ITC AUT - Assistant Under Training Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: Form
Experience: It included questions regarding campus activities, and some HR questions, like- Semester SPI details, GRE/CAT/GMAT scores if applicable, projects, summer internships, short-term and long-term objectives, Why ITC?, Most significant achievement, Whether we have engaged with the community through developmental actives addressing social or environmental concern, 'give an instance where you out your mind over matter',

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: We had 5 minute to study the case and 15 minutes to discuss it in a group of 8 people.
Tips: It is a good idea to learn the possible GD questions beforehand . The cases repeat every year across different campuses.
Do not engage in any kind of shouting in the GD.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: There were two interviews, a mix of technical and HR, but mostly on the technical side. Duration: 25-30 minutes
Tips: You should be clear with your summer internships and the projects that you have done. You can expect technical cross-questioning on the same. The technical problems basically focus on applying the knowledge from the courses you study.
Technical topics important for ITC branch wise are as follows:

Chemical: Basic fluid mechanics, Pumps, Fans, Cmpressors and their characteristic curves, Heat engines and Refrigeration cycles, Working of coolers and ACs, Psychrometry, Heat and Mass transfer basics.

Mechanical: Four bar linkages, Cams, Gears, Basic mechanics of solids, PID control mechanism, Energy systems, Plus above mentioned topics.

Electrical: Motors, PID control mechanisms, 3 phase distribution systems, Characteristic curves of machines, transformer, Basic electronic circuits.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: The panel in the second round consisted of another factory manager/head and the Vice HR Head, ITC.

General Tips: Try to attend as many sessions as possible which are organized by SPO.
Do not waste time in placement politics or discussing about it. This will only derail you from your dream company.
College Name: IIT KANPUR
Motivation: ITC is one of the most admired and rapidly growing Indian company with a diversified presence in FMCG, paperboard and packaging, Agriculture and IT sector which offers great business exposure.
It has a very good base and brand value if your want to do your MBA after a few years of work experience.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: Yes.

Round: Group Activity
Experience: "One really good thing about ITC is the new system of shortlisting students from GD for interviews. It is not just your performance in the GD that matters but also your resume. Each section in your resume/ITC form (namely Academics, Co-curricular activities, Cultural activities,
Sports, Positions of Responsibilities, Projects and Internships are given points. So, fill your ITC form as if it were your final resume itself including all the activities you were involved in. Although the GD carries more weight than each of these sections, a decent performance in GD should take you through if you have been decently active in your Institute life. That said, it doesn't mean you can simply ignore the GDs. This is just like a back-up in case it isn't your best day in the GD. This makes sure that people who have been active throughout their years in the Institute are given a fair chance to get to the Interviews."

Round: HR Interview
Experience: 1. "For me, this round was more like a chat. Some of the questions were ""Are you against smoking or manufacturing of cigarettes?"", ""Family background?"", ""Where do you see yourself in 5 years? How will ITC help you reach there?""
2. What I could make out of the 2 rounds is that they majorly want to ensure 3 things:
3. 1) You are willing to work in a factory environment on the shop floor. (and if required also in a tobacco plant)
4. 2) You are willing to work in teams and will be comfortable in doing so without much hassle.
5. 3) You are reasonably good in your core subjects. And that you are not having any major/obvious thoughts of going for higher studies.
6. If you are genuinely interested in joining the company, a good knowledge about content in your resume, clarity in basic mechanical engineering topics and confidence should get you through."location preference
7. plan of higher studies
Tips: 1) Revised basics of all core subjects over November.
2) Prepared answers to important HR questions. (You can refer to 64 HR questions in LAN)
3) Wrote a write up about each of the Projects/Internships and PoRs mentioned in the resume.
Having a write-up which can last 5 minutes in speech about each of the points in resume helps a lot.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: "There were 5 panels in all.

