Mahalakshmi Profiles Graduate Engineer Trainee (Get) Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: The resume is more than just mere personal information form – it should give a complete picture about the candidate since it is the first impression the interviewer gets about you.I wanted to get recruited in a core sector company. I wanted to work in a company related to power sector consequently I designed my resume accordingly.
Tips: Do not lie. In case if you fail to respond to questions asked from the points that you mentioned in your resume you might squander your chances of getting recruited to the company. Hence be truthful when you mention anything in your resume, at the same time be concise and precise because the interviewer cannot spend a lot of time on a single resume.

Round: Test
Experience: First I contacted some of my seniors who were working with the company. It is from them that I learnt that a lot of questions from power system protection are asked in the written test. In general if you search the internet about the type of questions asked in these tests you might get some awry information. The main reason being that the same company might turn up in different colleges with different profiles consequently the questions asked in their tests might vary from college to college; hence in order to avoid such discrepancy it is always suggested to consult some of the seniors.
The company conducted a technical written test. The questions were majorly from control systems and further from PID (Proportional Integral Differential) control systems. There were also some basic electrostatic questions. Few questions were also asked from power and machining, though we were expecting a higher proportion of power related questions. The company had come to the campus to recruit for their steel unit and power unit, consequently knowledge on control system and power was a must.
The test was an objective online test – but it was not an elimination test.
Tips: A candidate appearing for this company’s written test should have good level of knowledge in control systems and power.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: I along with my friends practised for the GD. We would conduct the mock GD amongst ourselves.The GD topic that was allotted to my group during the GD round was FDI in retail. The topics allotted to other groups were on cricket and the ongoing (at that time) Anna Hazare movement. The GD was again not an elimination round.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The first interview was conducted by an alumnus of our institute. He began by asking me for a brief introduction. He wanted a brief reply. Then he enquired about my 3rd year internships. I had done my internship as a project manager in L&T power. The work that I did there was based on how an idea or a concept is translated into reality. He asked me to explain the kind of work that I did there and why I chose that internship. He also asked me to explain the SLD of a power plant. SLD stands for a single line diagram and is drawn for study of huge power plants and refineries. An SLD is analogous to the electronic diagrams drawn to study electronic circuits. He was surprised at how much I managed to learn from the internship that lasted for duration of only two months. I replied that the underlying principle behind whatever I learnt there was the concept of “relaying” which I was quite proficient in.
Next he started asking me questions that I had not anticipated. He asked me to explain the differences that I thought existed between the kinds of work that I did in L&T and the work I would be expected to do in Jindal steel. I replied to it by explaining the differences in the kind of business the two companies did.
He enquired whether I had questions to ask. Generally people tend to ask some crappy questions like ‘What is the growth of the company?’ and the likes, but i earnestly suggest that if you have attended the PPT then ask some questions from the points mentioned during the PPT which showcases your attentiveness as well as genuine interest in the company’s work. During the PPT I had learnt that the PLF (Plant Load Factor) of the company is very high I asked him to explain me the reason for this this; also the company had a huge ongoing project in Orissa I asked him about the future plans of the company in Orissa and the problems that the company is facing with respect to the development of a current project. I asked these questions to show him my level of interest in the company and also that i was attentive during the PPT.
Then he moved over to my 2nd year projects. I did my 2nd year internship in NDPL (North Delhi Power Limited). He asked me to explain the kind of work I did in this internship. Power companies are generally involved in one of the 3 businesses: generation, transmission or distribution. NDPL is involved in distribution of power. I told him that the project i worked on was minimization of harmonics in distribution system. He asked me explain the reason for these harmonics in the distribution system which is a major headache in such companies. I told him that the non-linear loads like the refrigerators and air conditioners were the major cause of such harmonics. Next i told him the measures that were adopted by NDPL for control of harmonics.
He then moved over to the minor project that i did. The project was a simple one and this aroused his amazement. I explained that the project was allotted only 2 credits and also told him that through the project i learnt the usage and properties of various components like capacitors, resistors and the likes. He was convinced with my reply.
Important Tip: I would recommend that one should do a thorough research on the kind of business of the company in which one did his internship in  or is applying for a job because it is very essential to know the place where one did his internship in and where one is going to go to.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This interview was supposed to be an HR interview but the interviewer eventually drifted over to technical aspects. He guessed that since I had done all my internships in the past in  power sectors my area of interest would be power and also since the company had very little to do in power sector and more in the mining sector I would have to go a through a new beginning all together. I explained him that the internship I did was not about power generation or distribution, but was about protection and relaying; I told him I did the work that a maintenance engineer would do. He was convinced that the power industries do indeed possess a wider scope.
He asked me about my birth place and also enquired about my family background.
He then asked me to explain my major project. I told him that we were supposed to do our major project in the next semester. However, I still gave him a brief idea about my major project. I told him about the future prospects about my project and also the kind of difficulties that I was likely to face. He asked me some basic questions pertaining to the project which I managed to answer quite easily.
I had also mentioned photography as my area of interest. He asked me to explain the specifications of the camera used in the photography section in the hobbies club.
He lastly asked me to specify that if given an option to work either in a well-established company or in a growing company  where work would be more but incentives would be less then where would I prefer to work. I replied that I would be prefer working in a growing company like Jindal steel because that would enable me to learn more and also deal with newer technologies because in established companies still obsolete technologies are used.
Tips: I would suggest that one should never refer any website for framing answers to HR questions. You have to speak about yourself only and frame your answers after giving a detailed thought to your abilities/strengths/goals etc. Also it might prove to be beneficial to consult some seniors who has been working in the same company or has some experience with HR interviews.

