us.
I came to the conclusion that the band is very narrow to be profitable and that I do not think that it will generate net profits. So we should not go ahead with the plan.
I assumed that there wont be a large chunk of customers in the above mentioned time band. This is what I think my mistake was.
I believe there is no way of definitely saying whether we should go ahead or not. Hence the answer must be Cant be Determined.
FYI: I also suggested him to launch it in a small region/zone so as to figure out the distribution of customers. No good.

Skills:
College Name: IIT Kanpur
Motivation: Chill out workplace. No pressure of work. But no future either :P wont land you in a great B-school. This is just an office opened by a recently grown American company. They have an office in India just to show the Investors that they plan on expanding and are investing in India and Philippines. I don't think the real work happens here. This might sound like a rant, but you should go ahead and prepare for this company. Its one of the best options straight out of college. Or to settle down or if you like to chill a lot....

Round: Test
Experience: There was a written test followed by 5 rounds of interview.The written test had 40 Data Interpretation questions and 10 Logical Reasoning questions.Duration for written test was 1 hour.

Round: MATHS ROUND
Experience: The 5 rounds of interview consisted of 4 Maths based rounds and 1 HR round.The first two interviews were held in the night .Mine particularly was at 2:30 am and 2:45 am .The next few rounds were in the morning(9 am).Questions were mainly case studies,logical reasoning and probability(Basically to check your comfort level in maths).

General Tips: Exhausting journey as there were nearly 5 interviews in a span of 10 hours (through the night) with hardly any sleep in between. It'll definitely be a good learning experience irrespective of how things turn out.
Keep in touch with aptitude. Decent speed in maths is necessary .Familiarization with Simple Interest and Profit Loss problems will come in handy during the interview stage.
Skill Tips: Books really won't help,just have to make sure your not too rusty at the time of the test and interview.The interview questions are all maths oriented,there's nothing to worry about.Don't have to solve everything just have to leave a good impression with the interviewee.
Skills:
College Name: NIT Surathkal

Round: Test
Experience: It was an easy test with basic DI and LR questions. There were around 18 questions to be done in 20 minutes.
Calculator is allowed so speed was not be a problem.
Tips: A great presence of mind and accuracy is needed. Try some CAT style DI/LR questions.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Initially, the interviewer asked me a general question of what factors should be kept in mind while renting a new place near the office as well as if it is away from the office. Then the case study data was given, and various profit and loss questions were asked with some tricky conditions.
Tips: Maintaining one's cool and calm is a must. Try to solve the questions fast, but it is always better to give a late answer than a wrong answer.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Some general financial knowledge was tested, as in what are the possible sources of income of commercial banks. Then the ATM case study was given, in which I had to ascertain the places in which setting up an ATM will be profitable. I was also asked to draw graphs for the profit/loss equations, and had to interpret some data from it too.
Tips: Strong mathematical skills and basic knowledge of economics will come in handy in such interviews.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This was the final case study, and was similar to the previous ones, with a bit more tricky cases. Some HR questions were asked:
Why Capital One?
Why analytics?

And similar ones.

Skills: Case Analysis, Quantitative Aptitude, Economics, Quick Maths
Duration: 3
College Name: IIT Roorkee

Round: Test
Experience: Capital one usually conducts a data interpretation test to shortlist students for interviews.
This test also has some weightage in the final selections as it is a metric to judge your
speed and accuracy of calculations. There are 30 questions in 35 minutes so the strategy to crack
it is not to get stuck on confusing questions and maintain a good speed/accuracy balance.
50 students were shortlisted for interviews from among 160 who gave the test and the
cutoff must have been around 22 or 23 out of 30.
Tips: CAT questions help.
Know a bit about inflation.
Duration: 35 minutes
Total Questions: 30

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I was asked about a bank which borrows at 6% and lends at 10% to one class
of debtors and 20% to a riskier class. I had to determine the profitability of the
bank given a common dollar loss rate and average loan size. This was an easier
case and involved basic common sense to get to the final answer.
Tips: -Don't make errors in calculations
-Keep on communicating with the interviewer even if you get stuck.


Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I was first asked which factors might have led to the falling sales, for
which I gave around 6-7 possible reasons.
Then he gave me a lot of data about the breakfast chain and two possible
decisions the breakfast chain could make. I had to determine the viability
by analyzing the data given.
Tips: -Again be accurate in your calculations. Even a small mistake can lead to a wrong final conclusion.
-Imagine the company given and all possible sources it can derive revenues from.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I was introduced to the concept of transactors and revolvers
and given some basic information about their spending habit.
This was followed with an analysis of the profits to the credit card
company due to these two classes of credit card holders.
It is a bit confusing if you don't know how exactly credit card companies
earn money and what the cost of funds are for transactors.
Tips: -Know the terms used by credit card companies like interchange rate, cost of funds, dollar loss rate before your Capital One interview. Also know the sources of revenue of credit card companies.

Skills:
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Bombay
Motivation: Strong in analytics. Great work culture and perks.