Some panels tested people on basic Mechanical Engineering principles. Some of them include Fluid Mechanics, IC Engines, Heat Transfer, Strength of Materials and Thermodynamics. Some panels chose to test people on the projects they did. I was tested on my Internships and
DDP. So, be absolutely clear about all the course projects, Internships and your BTP/DDP that you mention in your form. You'll be told to explain the theory and application of your projects and more importantly your impact on the project. For this, be ready with numbers like
improvement in efficiency or reduction in errors etc. Every panel has a HR person also in it. So, you will be asked some HR questions in between technical questions. You can expect questions like ""Why ITC?"", ""What are your strengths/weaknesses?"", ""Are you fine working with a tobacco company?"", ""How can you as a person add value to ITC?"""

General Tips: "The first and one of the most important things was to make the resume. I must say that when my seniors tried to explain me the importance of resume, I could never completely appreciate the suggestion. But, it is during the resume submission that I realized that it is the only thing that represents you to the company HR before they physically come to campus for recruitment.
They won't understand the efforts that you might have put in throughout your campus life unless you present all of it to them in a exhaustive yet concise manner. So, start making your resumes by July at least. Send them to seniors and take inputs. It will take a lot of iterations before your resume is ready for submission. Don't be complacent and feel at any point of time before October that your resume is ready. There is always a lot of scope for improvement and so keep doing so till the date of submission. I spent the first 2 months (August&September) preparing for CAT (to be strong in Quant and Verbal) and had started revising some basic core subjects. This core part wasn't in a full fledged way. Probably revised a subject or two in each week to slowly enter into placement mode. Somewhere in the beginning of October, I also started looking into some HR questions. Answers to these questions don't come so easily. It takes some thinking (sometimes even days) before the final answer takes shape. So, just feed in some important HR questions in your mind and think about them whenever free and jot down anything that seems relevant. I spent November preparing for Core and Consulting companies. With answers ready to some of the HR questions, I guess 1 month of dedicated preparation was pretty good."

In a way, I started core preparation in August itself. The method of revising each subject per week turned out to be very good. This way, the final revision in November became an easy task. It's better to start in August and do it slowly than rush it all in November. This way, if you have any other companies like Analytics, Finance or Consulting, you can take out time in November
specifically for them. (without getting highly loaded with core subjects)

I prepared for Consulting companies. Preparation mainly involves reading and getting used to the format of case studies. For case studies, you can refer to books like ""Ace your case"", ""Case in point"" or any of the casebooks of Business schools. (Like Kellogg, Columbia business school, Wharton etc.). You can find many of them in LAN. Once, you get used to the format, you
can form groups of 3 and practise cases in the form of mock interviews. (where each person plays the role of interviewer, interviewee and an observer to give feedback to both and exchange roles). HR questions too are very important in Consult interviews. Follow the book 64 HR questions. It should cover almost all the standard interview questions.
Skill Tips: All the core subjects that were taught till 3rd year:
Thermodynamics, Strength of Materials, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Materials & Design, Manufacturing Technology, Design of Machine Elements, IC Engines, Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinery, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, Thermal Power Plant Engineering
Additionally I revised some of the courses that were a part of my 4th year dual degree curriculum. Some of them included Finite Element Analysis, Principles of Product Design/Design Synthesis. I followed Incropera for Heat Transfer. Used slides given by Dr.Amitava Ghosh and notes from juniors for revising ManTech. Used notes for IC engines, Thermal power plant engineering and slides given by Dr. Parag Ravindran for Materials & Design. For the others, I followed material provided by the placement team which was actually very helpful."
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: The application procedure of ITC requires you to submit the resume and fill their form. The form contains various question on your projects, attitude, extra-curricular activities etc. Fill the form honestly because this form will be the base of your interview

Making resume is very important step for placement preparation and hence take it very seriously. In summers I started building my resume. I used all the resources available on the student placement office IITK website along with help from seniors and my wing mates, to prepare a one page resume to fit for ITC profile. It took almost one month for me to get the final version of resume through which I can apply for the company.Form : It includes few question related to your grades, projects/internship, Position of responsibilities(POR), extracurricular activities and 2 or 3 HR based questions, Details are as follow:
Few personal details specifically Semester wise SPI, GRE score etc.
Details of internship/projects, extracurricular activities, PORs etc.
Your short terms and long term objectives
Why do u want to work with ITC
What do you think is your most significant achievement
Give an instance where you put Mind Over Matter
Your social engagement
Tips: Be honest and creative while making resume

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: ITC GD is based on a given case where you have to prioritize the given set of things. One GD group consist of 8 students and approximately 25 min time duration. There are 3 person to judge a single GD and hence its almost a fare GD.
Tips: Please follow all the general rules of GD that is : Don’t shout, don’t be aggressive etc.

