Nielsen Consultant Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Other Interview
Experience: Q1.Tell me about yourself.
Then I was asked about my past internship, PoRs
Then I was asked why I wanted to do a non core internship.
After that, I was asked a puzzle (Similar to a puzzle in the book "Heard on the Street".
Then I was asked a guesstimate question. It was: Estimate the amount of Surf (washing powder) used in India everyday.
It lasted for around half an hour. It was a telephonic round
Tips: Be thorough with your resume. They mainly asked resume based questions in this round.

Regarding puzzles and guesstimates, walk your interviewer through your answer.

General Tips: Be thorough with your resume.
Practice puzzles and guesstimates.
Practice a few cases.
Skills: Presentation Of Facts In Resume, Project And Internship, Guesstimate Skills, Case Solving Ability, Quantitative Aptitude
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Madras

Round: Test
Experience: Questions were similar to that in CAT. Question based on logic, reasoning and English were asked with every section having 20 questions. Shortlisted students were selected for interviews.
Duration: 60 minutes

Round: HR Interview
Experience: A case was given which had to be analysed and I was to suggest different solutions and justify them.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Consisted of HR questions and guess estimate questions.Also a few analytics question were asked.

Skill Tips: My projects related to analytics,basic knowledge on engineering, spontaneity was tested. The PDF's uploaded by the BC,solving puzzles from the Internet helped.Also I talked to my seniors which gave me a good idea as to what to expect of the interview. Basic preparation on all the core courses. Reading from the materials provided by the BC. Reading TIME material,brushing up on coding concepts (from NPTEL lectures), learning R(analytics software) from coursera helped.
Skills: Analytics
College Name: IIT MADRAS

General Tips: Do’s :
• PREPARE FOR APTITUDE TESTS. Many of us believe that our profile will lead us getting
shortlisted on resume basis. That may be true, but I have not seen a process as random as
placements. It might happen that you are getting closely rejected in 3-4 firms for which you have
prepared. In such a case, having a good aptitude will give you more no. of shortlists, which will give
you a psychological security to fall back. APTITUDE PREPARATION IS BORING, so you may start it
and then leave it. Don’t do it. It is the only thing that is going to be with you in case something
unexpected happens.
• Be prepared for random and unexpected events like unexpected shortlisting results, irregularities in interview procedures etc.
• Prepare in a group, and help each other. The entire placement preparation phase is very taxing,
and support from people around you helps.

Dont’s :
• Don’t leave things for the end.
• Don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t overestimate yourself too.
• Don’t have pre-conceived notions about anything: no. of people a company is going to hire, who is
better than you, who is worse than you etc. Let the company decide what they want.

Final Tips :
• Prioritize the sectors and analyse your chances.
• Don’t keep too high or too low expectations from yourself.
• PREPARE APTITUDE. If you don’t get placed in big firms, aptitude is your only fall back.
• Be prepared for unexpected outcomes.
• Trust yourself for what you know, because there are a lot of things and you cant know everything.
The interview is driven by what you write on your resume. Know what you write. 
• In all preparation aspects, one never gets a feeling of satisfaction. Due to paucity of time and so
much pressure around, we are unable to do things as per our expectations. So don’t worry too
much. Give ample time to things, but don’t overdo them.
• Go to the interview empty-headed. Thinking too much about things makes you feel nervous. An empty mind works most efficiently.
College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Test
Experience: It was held couple of days before their interview process. Test consisted of Quant, Logical reasoning and Verbal Ability, similar to CAT pattern but was comparatively easy. They shortlisted approximately 80 students for interview process.


Round: Other Interview
Experience: It was a mix of mostly HR + few probability questions. It was a 40min interview. It was a good interview as I was able to answer all his question and could easily solve the probability questions.


Round: Technical Interview
Experience: It was all technical wherein the interviewer asked me 4-5 puzzles and some probability questions. I was able to answer most of the puzzles correctly but got stuck in one of the probability questions.


Round: HR Interview
Experience: Final HR round. Here the interviewer was continuously grilling me by stating that my profile is not coherent with their job description. I maintained my composure and was able to handle the situation with ease.


General Tips: Do’s :
Apart from all preparation :
• Take proper sleep whenever given a chance to. Do not skip meals.
• Prepare about the company in advance, last minute preparation might lead to a panic situation. Ask your friends (not sitting in placements) to help you prepare.
• Take someone to the interviews. He/She will manage your interviews accordingly. It’s also a motivating factor.
• Always carry a smile when going to an interview. You should not appear stressed.

Don’ts :
• Don’t try to delay things. Prepare a timeline for preparation. Don’t accumulate things post end sem, because you will have to appear for a lot of tests after that. Hence you get limited time for preparation.
• Don’t be in a false assumption that if you possess a strong profile (PORs, Extra currics etc.) you will make it through the interviews. It can only help you fetch an interview. You have to work hard to clear that interview.

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: stress interview
Experience: During EXL, the first interview was a totally stressful one. The interviewer was interrupting me all the time and countering me when I was answering him. Then he gave me a puzzle, which seemed fairly easy to me. But as I started on the puzzle, he started asking me about my hobbies to interrupt me again. I patiently answered the question and then solved the puzzle. He gave me 2 more puzzles, which again I was able to solve. Then, he asked me to give an approach for a guess estimate, which I was able to do easily. My preparation on Cases, Puzzles and Guesstimates was fairly low as compared to others. But I was able to solve them because I was very relaxed in the interview.
Tips: Keeping calm is imperative.


