Lifelong Online Retail Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: GD was conducted for shortlisted candidates and candidates were divided into groups of 6 people.There were 3 topics and each topic was discussed for 2 minutes.No specific rules,like each person needs to speak,are to be followed during the GD.Anyone can initiate,intervene,etc. Finally we were asked to link all three topics and this discussion went on for another 2 minutes.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Only a single round lasting about 40-45 minutes.There were only 4 people in the panel and technical as well as HR questions were asked. First I was asked to go through my own resume, “Introduce/Tell us about yourself?".  E.g.:“Where have you shown leadership qualities?Have you led a
team?Size of team? What new initiatives did you take?”.Core questions starting form basics like “How does an airplane fly?” to specific questions about the different types of engines used in airplanes,their specifications, etc. were asked. HR questions were put up like"What was the most difficult decision in your life?" and grilled on my internship for 15-20 minutes which I did in Transocean. (Another oil field services company).

General Tips: You need to be very good in the basics of your
core courses and if you have done an internship in the oil industry,
you will definitely be grilled on that.Questions will be asked in quick succession.
Skill Tips: Highlight any intern in Oil industry or anything related to that in your resume.Any POR or any sport activity which shows your leadership qualities should me mentioned in your resume.
Skills: Leadership qualities, Athletic, Quick thinking, presence of mind
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Test
Experience: 10 candidates shortlisted through aptitude test (50 ques in 12 min, cut off was 50).
Duration: 12 minutes minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: 1st interview was technical with some general HR questions. I related the work done in internships to the work being done in the snapdeal company. I was asked if I had any other interview to which I replied flipkart. He then asked me why snapdeal and not flipkart. I had studied everything about the 2 companies and was thus able to defend my choice. Next he gave me some puzzles, I did all with little inputs from him. I was asked to wait for 2nd interview and not go to Flipkart GD but I went anyway.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: This interview round was again technical. This time there were 2 panellists and they again gave me 4-5 puzzles, which I did successfully. I was asked to wait for a HR interview.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The HR interview was just a formality, he explained me my responsibilities in the organization and made me a spot offer.

General Tips: 1. Pre placement preparation is very important. Begin early and try to distribute time to all the areas especially your shortcomings.
2. Try to remain calm and confident in the interview.
3. Do not cram up the answers to hr questions or puzzles.
4. There are plenty of companies with handsome compensation. Just give your best in preparations and interviews.

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Test
Experience: An aptitude test which was followed by three rounds of technical interviews and finally the HR interview.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Snapdeal offered placements for 5 students (3 from CS and 2 from IT).

General Tips: Be extremely well prepared for any company. Research about the company's profile extensively before the company's interview. HR panel always looks for candidates who are well aware of the company in order to measure the candidate's interest. Data structures are absolutely necessary for any company. Improve coding skills through frequent participation in competitive programming arena such as codeForces, codeChef, HackerEarth etc. "Software development job profile was offered to me.
Unnecessary and irrelevant questions are to be avoided. We should raise questions only if we have some genuine questions. However any question related to job profile or location preference could be raised. "
"It was very grueling and tiring at first but the sweet taste of placement makes it all worth it.
Placements are a turning point in everybody's career."
Skill Tips: Snapdeal is more focussed on Data structures and object oriented technology.
For data structures, online materials such as GeeksforGeeks are excellent and in case of OOPS concepts, stronghold in either C++ or java programming language is necessary.
Skills:
College Name: NIT Surathkal

Round: Test
Experience: Algorithmic coding test was conducted on hackerank platform. Around 60 students gave online test. There were 4-5 algo questions to be done in 90 mins duration.

Tips: Try to do at least 2 questions.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: First Interviewer asked me to introduce myself. Then he asked me questions on data structures & Algo. He asked me about tree data structures, why it is used, time complexities of various operations on tree, balancing of tree, AVL Tree. He asked me write AVL Tree insertion, deletion, update code. Then he jumps to BTree, B+Tree and asks me write code on paper for various operations. Questions were asked on indexing, various types of indexing, how it is used in databases, etc. Then he briefly asked about the project I done in my internship.


Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Interviewer asked me how was my 1st round, I said it was great. He first asked me introduce myself. Then he asked about my projects mentioned in my resume. I done a project in machine learning on spam webpage detection. He was interested in that. He asked me what language, libraries I used to implement that project. Then he gave me real time scenario to predict whether an item is explosive or not. Then I approached this problem and asked information related to problem. He was impressed by the approach I target the problem. He asked me what machine learning model will be best and what are their pros and cons. Then he asked me question that given 100 sorted linked lists, you have to merge them and return single sorted linked list. I gave 3-4 solutions with their time & space complexities.


Round: HR Interview
Experience: Interviewer asked me common HR questions like tell me about yourself, my family background, why do you want to join the company, what impact you can make in Snapdeal, why should we hire you. After that he congratulated me for the role of SDE at Snapdeal. I was very happy at that moment.

All the 5 students cleared this round.

Skills: SQL, ML, Algorithms And Data Structures, Python, Basic C/C++
College Name: IIT Guwahati

Eligibility criteriaAbove 7 CGPASnapdeal interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, Aptitude, OOPSTime required to prepare for the interview - 5 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Must do Previously asked Interview as well as Online Test Questions.
Tip 2 : Go through all the previous interview experiences from Codestudio and Leetcode.
Tip 3 : Do at-least 2 good projects and you must know every bit of them.

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Have at-least 2 good projects explained in short with all important points covered.
Tip 2 : Every skill must be mentioned.
Tip 3 : Focus on skills, projects and experiences more.

Final outcome of the interviewSelected

Eligibility criteriaAbove 7 CGPASnapdeal interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - SQL, Database, Aptitude, Data Structures, Algorithms, OOPSTime required to prepare for the interview - 4 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Must do Previously asked Interview as well as Online Test Questions.
Tip 2 : Go through all the previous interview experiences from Codestudio and Leetcode.
Tip 3 : Do at-least 2 good projects and you must know every bit of them.

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Have at-least 2 good projects explained in short with all important points covered.
Tip 2 : Every skill must be mentioned.
Tip 3 : Focus on skills, projects and experiences more.

Final outcome of the interviewRejected

Round: Test
Experience: Keep your Calm
Tips: Practice matters
Duration: 90 minutes
Total Questions: 30

Round: Interview
Tips: They are not going to eat you.. they will help you out only...
So just go inside the interview room as some of your friends called you to ask some question..relax

Skills: Thinking Process
College Name: IIT GUWHATI

Round: Test
Experience: I did both coding question ( 1 full and 2nd partial ) and 5 MCQ only and was shortlisted
Tips: Refer to interview sets on Geeksforgeeks.
Do solve both the coding questions first. Not necessary to pass all test cases for both.
Then go for C based o/p questions. At last aptitude.
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 23

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I did not know JAVA and DBMS so could not answer any of the last 2 questions. I told him directly thati had no experience in JAVA / DBMS and justified. I had proficiency in Data Structure and Algorithms and I beleive the interviewer liked my internship work on Cloud / Virtualization
Tips: Focus on Data Strucure-Algorithms, JAVA, DBMS, Puzzles

Round: Test
Experience: All repeated questions from previous interviews.
Tips: Refer interview set from geeksforgeeks.org
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 3

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: For the first question, I started by exponential solution and reduced it to polynomial. We
discussed various approaches and tried a variety of methods and after
1-1.5 hrs of discussion finally ended up with an O(1) solution with some
pre-processing overhead. After achiveing O(1) time complexity, he asked
to further optimize the space complexity.

Usage of Trie / TST. Internal Implementation of Hashing structure and replacing the hashing mechanism using Trie / TST.
Tips: Focus on Tree, Stacks, Queue, Linked List, Hash Maps, Trie, Hashing, String Algorithms, Ternary Search Tree

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Typical HR

General Tips: Practice programming
Skill Tips: Focus on Data Structure-Algorithms and programming in either C++ / JAVA
Skills: Data Structure, Algorithms, Programing, JAVA, DBMS
College Name: Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur
Motivation: -
Funny Moments: -

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: It was a bit disappointing to not get shortlisted in a couple of companies I was looking forward to, but I really didn't expect much with my CPI (6 pointer during placements). But my internship helped me loads and gave my resume one 'spike' which became crucial.
Tips: Maintain a good CPI, as you've heard from every senior, but is necessary. Also keep a couple of profiles in your mind, which you want to work in, and then create a resume as such, and take up internships and POR's, all good spikes for which a recruiter, mostly including an IIT alumnus look for.

