KPMG India Associate Consultant Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: There were many profiles in KPMG for which they wanted to recruit - Strategy and operations consulting, Edu Analyst, etc. Since there was no test conducted for any of these profiles, they directly shortlisted through resume. There seemed to be a CGPA cutoff of 7 looking at the list of candidates who have been called for further rounds.

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: This interview was taken by 2 people. People generally prepare for puzzles, case studies, guesstimates, etc through out the semester. But frankly i went on to sit for these campus placements with very less preparation on any of these.So i was a bit worried on how i can pull of an interview without all of that! What i did realize from the entire experience - from mine and that of my friends, is that the questions given in the interviews are not really tough. One can solve them if he just thinks through the problem there and then itself- without thinking that I have not done this earlier, i didn't prepare, etc. I did do some mistakes while solving the problem, but they helped me to correct them in the process and arrive at the solution.
Tips: Here again as everyone say, YES, What they are looking at is the way you are structuring or solving the problem. How much are you comfortable with numbers, pulling off simple calculations with that, etc. Having said all of that above, about preparation, BUT it does help and a bit of practice earlier only makes one feel more confident for the interview!
Good communication skills is always a plus for any interview. The way you tell about yourself, the work you did, etc. And this is something that any company expects now in the age we live in.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This interview was taken by 3 people, which is enough to make anyone a bit nervous when you have a panel interviewing rather than a single person. Even i was! Also they were trying to create a STRESS environment by countering most of the things i said or questioning them even more. They were also friendly at the same time. I didn't have prepared answers for any of the questions asked, i was just very honest with them on what i really felt about each one of them. And if there is one thing i learnt from all the interviews - 3 in total that i faced, being honest and confident is the key to crack to the interviews. I think that way i sort of started building a connect with them with the really HONEST answers that i gave them - something that i believed in truly! So they liked me that way.
Tips: Being prepared again with a few basic questions about yourself will help. Like knowing your strengths, why do u want to do that job, etc. It will anyways be helpful to know about yourself through these questions. But be prepared to get any kind of question in this kind of HR interview. Just be Honest. I very much believe in this " Dil ki baat dil pe hi lagti hai" :) :P
Look into the eyes of the panel when you are speaking. Helps build connect with them. Present yourself just the way you are. I m sure, They ll love you! One easy technique to get over these nervousness and all of that is start feeling the panel as someone like your friend, family, etc whom you are just meeting and telling YOUR STORY in those 30-40 min, that will ease out of a lot of things.

General Tips: Although this company didnt take a test. But generally most of the companies did take a test. So prepare for them. Prepare through CAT books, it is enough. Practice can be done on the net as well.For interviews prepare for Guesstimates, Case study and look into some standard puzzles. For case study prep, "Case in point" is the best and will suffice! Others- Guesstimates and puzzles can be looked up for on the net.

Preparation (which will help you be confident as well) + Honesty + Communication skills is the key!!!
Skills: Problem solving , How you are structuring a problem!, Mental Math, Number crunching
College Name: IIT DELHI

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: We were supposed to come up with a solution whether this subsidy cut should take place or not. Initially everyone was given 1 minute to speak, 12 people in the group and I was the 10th to speak, this gave me sufficient time to think but on the same hand I had to make sure that I say something which the 9 people before me haven’t spoken, so it was a bit tricky. After that the floor was open for discussion for 10 minutes, make it a point that this is not a debate so its not necessary that you take a positions for or against the topic, I had made points both in the favor of the issue and against it and it was appreciated by the moderators.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I had to tell something about myself in not more than 45 seconds, so I focused more on my extra curricular activities and the volunteering work instead of academic achievements which I felt most of the other candidates too had a decent one.

Case: “Delhi airport has a terminal which is being utilized only upto 60% of its potential, still the authorities are planning to make a new terminal, what could be the reason behind it.” There can be numerous reasons to this, I gave a few good reasons and I was through. Like, the international flights are concentrated on a particular time of the day like at the night or early in the morning so during that time only one terminal might not be sufficient. Having more terminals would reduce the transit time and that will result in an efficient use of the runway and would smoothen the air traffic. I gave only these two reasons and tried to explain it in detail.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: It was only me to whom a puzzle was asked and the interviewer assured me that he won't evaluate me on this. The puzzle was “there are 10 lions and a sheep on a lonely green island, sheep can eat grass and survive, lions can also survive on grass but that is they would like to do the least. Lions can eat the sheep but the catch is that which ever lion eats the sheep would turn into a sheep, now I am one of the lions so will I eat the sheep? Assume that all the lions are equally intelligent.” Although I had no clue how to solve this but I went ahead with the problem logically and the interviewer helped me, at the end I answered the question. There could be some tricky answers also to such questions which one should definitely say if you can think of any, like I said that “in the minds of all the lions there would be an element of fear for eating the sheep so I would think a step ahead and eat the sheep and the other lions
don't eat me due to this fear in their minds.”

Round: HR Interview
Experience: As soon as I entered the interviewer said “I remember you”, this was because we had some exchange of views during the ppt. In this round they made all the nine candidates solve the same case. It was about the truck industry in US, I was shown some data and graphs related to various business sectors in the industry and was asked to interpret things like why the profit margins are different in any two sectors, what would be the effect if a Japanese player comes in etc. To answer this having a basic knowledge of the terminologies would help a lot.

College Name: IIT KANPUR