College Name: IIT ROORKEE
Motivation: Jindal Steel is a very reputed company and the main source of information was the pre placement talk given by the company.

Round: Test
Experience: Pure technical.
Study Physical Metallurgy and mechanical metallurgy... as well as Iron and Steel Making.
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: It is better to start gd. Give a good start. Whatever you speak, be confident and be loud. You should be very active during gd. Giving chance to the person who is silent throughout the gd will increase your point.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Question asked :
Name, position in class, project(industrial), about parents.
Corex process, Difference between corex and BF, Supply of O2 in Corex etc...
BF operations, RAFT, Temp. difference between slag and hot metal and reason for that difference, position of tuyers in bf and justify its position.
Types of steel in LD converter, Quenching medium and best quenchant.
Type of work you wish to do. How long you wish to work for this company, planning for further studies or not ..

General Tips: CPI is the most important thing. Along with CPI they also check weather the interviewee is having knowledge of basic things or not. In short CPI and knowledge both matters alot.
Skill Tips: Whatever you speak be confident in that. You should have very sound technical knowledge. Show interviewers that you are desperate to join their company. Sit straight and be bold and have confidence on yourself.
College Name: NIT RAIPUR

Round: Test
Experience: Average level of difficulty.
Tips: Study mechanical and physical metallurgy as well as iron and steel making properly.
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: There were 12 candidates in my GD group including me so you need to speak enough over the topic and you need to show some good GD atticates which will work in your favour.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: My PI consisted many ups and downs I.e. Silence of half an hour and then continuous speaking of about 20 min. As it was a kind of group interview but the questions were asked to individual and questions were not passed to the other candidate I.e. It was 3(HR) on 1 interview but two other candidates were also listening your interview.
Tips: My interview was based only on my industrial project and nothing else. Just know your project very well do it very seriously so that you are answerable to each and every question that will be bombarded over you!!!
And discover your passion till fourth year and accordingly choose the company. Do not experiment with your life and if confused talk to your seniors.

General Tips: The most important thing which matters is how passionate and how eager you are to work with them. Also most important is positive attitude towards every problem.
Skill Tips: If you ask any senior about cpi and if he says that it doesn't matter then he is definitely misguiding you!!!! Weightage of cpi and your technical is equal. If he says make your technical sound and you will be selected then it happens very rarely at least in our college. They want to see your performance in your academic session. They want to see how consistant you will be in their company and how serious you are towards your work and also towards your career. Less cpi even if you are constant through out, tells them that you will not grow after some point of time so they want growing and consistently growing performance which help them in their company. And backlog history matters more then your cpi because companies are nowadays asking for no backlog history so if you are not eligible for company then to whom you will show your pointers???
Skills: CGPA, Eagerness to work, Positive attitude
College Name: NIT RAIPUR

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: I used a single resume for all the companies that I applied to. I mentioned my extra-curricular activities and my projects with the projects relevant to the profile on offer getting a higher priority.

