Grail Research Interview Questions and Answers

Topics to prepare for Grail Research Analyst interview:

• Secondary Research
• Primary Research
• Case Studies
• guesstimates

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be confident. Prepare case studies and guesstimates. Provide a structured approach to every question.

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: I went to the resume writing workshop of Mckinsey. Got some useful tips from there. Referred to the resumes of few seniors. Also it's a good point to show the resume to some good seniors after having finalized it.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Prepared sample answers for the typical HR questions. I was asked a situation where I had to take some instantaneous decision on the spot. Was then asked a situation where I had to plan my work. Was then asked why Capone.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: Many companies ask puzzles,etc in the interviews so its always a good idea to try them before hand. Many good sites are available on googling for interview puzzles.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case study. Simple calculation based case. No assumptions etc required. Don’t remember the question though. But the question could be easily cracked with simple application of maths. One should always ask the interviewer before making any assumptions. Also there's no need to panic. One should carefully listen to the hints.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Asked loads of cases. First was to calculate the market for a pair of female shoes in Mumbai. You are expected to ask for all the data i.e price, type of shoes etc. Then was asked to find the revenue of Barista in Mumbai,
market for Laptops in India, all the things you would tell to Walmart planning to set up retail outlet in India, if you were their Consultant, market for washing machines in India in 2009. The HR questions they asked were to elaborate on an academic as well as a non academic project, the advantages and disadvantages of working in teams.

College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Resume inputs from batch mates & more importantly from seniors. Fine tuning the resume with inputs especially from seniors or batch mates who are already working helped a lot.

Round: Test
Experience: Shortlisting based on test

Round: HR Interview
Experience: 2-4 rounds of interviews. 2nd round again was a mix of business case studies and HR questions

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: 1st round had 2 Estimation Case studies along with some HR questions. For example, Calculate no. of cold drinks sold in India in a given year.

General Tips: For students going for Non-Tech companies, neglecting HR questions can be a big mistake (Not particularly sure how important. itis for Tech companies).Tell me about yourself seems to be the most innocent questions of all, but can prove to be a big pain ifleft for Impromptu.As far as case studies go, solve at least 5 different types of case in your group to get a feel for it.
College Name: IIT BOMBAY

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Attended Resume writing workshop organized by the institute and clarified ideas on structure, content and language.   Collected and analyzed the resumes of several friends who were placed in the companies I was interested in.   Sat down to write a rough draft, then edited several times to include proper sub-categories and tables to improve readability.   Took the help of good critics and incorporated their suggestions to make my final draft.   The whole process took around 2-3 weeks.

Round: Test
Experience: Grail Research, primarily an analytics firm , conducted a preliminary written test comprising an assortment of DI questions,English comprehension ,numerical ability and a few analytical questions on business situations. These were doable without any company-specific preparation. Preparing a little for CAT helps though. They shortlisted around 60 people from around 400.Then conducted 2 interviews to shortlist around 25 candidates and in most cases took a third interview and made offers to 12 students.There was no GD even though 60 candidates were shortlisted. They proceeded directly to interviews, primarily guess- estimates in 2 rounds. The final round before selection was with Amit, the country head, who again asked a couple of guess-estimates with very little focus on numbers but taking in the approach of the candidate.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Some number-crunching was required, but approximation was encouraged overall.   My cases were pricing of an airline ticket and revenue of a restaurant in one day -both pretty simple cases. Proceeded systematically to arrive at reasonably accurate final answers. The interviewer was quite helpful and pointed out a couple   of mistakes , and I corrected them immediately after reasoning them out.
Tips: Case study preparation: Did it in a group of 4 people with complementary skills and excellent compatibility.That helped get assorted points of view during case discussions . One on one interviews is the way to go in the final stage of preparation, with the self playing the interviewer in a few cases.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The second round was with Amit who asked me the revenue that PVR cinemas made in a day in India.Outlined my approach   first.Started with no. of PVR cinemas in the country,screens per PVR,seats per screen,cost per seat etc to arrive at a rough   number. He was convinced but then asked me to get more accurate,and to solve the case with minimum assumptions.So I   proceeded further to classify the screens in terms of language of a movie and included occupancy rate to refine my   calculations.I further related occupancy rate data to newspaper ratings of a movie and the possibility of getting one   information from the other.That was the final detail.Was made an informal offer then and there.
Tips: HR interview preparation: Spent 3-4 days in general pondering . Being open-minded and critically evaluating oneself in terms of strong points and weaknesses is vital. Equally important is a general idea on the kind of questions asked under HR category in one’s chosen companies. Was thorough with all the points in my resume and gave a couple of mock interviews.

General Tips: Take a few CAT pattern tests to brush up fundaes. Read the newspaper (any standard   daily) to improve and refine your ability to comprehend information in good English. Try your hand at a few basic guess-estimates, knowing some basic statistics about India can help. Do a couple of business cases to get a feel of common industry issues like pricing of product etc. Dress confidently, be yourself in the interview and solve the primarily numerical cases with minimum mistakes. That should get you the job.  Ps:GD may be part of selection procedure in future years. Materials that you may use:  Kellogg Consulting Casebook, Michigan case guide,Wharton casebook.   b) Case study material from leading consulting firms hosted on their web-sites.   c) A couple of business magazines which discussed real problems in companies in the form of cases. d) Some of the communities in ;Orkut; hosted good puzzle links.
College Name: IIT BOMBAY