Round: HR interview
Experience: The second round was a complete HR interview. All the questions were either from my resume or about my interest in EXL. Once, he was through with them, he asked me a puzzle which I’d never heard before. But I was able to solve it with a small hint from the interviewer.
Tips: It is important to think loud and let the interviewer know what is going through your mind.

General Tips: Do’s –
Manage Time well, try to attend all classes so that you don’t have to study too much before the exams (or simply choose such courses).
Try to keep your personal database of which companies you’ve applied for, which day are they coming and what your status of preparation for them is etc.
If you have more than 1 interview in a slot, try to take a friend along with you who can attend your calls when you’re in an interview. Even if you have 1 interview, still I’d recommend taking a friend along with you. Talking with a friend always eases pressure.
Stay Relaxed. You might have to wait for 2-3 hours for your interview slot.

Don'ts-
Don’t waste time in the semester. Prepare.
Don’t get nervous in the interview. You might not be able to solve a puzzle or a case if you are nervous. Try to be as normal as you can be.
Don’t rely heavily on one company. A company might reject you on the basis of a small mistake. Prepare for more than one.

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Test
Duration: 45 minutes minutes
Total Questions: 40

Round: guesstimate interview
Experience: As I belong to the Civil Engineering background, I was initially asked to justify how I am suited for analytics. I had an intern on marketing so he asked few simple questions on that. After that he gave me guesstimate. As I was solving the guesstimate, the interviewer was constantly questioning my approach and asking me to specify the source of every data (for eg. Population of India 1.2 bn, Source: Census report 2%) and he also kept questioning my approach and made me do the same guesstimate by three approach. After that he asked few puzzles which were simple and I was able to solve them.

Round: hr interview
Experience: Initially some HR questions and some simple probability questions. This was a very friendly and easy interview.

Round: hr interview
Experience: It was with the partner and it was a short interview (10 mins) and was entirely HR and he also asked few questions on my resume. It was more of a normal chit chat that an interview. I was given the offer.

General Tips: Do’s :
1. Practice in groups (aptitude, cases, guesstimates).
2. For HR preparation, if you are not sure about your communication skills it is good to practice aloud in your room or record while rehearsing.
3. Be energetic in the interview, try to drive the interview on your own.

Don’ts :
1. Take HR for granted if you have good soft skills.
2. For cases its better to practice mock rather than just reading through the case books.

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Test
Experience: The test was based on three topics namely Quantitative Aptitude, Mathematics and English. The questions were easy to answer.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: A case study was asked for which I had to give a solution based on statistical methods.
Tips: But the B.tech project helped me in leading the interview. Lead the interview and don’t let them ask many questions on  topics. Keep speaking.

Round: HR Interview
Tips: During interviews try to lead the interviews.Keep speaking and let them ask questions on your speech which you will be perfect to answer. If you let them ask, you may or may not be able to answer.

College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Test
Experience: 3 sections - Quant, Verbal and Logical Reasoning.No sectional time limit and sections could be attempted in any order. However, they might have section-wise cut-offs (not sure) and so each section must be given importance. It is a speed based test. Level of difficulty is easy to moderate
Tips: you need to be quick. Do not waste too much time on any question. All questions contain equal marks. You can come back to the remaining questions later.Try maximizing your score in the apti. A lot of preference is given to the high scorers of the apti.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: It started with a brief introduction-Tell us about yourself. Till the time you answer, one panellist goes through your resume.Be thorough with everything you write in your resume. Do not write fake stuff, they question you on anything that you have written.They asked me about everything- projects, seminar topic, languages mentioned, extra-curricular activities A lot of SQL questions were asked. They ask concepts, queries, syntax. The had questioned me a lot on JOINS.
Tips: Support everything you say with an example. (eg. if u say you have leadership qualities, give an example of when you have been a leader).If you don’t know an answer, tell it to them honestly. Don’t try to fool them.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Standard puzzles that you normally prepare for interviews were asked. Do not give away the answer immediately as if u know it by heart. Think aloud and explain them every step. It does not matter even if the final answer is wrong, the approach is important. In my case, I wasn’t prepared with the puzzle I was asked so I explained it to them from myperspective. Even though the final answer was wrong, the approach was correct so they qualified me for the next round. Also, they smartly try to confuse you. So remain confident in what you say. Do not argue if you are very confident, explain it to them politely. In the tech part of the interview, basic java/c/c++ questions wereasked. (what is object oriented programming? What is inheritance?

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Be prepared with all sorts of HR questions- strengths, weaknesses, happiest moment, proudest moment etc). Why EXL? One Fermi question was asked in this round. Again here, the approach is important, not the final answer. Beprepared with a question to ask at the end of the interview- it could be abt the company/ data analytics or anything. That shows your interest in the job

Skill Tips: Don’t panic or be nervous. Stay calm. Once the interview starts, they make you feelvery comfortable.
College Name: IIT MADRAS