Lowe Lintas Senior Director Brand Services Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Test
Experience: 10 single correct questions, 10 CAT based questions, 5 data sufficiency questions, 2 subjective questions were asked.
Tips: All the objective questions were easy so everyone would have solved. Subjective questions were important for selecting candidates .Final solution for subjective questions are not important ,the way you approach is important.
Duration: 45 minutes

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Questioned on Resume points. A case study was given and the student has to analyse it.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case study question and brain teaser were asked. Brainteaser was an easy question.

Skill Tips: Mock interviews with friends and ready with all resume points of how to explain them each helps. Solved many case studies. Updated myself with latest news. I also read Wiki questions like how to get 3 wolnes, 2 men to other side of river?.
Skills: Soft skills, Case study solving ability
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Show your finance and analytics background in the resume.

Round: Test
Experience: aptitude, same as cat exam

Round: HR Interview
Experience: They asked me about my interest, why do I want to join citicorp. I discussed current financial events like demonetisation, etc, its impacts. They asked some questions like today's dollar rate.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: They asked me to discuss my internship work which I had written in my resume. They asked whether the work which I have done was used by my company.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: In this 3rd and final round, they asked me if I won't leave the job later if I get better better offer from somewhere else. They asked me whether I am happy with the compensation they are offering me.

College Name: IIT Madras

Round: Test
Tips: Could use C/C++/Java to solve,
Duration: 120 minutes
Total Questions: 62

Round: Other Interview
Experience: Simple puzzles, Basic data structures and algorithms based question were asked.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: Asked about my Analytics intern – Explained some Text mining, machine learning techniques like Artificial Neural Networks. Also DDP and Projects – some Regression and Time Series Concepts.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Basic HR and background check, Also Check if you are genuinely interested and will not leave the company.

General Tips: Talk to people, read stuff, find out what interests you. Decide a few areas and prepare for those. Take part in insti clubs, get to know new stuff.There are a number of free online video courses available like coursera, edX, etc. Have a look at these, pick up one or two, learn whenever you have time. If possible, even submit the assignments and give the quizzes. A programming language cannot be learned just by reading a book or watching videos. You have to practice and do somehands-on exercises.While preparing for Puzzles and coding questions, do not directly go to the solution, always make an attempt, scribble your thoughts on a piece of paper.Participate in competitions (for both core and non-core), you ll learn a lot through such experiences than what you learn from textbooks.
Skill Tips: Speak confidently and explain your projects in simple terms. Ask if they want further explanation, and only then talk about it in depth.
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Test
Experience: It was basic 12th class maths such as probability, permutation andcombination and things,  and stuff such as data sufficiency where a question is provided with some data and you will be asked whether you will able to solve it or not with the help of given data.
Overall good experience, About 40 students were selected.
Tips: Prepare well the part of quantitative and analytical analysis in CAT's syllabus.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: It was a good round with questions mainly focused on probability and statistics, and optimization.
Tips: Basic knowledge of probability and statistics will do.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: The round was a long one, with questions on data analysis and about current economic affairs in the world.
They also discussed about things mentioned in resume in detail.
Tips: 1. Be through with your resume with explanation for each point in mind.
2. Gather the knowledge about current affairs. Try to read newspapers such as The Economic Times for at least 2 months prior to interview.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Questions were asked on ourselves to judge the personality and a few random questions as per HR.
Tips: Be prepared with questions such as:
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Strengths and Weaknesses.
3. Why this company?
4. Why should you be hired?
 
And a few more of typical questions. Keep your mind open for anything.

General Tips: 1. Read newspapers such as The Economic Times for at least two months prior to interview.
2. Prepare well on basic maths especially topics covered in CAT.
3. Be through with points mentioned in resume with a ready explanation for each.
Skill Tips: Basic knowledge will do. Try to practice more.
And read more stuff.
Skills: Knowledge in Probability and Statistics, Basics in Operation Research (Optimization)., Quantitative aptitude.
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Test
Experience: Test was conducted by AMCAT at Madras School of Economics. Test was an adaptive test. Accuracy matters along with the speed. Do focus on all the sections. Questions were easy to moderate.
Tips: Prepare well before the test. HSBC was the second company to conduct test. DO NOT IGNORE RETAIL BANKING.

Preparation Material: Arun Sharma
Duration: 55 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: HSBC had skype interview at MSE. I was waiting from 11am in the morning. And it was already 6pm in the evening. One girl before me took around 45 minutes. As i entered, they were in hurry. They wanted to finish soon. As i started interview, they directly told me that they are getting late so they would finish things quickly. I was not asked even to introduce myself.