Round: Test
Experience: A make or break situation for me due to my poor CPI. Fortunately I got shortlisted in almost all companies for which I gave the test, for GD and so on, so it's a very very crucial part of the placement process.
Tips: Be smart during giving your tests. The recruiter judges your decision making skills and speed skills through this. Specially with students with an average CPI, this is the most important step as companies that come for mass recruitment make their decision on this basis.
Duration: 12 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: For SnapDeal, they had what they called a Group Activity but it was per se a GD. They gave us a problem, a general aptitude question and they gave us hints in order to solve it. I tried to take charge and maintain decorum among 20 people there and it helped.
I was way more silent during my GD for Flipkart and that is the worst thing I could have done.
Tips: Always speak up. Content matters less, being smart and practical matters more. You can twist the points of another person, but keep your stand, whatever side you take. Just keep calm and speak your heart out. Also, give everyone a chance. If someone in the room hasn't spoken a word for some while, take the initiative to stop the discussion then and there and ask that person his/her views. A moderator is not always looking at a person who starts or ends well, he might be looking for a person who is a team player.
Duration: 20 minutes

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Unfortunately never had the chance to tackle this part of the process.
Tips: Do what you feel is right, even if it's going wrong. An attempt matters, don't leave the space blank.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There were different approaches to tackle this problem, and I mostly took the most complicated and inaccurate one. But I was confident in what I was doing. I estimated the amount of pizzas delivered and purchased on the spot, estimated the number of people served by the outlet area-wise, where I could have used an age distribution method. I guesstimated the cost of one pizza, also dividing into sizes and also included other side orders. The interviewer was happy and got selected in to the next round. This is for a company by Indus Insights, a consulting firm.
Tips: Practice makes perfect. Cover all case interviews and practice hard, specially for a consulting firm obviously. Be confident with the method you use, and constantly interact with the interviewer. Do not underestimate the importance of keeping the interviewer in the loop. Tell him/her what you are thinking, even though it's rubbish, and ask them for clarifications wherever you're stuck. It's not just your problem solving skills, it's a test to how you present the solution to a potential client.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I started off with my basic introduction i.e. Name, Branch, hometown etc. Then I shifted to my intern as it had been the most recent activity I had done. So on, I continued covering all my internships and POR and then told some of my hobbies. Regarding the why e-commerce question, I mentioned the fact that it's the fastest growing market in the world, and the company is among the top firms in this market.
Tips: Its important to prepare these questions before hand. These are make or break questions as these relate to whether you'll fit the dynamics of the firm. Its important to be energetic and lively. What you show in the interview is exactly what they perceive to be your general status and personality. Always saw the firm excites you and you should be aware of the functioning of the market and the firm. Studying up earlier is a must, regarding recent developments in general as well.
Don't be afraid to cross question regarding the company and other affairs related to the company.
I wasn't asked a behavioural question as such, but try not to get cocky. Keep it simple, and don't get frustrated.

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: I started off by asking the time frame. Nothing was cleared by the interviewer so I started asking the basic questions, regarding city, etc. I broke down the costs i.e. Personal and related to maintenance. Asked a ton of questions in order to keep the interviewer involved.
Tips: A guesstimate is quite similar to a case interview, but this tests more general knowledge wherein a case questions your intellect on the case itself. Similar tips as to tackling a case, but you make loads of assumptions yourself. Read some population and area data of major Indian cities before hand, and keep asking whether the assumptions you're making sound reasonable or not. Don't worry if the answer is too random, it's more about the process rather than the figure.
Also, if you have read up before on how to solve guesstimates, you'll face something called as Sanity check. In the interview, you aren't asked to do one, try and avoid unless you are really confident.

General Tips: Don't lose hope. Placements are a tiring process. People with brilliant resumes don't get placed and haven't gotten placed yet. So keep on fighting, you will get placed in a good company with a good package soon. Also don't reject a company if the package is okay, it's your first job. You are being awarded money based on one interview, they don't know your work yet. So choose a job where you like the profile instead of the money.
Skill Tips: Speed is crucial in the tests. Half of the people usually complain on missing out on questions.
Skills: Speed, Aptitude
College Name: IIT BOMBAY
Motivation: It is a fast growing company in the fastest growing market. A company where growth is fast and leaning experience is endless. They have also taken up social projects towards which I have some inclinations so that helped.
Funny Moments: One of my friend got placed a day before me in Olacabs, and had a higher CPI than me. The day I got placed he was with me, and I could not help laughing the fact that I had a higher package.