Round: Test
Experience: The first round In Jindal Steel and Power Limited was a written test. The test was a completely technical paper, there were no aptitude questions asked in the test. Questions were asked from fluid machinery, stresses in beams, heat and mass transfer, manufacturing techniques and material properties. The duration of the test was 60 minutes and the numbers of questions asked were also 60. In total, 11 candidates were shortlisted for the Interview round.
For the technical questions I studied topics like fluid machinery and IC engines.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: For the HR Interviews I prepared sample answers to some questions like:Tell me about yourself.
What are career goals (both short term and long term)?Before asking me any technical questions the Interviewers asked me to specify my areas of Interest, I said fluid machinery and IC engines. They began by asking me questions from fluid machinery ‘What Is the difference between a reaction turbine and a repulsive turbine?’ I specified some basic difference. Next they asked me to specify the differences between the principles of operation of the two turbines. I managed to answer this question as well. From IC engines they asked me to specify the reason for the occurrence of knocking In IC engines.

Further they ventured out of my areas of Interest and asked me questions like ‘Why Is fatigue test done?’  They also asked me questions from material properties; I bluntly replied that material properties are not in my area of Interest.
They asked some questions from my resume as well. In my resume I had mentioned about some of my projects, these projects were related to railways. They asked me about my experience that I gained while working on these projects. Based on these they also asked me questions on lathe machines; these are the topics that I had studied in the second year of my course.
The company recruited 3 students from mechanical department.

College Name: IIT ROORKEE

Round: Test
Experience: It was conducted by third party recruiters i.e asprining minds. Which every NITian and IITian are acquainted of.
Tips: Don't mark about which you are not sure, this will draw you negetive marks
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 1

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Be confident answer what you know.The interviewer always has more technical knowledge than you
Tips: If you don't know and answering a approximate guess, always mention that you are guess before answering.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: They are searching for manager, so act like a manager and try to emphasis on your managerial skills.
Tips: Never say you have problem with allocation.

General Tips: BE A MANAGER
Skill Tips: Try being a manager than a engineer.
Skills: Techinically sound, Managerial skills
College Name: NIT DURGAPUR
Motivation: It is one of largest MNC in India operating for such a long time. Highest revenue grosser for ABG GROUP
Funny Moments: He had no idea about ISTE. So I manipulated the statistic and balance sheet data.

Round: Test
Experience: There was a written test which had both aptitude as well technical questions. The test was an elimination round and you had to perform above average to make it to the GD.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: GD was not an elimination round. They had generally the most recent topics for group discussion like Lokpal Bill. They were only testing one’s communication skill (they wanted basic communication ability) rather than eliminating someone on the basis of it.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: In the interview round they asked me questions about me and how do I mange difficult pressure situations. They also asked me about how am I different from others. They also asked me about my low CGPA and its contradiction with my high 10th and 12th class percentage. In an interview if you have a low grade you should be prepared to defend your poor grade.
Beside these general questions, they asked me about my internship and projects. I would suggest going through you project reports in detail so that you are able to answer even in depth questions (one or two such questions might come up). They asked me about the use of copper in steel. They also asked me to explain metallurgy to someone who had no idea about it.
My internship was on defects in rolled products. So they asked what did I do to control them and what were the results I achieved.

College Name: IIT ROORKEE

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: It was mostly based on academic performance over the years. They had set an eligibility criteria based on our performances in Xth, XIIth and graduation.
Tips: There is no substitute for hard work when it comes to academics. A consistent performance which reflects a positive trend in your performance will always impress your recruiters.