They asked me one project i have worked on and which i think was the best. I told them a project on Credit Risk Modelling. Luckily interviewer was also from the Credit Risk Team at HSBC. He started grilling over all the concepts. Why i used the particular model? What is ROC? What was the delinquency period and why ? I had done that project too seriously. I made him clear all the concepts. They focus more on your concepts and understanding. They also asked my few basic questions on Statistics which were related to my project.

I told them everything in just 10 minutes. And right after that the interviewer told me that it would be the last question they will ask me. I started thinking i won't get selected as no one finished in just 10 minutes. Then interview went on for 5 more minutes. I was given a case study on decreasing sales of a particular departmental store's division.

At last there were some HR questions. At last interviewer was really impressed by me. Guys a

College Name: Madras School of Economics

Round: Test
Experience: The quantitative part is relatively easy, it is for testing the speed and accuracy, there are two math cases given the exam but they were also comparatively easy based on probability and statistics
Tips: In the math cases it is very important to analyse the result after solving it. that is what makes the difference because almost every one solves it
Duration: 30 minutes
Total Questions: 22

Round: Interview
Experience: The guy was one of the vice presidents in the firm. He seemed pretty cool.
They will make you more comfortable and they want you answer the questions.
Tips: Do not try to babble about all the courses that you have taken just brief him your specialization, projects and internships.

Try to explain an intern or project related to the position and be sure about what you are explaining these guys are technically very sound.

Try not to ask the bland questions like what are the opportunities at Citi , what is the vertical hierarchy in the firm. This is not an hr question and this is a trap. Ask him about the plunging profits or gains or what is citi's strategy to hold its position in certain countries. This will give him the impression that you did prepare for the interview.

Round: Interview
Experience: This was a mix of stress +guesstimate+ technical interview.
This round went so much longer than the first round. Some times they may ask an irrelevant question just to see how you react to it. In this round they have asked me everything about the projects and internships. As I told you they were technically sound they will track you up to every minute detail of the project. They have also asked many situation type questions. They have asked me about my high CGPA and why not a Ph.D.
Tips: Try to be as much cool as possible in this interview do not show a blank face to the interviewers when they have asked something from your CV. In the situation type questions try to relate those situations to something on your CV and then tell them how you have solved it. And you must be a master of your CV you must be able to answer about a particular graph or result from your project even during sleep. they shoot a lot of questions at you and answer them as appropriately as you can. Be sure to know what your strengths and weakness are. do not try to disguise your weakness as a strength, they will find out that you are trying to fake, they have seen thousand of candidates like you.

Round: Interview
Experience: I had a friendly chat with the HR to begin with as he was asking about my surname and stuff. the interview went on for 15-20 mins of the phone. here you need to really explain about why you are interested in citi and why you are into analytics
Tips: Follow the same tips mentioned in the third round.

General Tips: Be thorough with your projects and internships and do not try to fake the technical details
Skill Tips: Good technical knowledge is required and taking statistics courses would really help
Skills: Speed, Accuracy, Analytical ability, Stress handling, statistical methods basics, reasoning
College Name: IIT KHARAGPUR
Motivation: Nice work life balance and growth in the firm and the firms stability

Round: Test
Experience: There were 15 questions from quant’s, 10 questions from data interpretation with 1 mark each and -.5 for wrong answer also there were 2 case studies with 10 marks each with no –ve marks. Total 45 marks question, I did only 9 from quant and 7 from DI total 16 out of 25 questions and didn’t touch case studies. Quanta and DI were very basics level.

In those 16, 1 question was wrong so basically I did 14.5 out of 45, but with a accuracy of 90%. Didn’t expect to get shortlisted but was very tensed and angry upon myself coz it was my level paper. But around 12 mid night shortlist came and I was at 11th position out of 31 students in the list.

There were total around 90 students who appeared for written test. They allowed Mtech and Mca guys not Btech.
Total Questions: 25

Round: TECHNICAL INTERVIEW
Experience: I went there and greeted him. Firstly he told me to introduce myself, later he asked what I like the most. I told analytical thinking and logical reasoning and yeah I relate it with data base.(since I knew they came for Data analyst profile).

He asked me about join, gave me a table and told me to perform all joins. I did that and he asked me about Order by clause and, having clause then asked me normal forms up to bcnf.

