KC Cottrell Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the first round of the interview these questions were discussed in detail and various other scenarios were also taken into consideration

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I think I was able to justify my interest in finance which added to my cause.

Skills:
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I had well prepared the initial questions – about myself, why consult and why Alvarez questions which helped me in gaining confidence. It was my only interview of the day so I was quite relaxed. The interviewers also seemed friendly.




Round: HR Interview
Experience: I hadn’t prepared ‘Something that is not mentioned in the CV’ question. I had to come up with on the spot answer which could have been better.

General Tips: Do well prepare your HR questions and work experience part. It really helps on the final day.
Skills:
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: HR Interview
Experience: There were 3 groups formed when the A&M team arrived on campus. A&M conducted 3 rounds of interviews for each candidate and after all the 3 groups had interviewed the candidate, they used to meet and decide on the candidate. Thus the procedure was elaborate but slow. All the interviews were personal interviews.

After waiting outside for almost 7 hours, the interviews were conducted in a very professional manner and the interviewers focus in knowing your past was crystal clear.

Each of the interviewer asked me to go through my resume in a detailed fashion. Each and every bullet point in my resume was questioned and cross questioned. But the interview was not stressful at any point in time. The key reason was that there were no lies in the resume and hence I was very sure about the background of every point (situation, what action I took, why I took that action, what I did, who helped me, how things eventually worked out and what was the result). There were some usual questions as well on strengths, etc. Such questions were few and were randomly thrown at you. Since A&M is mainly a client oriented company who as a part of turnaround would want to “get things done”, I kept all my answers focused towards this theme. Be aware that the interviewers may try to derail you in case you have very well rehearsed answers. So in between questions, there will be some side talk. That can put you off. So being relaxed would help you just laugh/smile that their comments and then continue where you left off. This interview was a walk-in interview for me on day 6, but I had planned on applying here before and hence had some overview of the firm and what it does. That helped me in asking several questions throughout the day. My questions were mainly on switching my focus from IT to operation and finance. At the end of the day, I was told to contact Amit Laud who would be conducting my interview from his base location. This interview was also a personal interview. I googled him and found some details on him. He was an MBA from Wharton, done a stint in Mckinsey, GE and now was the acting CIO for some client company so some questions on IT implementation would be due. I knew that if I get through then I might end up working for him.
Tips: Keep your cool. It is not important to know how to fix laptop or how to fix account statements (if you are CA). But it was more about how you handle such deliberate distracting situations (as if they were your clients) and make the atmosphere friendly.

Skills: HR Skills
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: CV should focus on the skill set previously mentioned. Concise and to the point sentences. Line out projects and internships well. Balance between academia and extra curriculars. Attend the CV making workshop of Opera and work on it accordingly.
Tips: Don’t put things totally irrelevant to the job profile. Don’t write long sentences. Know your CV well for further stages.Anything related to your CV should be at the tip of your tongue.

Round: Test
Experience: Don’t spend a lot of time on one question in quant section. There’s a cut-off in Quant and your focus should be on clearing it. If you clear the cut-off, the puzzle section will be evaluated, where solving at least 2 is generally good enough. Puzzles are hard, and need a lot of prior practice.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Direct selections take place at the end of all interviews after a mutual discussion between all the panels. Know your CV thoroughly. Prepare for some HR questions as well. Puzzle solving and guesstimates are asked, so prepare them well. When you are asked a puzzle, do not sit quietly but think aloud. The interviewers help you structure your thoughts. Most of the times, just knowing your approach is enough for them
Tips: Evaluate the nature of your interviewer for the first 5 minutes and if possible treat the interview like a discussion. They just want to know more about you so tell it to them. Most of them are very friendly, and you will feel at ease. Be confident. Sound excited while talking about your projects/internships. It gives them confidence in you. Be very very thorough with your CV. Nothing gives a bad impression like not knowing about yourself. Ask questions if you have them at the end of the interview.

