Ernst & Young Summer Intern Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Learn in advance how to complete these tasks.

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be confident while giving the interview and ask question at the end

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Nokia is currently the leader in the market for mobile phones in India. Motorola is far behind it and wants to increase its market share by around 10%. Give three suggestions for doing the same.

I started off by asking about the price segments in which the mobile phones are sold. These were sold in all categories from low price to the very expensive ones. Then I inquired if the features available in similarly priced models of other cos differed but the answer was no.
So basically price was not the issue.
Then i inquired if the expenditure on advertising was comparable to the other cos to which the answer was yes..
I suggested that probably the people were skeptical about certain features of the mobile sets, like their durability wtc. upon which the company never focused in advertisements. So probably a survey could be conducted to find if there is anything particular that the people are skeptical about.
Also the company could have a tie-up with CDMA vendors like reliance or TATA Indicom, where the mobile sets are provided along with the connection.
Tips: You should be thorough with your resume and study the sectors related to your past projects pretty well.

Skills:
Duration: 2
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: A successful man wants to open a restaurant in a downtown of a metro. What should be his strategy and how should he estimate his resources?
I started by clarifying the successful part and what does the interviewer mean by resources, I was told that the successful part was to block my analysis along cost part and the resources was limited to number of chairs and tables. After I told about how he might choose the demographics of the downtown area and how he should choose the type of restaurant, the interviewer said to take the restaurant to cater lunch to office goers and is of Italian type.
My numeric analyses started with a clarified assumption that Italian restaurants are expensive and are visited by rich executives on an occasional lunch basis. Then came the assumption to numbers and division to to age group., income group, gender etc and arrived at a decent number which was ok to the interviewer.
Tips: The interviewer wants to look at how we were choosing each step. So think aloud and take it slow because they never urge you to take it fast and you don't have to either.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Estimate the number of treadmills in Delhi.
I started along the traditional path of diving the population into families and families into rich and poor. And then rich families with health conscious people.
2nd part was about number of gyms and other health centres where treadmill might be there. Here the analysis was in terms of number of gyms and avg number of treadmills in each gym.

An analytical question: A person loses his purse with 1000 bucks in it and there is a second person who also loses his purse with unknown amount in it. A third person finds the purses and asks both of them to bid alternately and whoever bids the highest wins both the purses. If you are that first person who lost purse with 1000 bucks in it, how much would be your highest bid?
I was confused with the question because I thought it was a onetime bid and told him that we cannot find the answer. He found out why I was saying that and told that the bid continues till one of them stops. From here on I took some time to arrive at the solution but it needed decent bit of help. The answer is 2000 because that will take the first person to at least the same state as he was without his pursei.e 1000
Tips: There is nothing wrong in asking for help and in fact it is very well appreciated in most of the cases. But avoid overdoing it.

Skills:
Duration: 3
College Name: IIM Lucknow