Cubastion Consulting Manager Learning & Development Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case I got was about an International brokerage firm trying to enter India. It had three options to do so, acquiring an Indian firm, JV, and entering alone. Case involved a lot of data. I took a good 2-3 minutes initially to come up with a good MECE(mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) structure to work with, which was appreciated by the interviewer. Finally, he asked me to value a firm based on some data that he had given me, as I was going along the acquisition route.
Tips: It is essential to go about getting the structure right. think aloud, ask the interviewer at every point as to whether you are going on the right path, look for subtle hints from the interviewer.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: A lot of questions related to my CV were asked from positions of responsibility to my social work initiatives. He also clarified a lot of my doubts about the PMP practise at McKinsey, which I intended to work for.
The case was about a tractor firm, which was the market leader till about six months back, but has lost market steadily since then. I used the Porter's value chain framework, which he was very impressed with, He straightaway told me to skip quite a few analyses areas and I quickly came with problem as the company was offering less margin to its non-exclusive retailers, as compared to the competition. I triangulated my conclusion by asking as to what were the margins offered before the firm started losing market share and the interviewer was very happy about this.
Tips: Thinking aloud is something I cannot stress upon enough. Use MECE approach to make your framework waterproof. Try triangulating the conclusions drawn if any.

General Tips: Ask for clarification if you get stuck in-between.
Maintain your calm.
Skills:
Duration: 2 months
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The trick here was to recognize that even though the firm had several hundred clients in each city, it was a few big clients that contributed to most of it's revenue and a distribution network targeting these few clients was the expected recommendation.
Some standard HR questions were asked, about what I would consider my most significant achievement, why consultancy etc.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The task was to explore possibility of synergy in this acquisition. The case was based entirely on common sense and elementary mathematics. The interviewer wanted me to write an equation showing how costs would reduce if two companies merge.
HR questions were about my strengths, weaknesses etc.

General Tips: 1.Work on your communication skills.
2.Consultancies look for "spikes" in your career. spikes are the areas in your resume where you have shown outstanding performance.
3.Practice the case studies in groups. Avoid technical jargon and frameworks.
College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: My resume was shortlisted only twice but thankfully that was all I needed. First for Deutsche Bank (Corporate Finance summer internship, August 2013) and second for Boston Consulting Group (October 2014). I was confident about my academic interns, projects and position of responsibility. However, I was little bit unsure about my CPI which doesn't stand well among my peers. Overall, my experience for resume shortlisting has been plain and uneventful.
Tips: In order to overcome this section, one can find the following advice useful:Your resume should convey a story about you. At least, you should be able to narrate a story about yourself during HR interviews. When I say 'story', it means that your resume points shouldn't contradict each other. For example, if you are/(show in your CV) a research oriented student, then every POR you took should be justified and shouldn't reflect that you were simultaneously interested in pursuing corporate career. There should be at least one pillar in the resume which can catch the interest of the interviewer (obviously during the short listing because I believe resume isn't of much use during the personal interview).Stringent Editing ( CV 101) - Minimize the blank spaces and resume should look ordered; Things important to you (Foreign internship/positions of responsibility/summer internship/publications) should be mentioned in the 1st half of the page. You can change the order of the heading (Scholastic Achievements/Position of responsibility/Summer Internships/Publications).If you have more than 2 points under a sections then it's better to use tabular presentation format i.e. use tables Usually, I have noticed in many shortlisted CVs that it would be beneficial to show your interest in particular subject either via 'Courses undertaken/Area of interest/Academic projects'.
Get your resume reviewed by at least 3-5 distinguished seniors excluding Placement cell guides etc. It is of utmost importance.

Skill Tips: Case in point is best for Case study. Guesstimate problems can be easily found on internet. However, I learnt guesstimates from my wing mates and it was the shortest way to gain the knowledge
Skills: Case study Solving, Leadership, HR skills, Finance Current affairs, Guesstimation, Macroeconomics
College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: This part is frustrating; especially while getting reviews after you've made a draft. However, after heavy editing based on advice from seniors, it gave me a good head-start and confidence to move on to future preparation towards placements.
Tips: Management consulting shortlist is very strongly resume based. Hence the resume is the most crucial asset for getting a shortlist in the first place. When you know the success rate for getting shortlisted is less than 10%, you better make sure your resume makes the cut.

Detailed instructions and tips on how to make a good consulting resume can be found in many books(I referred to 'Killer Consulting Resumes' by Wetfeet which is good to get your basics); It is too extensive for me to elaborate here hence I will avoid the commonly available knowledge about peaks, focus, etc. 

Summarizing the most important aspect which according to me is - Make sure every bullet-ed point has three things - 'WHAT you did, WHY/HOW you did, and the RESULTS'. All 3 should be included in one single line of text in the most robust use of words making sure you convey these. Another extremely important step in making a resume is getting reviews from seniors and alumni in firms where you are applying. This part is irritating and frustrating at times because you will need multiple iterations till the resume is refined. The key is not to get affected while getting reviews from different people and stay as objective as possible - trust me, this is not that easy as it sounds, it gets demotivating when people are critiquing on what you did in your life and how should it be portrayed on paper. This process of getting comments will never stop even after multiple iterations because of difference in opinions among the reviewers; you need to stop when you have knowingly turned down several comments keeping your own perspective in mind till you are content with your resume.