General Tips: 1: Be Confident.
2: Keep Smiling.
3: Do not be Panic.
4: Remember they are here to hire you but not reject you.
5: Do not loose hope.
6: Believe at yourself.
7: Start preparing early.
8: Do demo interviews with your friend.
Skills: Mathematics, Computer Science
College Name: IIT KHARAGPUR
Motivation: Every body joins a comapny for making a software or earning money. But I was always motivated to MAKE MONEY. I have taken this job because they have very extensive work in Share Market and they have lots of MBA from IIM's, Lots of CAs, CS. Thats why i have choosen Edelweiss. I have rejected epic System USA for this profile.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: A puzzle was asked first.
I was then given a case study : You own a telecom company. You have various customers. They have joined you 3 years ago,6 months ago and some recently. How do you define who is a good customer?

Round: Other Interview
Experience: It was only for 15 minutes. I was asked a question related to boy girl paradox. Then the job was offered.
Tips: Be cool and try to be less nervous. Do not try to speak about the things that you have no idea about

General Tips: Go to the interview with a cool mind. Take a trusted person with you if you are shortlisted on day 1.
College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: There were 3 Job profiles open of opera solutions (Solution Analyst, Analytics Specialist, and Software Engineer). Students are asked to sign just for one profile. There was a test for analytics and software profile and direct interview for solution profile (Consultant profile).
Tips: Spend enough time before choosing the profiles. Spoke to senior who had a similar job and figure out your best suitable profile and prepare accordingly.

Round: Test
Experience: Opera solution conducts workshop for shortlisted candidates. In the workshop, they mostly tell about technical part behind big data management such as Mainframe and Hadoop. After the workshop, the test was conducted. The test had two sections, the first section contains objective questions around 20-25 (I did not remember the exact number). Objective questions were of aptitude type (moderate level of difficulty). The second section contains 5-6 subjective questions, mainly focus on probability again the moderate level of difficulty. 30 students were shortlisted for next round (interview round).
Tips: Start preparing as early you can. Practice problem daily does not wait for last few day. The main point of practice is to develop a habit of increasing accuracy and speed which is the crucial points of aptitude test.
For probability practice, there are online website and blogs you can take help from them. I have listed down some which are used. You should have some prior practice before setting for test otherwise, it would be difficult to do well in the test as some questions are tricky and difficult to solve in the first time.
For aptitude practice, you can refer TIME material, I think that is sufficient.

-----/
-----.shtml
-----
-----.html

Duration: 60 min minutes
Total Questions: 20+5

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: The interviewer first goes through my resume and ask some basic question, not in depth. Then he asked me some puzzle (similar type of question asked in the subjective paper but with a high level of difficulty) and one guesstimate.
My interview last for 10-15 mins, the interviewer is very helpful and always try to calm and comfort me.
The interviewer gave me feedback and point out some area on which I can quickly look it for further interview.

Tips: I have assigned a buddy, IIT graduate having the same specialization. (Opera solutions follow buddy program similar of other consultant company). I personally found out buddy program very useful, you should contact your buddy or at least talk to him ones. The information you get from a buddy is very helpful of preparing for an interview. You get some aspect on which domain you need to work.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Next round was the telephonic interview with a senior analyst. The interviewer asked me some question from my resume especially on the technical project which involves some mathematics tool.
Then he asked some probability problems which are very tough.

Tips: The interviewer was interested in your approach only, how you’re tackling the problem. How much wide can you think? The interviewer is also ready to help you and try to figure out your strength. So be calm and speak with confidence.

Round: Stress Interview
Experience: The interviewer asked me some question from my resume in depth.
He asked one guesstimate and one probability question.

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: The interviewer started with questions like why this company, which other companies did I appeared for.
He asked me some quick calculation problems.

General Tips: Resume: Spend sufficient time on the resume as I was the initial step of shortlisting.
You be able to speak at any point in your resume in detail, hence you must be sure of what you are writing in it.