Round: Test
Experience: Tata motors online test in conducted by AMCAT. Quantitative and logical reasoning were pretty much easy. They had questions from all the chapters one can find in any so aptitude books. English questions were mostly usage based. One needs to have a strong reading base to answer the questions. Technical questions were mostly theoretical but very conceptual.
Tips: Practice aptitude questions as much as possible. English needs to be developed through continuous effort. Read books and newspaper, once in a while try writing something in english. A thorough knowledge of your technical concepts is necessary. Focus on English if you think it is your weakest link ASAP. Many people understand this only at the 11th hour, which is of no help at all
Duration: 110 minutes
Total Questions: 100

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: Although our topic was somewhat abstract,other groups had topics based on current political ,social, and economic affairs. Based on the time that was given to us, the 7 of us each took a minute to put forth our point of view before finally concluding in the last 2 minutes of our allotted time. The discussion was a peaceful one and almost every body brought something new into the discussion. 5 of us got selected for the interview round
Tips: Develop your communication skills. Make use of your professional communication skill classes if your college provides one. Take stock of what is happening around you, in your country, in the world. Practice having fruitful discussions with your friends around you on social topics.
Duration: 8-10 minutes minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I started by giving a small introduction about myself and my upbringing. The interviewers then took up to ask questions from my project. There were 3 interviewers, one hr and 2 technical interviewers. The y were very experienced professionals of their field and their questions reflected that. I was able to answer most of the questions, however they had me stuck at the project question for quite sometime.
Throughout the interview they were going through the my application form they gave us to fill after the online tests and also my CV.
Tips: Keep confidence in yourself. If you have made this far in a placement drive then you have it in yourself to see through one more round. Interviews are hard to advise for and the only extra tip for facing an interview is to feel confident and cool.

Skill Tips: All the above skill sets need to be equally given attention to as each of those elimination rounds focused on a specific skill set.
Skills: Communication, Technical knowledge base, Reasoning Skills, General awareness, Aptitude
College Name: NIT AGARTALA

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: The resume that I used while applying in different companies was nearly the same, however I did incorporate certain changes in areas of interest and the projects to make them more compatible with the profile/company which i was applying to. For instance while applying to Schlumberger I highlighted some of the technical projects.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: I did not prepare for the Group Discussion (GD) activities. The second round conducted by Tata Motors was the GD round. The topic of the GD was ‘What is the backbone of Indian economy: the service sector or the manufacturing sector?’ My group comprised of 7 candidates out of which 4 got selected for the interview round.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I prepared for the HR interviews by writings and reciting answers to some frequently asked questions. The interviewers began by asking me to speak about myself. Next they enquired about my family background. Then they asked me to specify the reason to opt for mechanical engineering.

The interviewer then moved over to technical questions. The interviewers asked to specify my areas of interest. I replied stating refrigeration and air-conditioning, IC engines and fluid machinery as my areas my interest. In one of the questions he made a diagram with a pump, a reservoir and a relief valve and asked me to calculate something which i do not remember. Unfortunately we were not taught relief valve, and I told him about this. So the interviewer changed the topic and asked me to specify the topics which we were taught in our engineering course. I told him everything that i managed to recall at that moment. He then started asking me questions, some of them were:

What is the difference between positive Displacement Pump and Rotor Dynamics Pump?
In refrigerators only things that are kept in freezers freeze but the freezing process does not take place elsewhere in the refrigerators, why?
If in a refrigerator a particular wire is cut open, then where would gas come out and where would the liquid flow out from?
If the door of the refrigerator, which is kept in a room, is opened then would the room get cooled or heated.
The interview panel of Tata Motors is to simply test your basics. For instance in one of the questions they asked me to state the basic principle governing fluid machinery. This basic principle is the Pascal’s law. When I was asked this question, Pascal’s law never crossed my mind. Consequently, I asked him to quote which law he was talking about. He said Pascal’s law. In spite of him naming the law, it still took me about 3 to 4 minutes to recall the Pascal’s law. Once i managed to recall it i gave him the proper answer. The interview lasted for about 35 minutes.

The company eventually recruited 5 students.
Tips: The technical questions asked in the interviews are the very basic once. Generally people tend to forget the basics that were taught to them in the initial years. Revise the introductory sections of the chapters. Focus more on the concepts rather than the equations.

College Name: IIT ROORKEE
Motivation: Tata is a household name in India. I knew about this company and its activities through its promotional ads and also from its website. The company was focussing on the core technical knowledge and did not lay a lot of emphasis on knowledge about the company.