IREL (India) Summer Intern Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Keep it professional

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Best experience for me to gain knowledge

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Sabre has to invest in a logistics company in India. Tell the approach which it would take before making the decision whether to invest in it or not, from a PE perspective.
Tips: Change your perspective according to the purpose for which the analysis is to be carried out. For example: PE firm looks at growth potential with long term perspective. Communicate to them that you have understood this, and then proceed further.

Skills:
Duration: 3
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Had a 1 minute intro prepared highlighting specific aspects about myself that I wanted to bring to his notice.
I explained that I was engaged in assigning Credit Ratings to Corporates under Basel II Regulations.
Because it was Bharti Airtel I had to give an answer tailored to what the approach would be for a Telecom company would be. While answering I was conscious of 2 things –One, that I have a clear structure to my answers and Two, tried to keep it as simple and jargon free as possible.

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Preliminary questions -We all know Bharti Airtel and the services it offered quite well –So there was no need to ask preliminary questions. Also, since I wasn’t aware that I was doing a case I did not have the opportunity to ask preliminary questions.Structure: The Structure that I used was fairly simple –Increase in Revenues can in Existing markets or through expansion in new markets. I explored the existing markets first. Here increase in revenues could occur through increased market penetration, increased usage of basic services among current users or increased usage of Value added services among existing customers. He asked me a couple of questions on how these things can be done and I gave him some off the cuff answers. For the New markets, I suggested that the company could look at inorganic expansion through acquisitions or through establishment of Greenfield operations in new markets with high market potential.The entire case was more like an informal chat. There were a few follow up questions on some of the options I had generated. The case did not last very long –about 10 minutes at the max.
Tips: Know your Resume well. At no point in the interview should you ramble on. All answers must be natural (ie, must not appear rehearsed), brief, structured and to the point. Retaining composure through the interview is critical. Mistakes may happen during the interview,but it is important to pick youup and keep at it. People rarely have perfect interviews where everything has gone right and interviewers don’t expect it either.

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Preliminaryquestions –
Since it was Tata Nano, lot of the background questions were not required. I clarified whether the problem was a lack of bookings that they received. He agreed.
Structure:
The Structure that I used was not the best but it did get me to the problem. I started off by saying the lack of bookings could be on account of 3 reasons –One, a lack ofawareness of the product among the target customers (Marketing problem), Two, Being aware of the product but not being able to place a booking (Distribution problem) or a Three, being aware of the product yet not interested in the product (I called this the product problem). He asked me to ignore the first 2 (he did not seem highly impressed) and explore the 3rdthe product problem.Here I again broke it upin to 2 further branches –Problems that the Car has by itself (Internal factors) and problems in the external environment mainly competition, etc. I deep delved in to the Internal factors. Of the internal problems I mentioned, he agreed that the negative publicity from the steering wheel catching fire was an issue and comfort factor was another issue. As and when he acknowledged a problem, I made a separate note of it. Eventually when he asked me to explore the external factors, I used these points to do a quick summary of the key takeaways up to that point In the external problem, I divided it into competition from other cars and two wheelers. I asked a few questions here trying to pick up a clue or 2 of how to proceed from there but he just refused to shell out any information. At this point he also took out his Blackberry and acted uncooperative. I went on to analyse for myself that given that the price of the next cheapest car was over a lakh higher than this car the issue lay more with the 2 wheelers. I went on to list factors why people would prefer 2 wheelers to a Tata Nano. Of the factors I listed, he acknowledged that the high running costs and availability of easy financing options seemed like the distinguishing factors. He said I seemed to havearrived at the problem,He now asked me to tell me how he could provide financing options for the Nano. This I felt was like a guess estimate problem. I said I would work backward to solve the problem. This is how I solved it –I said the average Nano target customer would earn Rs 10000 per month (he had given me that number in an earlier discussion, he liked the fact that I had noted it down and was using it again) I said, given the average savings rate of the country is at 35%-40% (this is from the RBI website I think). That meant a saving of about Rs 4,000 per month. No one would be comfortable giving up their entire saving, so if we considered 50% of this, the customer will be willing to pay an EMI of 2000 per month. The company would want to complete the financing within a period of 4 years cause after that the car may be worthless in case of repossession. So this meant roughly a down payment of 20,000 followed by 4 years of EMI of 2000 pm approximately (I took his approval on all of the numbers I used, so he was comfortable with this number). Summary: I began to summarize all my recommendations to that point but he stopped me saying that I didn't have to absolutely nail the case.
Tips: The most important thing to nail a consult interview is composure and confidence. With this in place, half the job is done. In all HR answers it is important to show genuineness. No answer must come across as fabricated.

Skills: Problem Solving Abilties, Case Analysis
College Name: IIM Lucknow