Puzzle: Practice Daily

Guesstimate: Practice with your sincere friends
Skills: Ability To Make Quick Calculations, Puzzle Solving Capability, Knowledge Of Your Resume Points, Guesstimation Cases, Probability And Statistics
College Name: IIT Bombay

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: I started preparing my resume somewhere around August end. I spoke to a few seniors about it and read quite a few resumes, especially of those seniors who either had a profile similar to mine or had secured jobs in fields of my interest, eg. Consulting, finance, etc. I also attended the Resume Writing Workshop conducted by McKinsey and Co. on campus and cleared a few doubts there.
Tips: I would advise you guys to start preparing your resumes well in advance, it is not something to be kept for the last minute. Being the first form of acquaintance between you and a firm, it is a highly important document and the way you highlight your strong points and attributes can go a long way in shortlisting you from amongst the hundreds of resumes that they have to scan. Also, it is important that you be able to speak on any point in your resume in detail, hence you must be sure of what you are writing in it.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The procedure of selection for Opera Solutions was a set of 4 interviews, each having a case study and some HR questions. The initial shortlist had around 22 candidates, after the first 2 interviews around 10 candidates were selected for the final rounds. Finally 3 candidates were made offers.  There were no GDs, only case interviews. The first interview had a case involving a music company which scouts for amateur talent and launches them. They want to enter India and want you to analyse the market and suggest if its feasible or not. The interviewer gave a lot of data related to market share of pop music, bollywood, devotional music, etc and it suggested that the market share of the genre related to the company is very little. However I think what worked best was that I also pointed out certain solutions which could make it feasible, such as merging with another company in a genre where the given company has core competencies in. I think this was the high point of the interview which I atleast would like to believe compensated for a later interview that I did not do well in. Another interview had a case where a pharmaceutical company in the US wants to enter India. A set of constraints and data was given and I was asked to calculate if it should actually setup a manufacturing facility in India or manufacture in the US and transport to India. I did not do well in this one, I wasn’t being able to come up with a figure. Both the interviews had an HR component where I was asked about my strengths and weaknesses, about Mood Indigo and my academic record. I was asked to describe myself. I was also asked to talk about my co-intern’s project in ITC (she was also interviewing with Opera). In a subsequent interview after the shortlist, I was asked to estimate the market for Maruti cars, domestic air travel. They weren't expecting too much detail, the interviewer was more interested in the approach. point.
Tips: I attended most of the initial PPTs. One does get a good understanding of what a firm does and where exactly do you fit into it, you also understand what they are looking for and what is the extent of their operations. I must admit though that I found my interaction with seniors, especially those working in those firms was more informative and fruitful. They can give clarity in certain grey areas that companies might stay non-committal on.ending across links/documents would help us compile a single point resource) . I prepared for case studies from the material I took from seniors, most of which is available on the LAN. For case studies I prepared with a friend and sometimes in groups of 3. I think this method is better than individual preparation because the other person can point out where you are going wrong, you get a different perspective and at the same time you can prepare in a fashion where one interviews the other and vice versa, so you get slightly comfortable with how an actual interview might feel like. It is however important to ensure that the person you are preparing with is competent and complementary to your skill sets, so that you can improve upon aspects where you might be lacking in.

General Tips: Case studies and HR questions. One should be very comfortable with points mentioned in the resume and should be able to talk at length about any . I guess it'd just be shifting a little from being myself if you know what I mean. A lot of seniors would give you a lot of fundae, but at the end one must remember that unless one is comfortable with a certain way of speaking or certain method of solving cases, it wont look genuine. For example, one need not thrash out every single detail of a case before beginning to solve it, sometimes the interviewer might get impatient or might think you are trying to buy time to think by asking unnecessary details. So if you are the kind of a person who can intuitively draw good conclusions at the outset so as to decide which direction to proceed in and hence which questions to ask, you can surely go ahead and do that, you need not also ask questions that you know are not required. Case interviews are very feel-good interviews, even if you make a mistake you will be guided back on track by the interviewer, hence I personally would recommend that you stick more to your general approach to solving cases (if you know it is a good one and works of course) and not try to change too much just because a certain senior did it in a different way.
College Name: IIT BOMBAY