Later asked about pl/sql difference b/w sql and pl/sql, what is trigger explain in detail. Some basics questions of DBMS theory asked me about my 2 projects and at the end he gave me a situation where I have a grocery shop outside nit Surathkal, and from last few days/months I realized a downfall in sales, what possible reasons could I find? I gave him 8 reasons within 2/3 mins. He was impressed…

After 1st round out of 31 only 13 were selected and I was there in d list.

Round: TECHNICAL INTERVIEW
Experience: As soon as I entered the room, mam told me “Ooo tum aao aao ”. I smiled because I was the 1st guy during presentation who asked the first question (she made every1 clap for me there) and she remembered my face. And eventually she did study from IIT Kanpur so yes she was able to speak fluent Hindi (plus point for guys like me :p). with her there was a guy he asked me to write code for taking a no and converting it into binary and 1 question from array- very simple later she gave me a table with employee id, order date and order amount. A customer can place max 1 order in 1 day. I had to find the latest transaction of every customer with amount as well. i did it using max function over date and group by with sub query, she asked me about my resume at the end she gave me 7,9,21,63,100 and told me to find the no of numbers between 1 to 50000 which are exactly divisible by all, i did it in 1 min.

but she was smiling, I thought I made some mistake in hurry, then I asked mam m I doing right or wrong (in curiosity as I find very comfortable there) she smiled and said “Chalo bhago ynha se ye interview h ”.I said sorry but yeah she was impressed with my interview so told ki “you will learn all these things very quickly”.

Round: TECHNICAL INTERVIEW
Experience: After 2nd round 9 were selected and I was one of them. It was basically a Managerial round and it scheduled over Skype. I had to introduce myself as well as my family background. Here comes the harder part when he asked me why you have such a poor academic back ground? I was speechless for a moment but I started telling the truth.

I told despite getting 68% marks in my 10th I was the third topper of my class. I got 60.66 % in 12th but yeah there also out of 700 students only 14 got first division. So basically I concluded that in my state board marking is not that much good. He said ok but what happened in graduation(64%) when you studied in Delhi?(what to say now :p) I said sir I did it from IGNOU and you can Google the fact that even less than 5% of student are able to clear the degree in 3 years. Later I explicitly mentioned that I m not blaming my boards but this is the fact which can’t be change.

Now He asked what happened in PG here also you scored only 7.50 CGPA which is less than even standard score of 8(Meri to jaan hi nikal gayi :p). Then I told him that sir u can see my pointer in first semester is very less close to 6.5 but after that I constantly improved myself. He was smiling …..

He asked me about my family background and then I told him how I struggled, I was giving tuition in my grads to continue my education and after grads took a gap of 1 year and cleared all MCA entrance examination and now sitting in front of him.

Later asked about my best qualities….i told him that I can lead group of people very well. I gave example of me being captain of my department cricket team and I was class monitor through 3rd to 12th std and also some stuff regarding my college events. He noted down something .I don’t know what.

I was not sure that I could clear that interview. When the result came they called all 9 students and said that they find is difficult to eliminate 4 names .i was sure that I m out of picture now but fortunately my name was at 2nd position. Wowwwww

Round: HR Interview
Experience: It was telephonic round and just my hobbies and all, he asked me about my poetry writing hobby as well as Hindi Shayaris. I was told to recite 1 …when he listened, he was very impressed…

College Name: IIT KANPUR

Round: Test
Duration: 1 hour

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: The first round of interview was identifying your interest and testing it. I told I am good at Math and Fin and I was asked all probab and Fin questions. Many others were asked Guesstimates and Puzzles
Tips: Be confident and keep talking and keep interacting, even when you are struggling- it's more about the ideas you put on the table than the answers. Be thorough in basics of probab including all kinds of distribution and all.
Also the job is for analysing Credit Card usage. And it is a gloabla financial firm. So for questions like, "Tell about yourself" or "Walk me through the resume", keep telling how you are good at handling data. And if you have Fin background, pitch about it.

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: The interview was mostly a stress interview. They kept telling me that I am somehow not so good for the job and my knowledge in the field is insufficient. And I kept convincing them back that I am indeed a good candidate.
Tips: Keep calm. Prepare HR questions perfectly. You should talk to them as if you are dying too get this job and detail it to them that you are the best candidate for this job. You have to tell them that you have some special capability that others don't (I told about my knowledge in Fin). And you should be really special in that and be able to answer anything.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Basic HR questions to test if you are really serious about the hjob and firm. If you did previous 2 intervies well, this must be a cakewalk.
Tips: Be ready to give answers convincing them that this job is the most important thing in your life

Skills: Mathematical Aptitude, Probabiity, Finance, Conversation Skills
College Name: IIT Madras