Round: Interview
Experience: Before the interview I was very nervous and It was a sleepless night. And it was my first professional interview and it went very smooth. During internship I was failed to clear GD rounds for ITC and HUL and then I decided not to apply in any other companies .Hence this interview was very first interview for me.ITC interview was scheduled on 1st December from 6 am to 11 am . My interview started with a question “Tell me something about yourself” I started with my school life and then gradually moved towards IITK life and here I described about My most significant achievement of IITK i.e. “TEAM ABUS-DCS” with the help of designs I carried in my file and there after the rest of the interview was based on TEAM ABUS-DCS projects. No extra technical question were asked to me. Some of my friends who were selected for ITC interview told me that they were grilled over Technical question based on pumps, Thermodynamics cycles etc.

Topics generally asked in the ITC interview: - Pumps, cooling towers, Thermodynamics(TD) cycles, TD laws, desert coolers, Refrigeration cycle, Valves, Mixers, Process control scheme, ,Distillation columns, VLE, Derivation of Navier stokes equation, Bernoulli equation etc.  I used my notes and Wikipedia to revise all these topics.
Tips: Do’s and Don’ts:

Do’s :

Make your priority very clear
Make a general time timeline for your placement preparation to keep track of your time
Prepare for the placement with a positive hope but at the same time you have to be realistic
Make a group in wing or outside wing, it will help you to make your placement preparation easy and interesting
Take healthy food and keep yourself healthy

Don’t’s :
Don’t underestimate your self
Don’t prepare alone otherwise soon you will be bored/tired of preparation

Round: Interview
Experience: My HR interview too was started with a question “Tell me something about yourself” and there were few questions about my family, school life, hobbies, and major portion of interview was focused on TEAM ABUS-DCS  
Here question were based on both types i.e. HR and technical. I answered few of the HR questions in Hindi and this is the point where I become friendly with the interviewer and then a general conversation started about my projects and family. I was lucky to have such a smooth experience , The day was not at all hectic for me.  The only time between my interview and declaration of final results was the most tensed time for me.
Tips: Be honest and cool

Skill Tips: These skills can not be developed in just a day, Be sincere throughout your academic duration and do your assignments regularly to improve technical skills. Try to get involved in some management activities as well.
Follow the books which your professor recommends you while doing a course work, For final revision follow your class notes. Along with my notes I also used wikipedia for the revision.
If any of your topic is too weak, Then follow the corresponding NPTEL lectures on youtube
Skills: Technical skills, Communications skills, Management skills, Frankness
College Name: IIT KANPUR
Motivation: ITC is one of the leading Indian company in FMCG sector which constantly endeavours to benchmark its products, services and processes to global standards and thus best suitable for the job
ITC's Core Values are aimed at developing a customer-focused, high-performance organization, which creates value for all its stakeholders.
Wide business insight. ITC being a conglomerate, gives an exposure of diverse functions like supply chain, marketing etc.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: The GD was easy, based on a case study.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The first round of interview started with general HR questions like tell me about yourself, why ITC, why not so good cpi in first year and so on. Somehow the mention of industrial tour came and from there on, all the questions were based on TATA steel and steel-making in general (we went to Jamshedpur for our industrial tour). In case of ITC it is very important to know about the company fully. Hence reading the company’s website before the interview helps. I was asked its motto and when I answered it correctly the entire panel was very impressed.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The 2nd round was a one-on-one interview. What went wrong here was that I knew about my major projects (like btp, summer intern) very well but didn't remember the exact details of the TA project that I had done during my 3rd
semester. The interviewer somehow found that project quite interesting and kept on asking me questions about it and I couldn't answer many. Later, he jumped onto the term paper that I had written for one of the psychology courses and again I stumbled. Hence I feel I didn’t know my resume too well at that time (just focused on the main projects) and perhaps that went against me.

College Name: IIT KANPUR