Finally make sure you complete your resume well before deadlines to avoid blunders and dissatisfaction and make sure a printed copy looks aesthetically appealing.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: General format for all the case study rounds was: (1) Tell me about yourself : I had prepared a list of what I wanted to speak about and memorized the key points to present a 2 minute monologue. However, I very keenly made sure to strike a conversation on any part where the interviewer interrupted me out of interest to ensure it sounded more like a conversation between two colleagues rather than a speech by a candidate to an interviewer. (2) Case: Coming back to the case mentioned in the question above:I considered 3 factors:(1) Market size for each geography and their growth rates(2) Market capture from competition(3) Profit per unitInterviewer: Using 1 graph each and nothing else, represent all of the 3 factors mentionedI drew the 3 most relevant graphs that came to my mind for each of the 3 factors mentioned. (3) Questions for the interviewer: I used to generally ask the guys outside the interview room to give me a brief introduction of the interviewer before the interview started. I used to use that information to ask a question to the interviewer in this part of the interview hoping to strike a chord with him before leaving.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Ask objective of driver? – Higher returns

·        
Calc returns (profits) for each case as your driver and as a Meru cabs driverSalary 15000 per month + bonus of 1 month salary annually.

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Meru cabs: Aggregator (no cabs of their own)
Driver need to get his own car and register on Meru cabs.

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Cost on EMI: new car – 30000 p.m. Old car –
15000 p.m.

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Cost of maintainence of old car: Rs 1.5/km

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Meru promises 15 pickups of 20 km each day at Rs
30/km. There is an additional 50% driving distance which is not paid by client

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Cost of fuel = Rs 72/L. Mileage 12 kmpl

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I typically had never expected a case of this sort as it was too broad and undefined to give in an interview. However, it clearly looked like a case of organisational reconstruction and portfolio management. In the little time I had, I decided to give an idea of how I would proceed to solve such a case rather than really solve the case by using the BCG matrix. I clearly explained the matrix making sure I had conveyed that I knew what is actually was rather than just throwing jargon around.

I don't really know how the interviewer took my approach(as it was too text-bookish);he could neither object since it was an established case solving technique nor appreciate it as there was nothing creative in it.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Use costs and discuss – final problem was increased R&D costs for customization of various gears while adding new clients

Skills: Problem Solving, Pressure Handling, Communication , Logical Thinking, Hardwork, Presentation skills
College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Interview 1: This was a good case study and it did take me some time and help to get to the answer. The client was in the air conditioning business. It was barely break even while the competitors were making profits. Why and what could be done about the situation? Initial discussions revealed that the client had 2 products ; room air conditioners & central air conditioning systems. The central air conditioning systems were profitable but the room air conditioners were making losses. We went into a lot of details but whatever cost cutting we did, could also be achieved by the competitors in course of time. So there was no core differentiation that would give our client the edge. The competitors were multinationals like LG, Samsung etc. but the reason they were making profits were not because of economies of scale but because these companies have much lower marketing costs as they normally market a brand (eg LG) and not a product alone. This edge could never be achieved by our client as he was only in the air conditioning business. So it was a good idea to exit the room air conditioning market and focus on our strength in the central air conditioning market. Interview 2: The second interview had a case on valves. But we never got to the end because of shortage of time. Interview 3: This was a very interesting case study. The client is a cement manufacturing company which has to choose the best sales person of the year. There were four candidates A, B, C & D. Now what criteria should we use to choose the best sales person? The interviewer explained me how the sales business works in the cement industry. You have dealers who do the selling. The sales people negotiate deals with the dealers who have a commission on every sale. This gave us multiple criteria for judging a sales person ; total sales, best deals, maximum % of sales in the city, incremental sales since last year, presence at best dealers, good margins etc. The interviewer made sure that every criterion gave a different answer. So in the end there was no clear answer to the question. So we decided it would be a better idea to state the criterion in the beginning of the year and choose the best sales person accordingly.

College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Test
Experience: For aptitude focus on time;I mean to solve the problem is not a big deal ..but to solve it within the time is required...do less but accurate ...
Tips: Tips are many ..im feeling lazy any body want to discuss can call me XXXXX
Total Questions: 30

Skills:
College Name: NIT Bhopal

Round: Coderpad Round
Experience: Data Structure question that we need to code on coderpad. i.e. Reverse String , 3rd largest integer in an array , Design Chess board , etc

General Tips: Brush your Java Basics and Data Structures , as Capgemini is Hiring for Goldman Sachs account which require good knowledge on Data Structures.

Deploying into a project is a great headache here.
Skills: Communication, Problem Solving, Analytical Skills
Duration: 1-4 weeks

Round: Test
Experience: It was an amcat style test, adaptive in nature and measured the accuracy and speed.
Tips: Basic questions of aptitude and LR freely available on internet websites can be practiced to crack these easily.
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Questions: 70

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: It was a group interview, as 2 panelists interviewed 5 candidates at a time. It was more like giving a Viva voce at a practical exam.
Tips: Never tell them if you are planning for a master's degree, else you don't get a job for that time. Also don't stick to a job profile you think would suit you the best, be flexible. Moreover one should always be ready to relocate at the fresher level for such multi domain organizations.

College Name: Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology