Nomura Holdings Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: A CGPA above 8 would be useful to get shortlisted for an interview, but may notbe necessary. A well-written and edited customized resume helps a lot. It must necessarily reflect an interest and basic knowledge of finance.Interview: HR, finance, tech and math questions are all usually rolled into one round of interview.
Tips: A good understanding of probability and/or statistics and knowledge about currents affairs and trends in the financial world would be to your benefit.A tight grasp of math (quant, especially probability) is required for finance profile. Math Puzzles with variations on the standard ones can be asked.

General Tips: Preparing for CAT would suffice for general practice of quant questions. Do not focus too much on one thing. Selection is usually random. Put fight for math/puzzles and you can score in banks/finance jobs. Finance questions are to test the thought process and not knowledge in finance as such. Probability parts would be covered in finance questions itself. Solve as many brain teasers and probability puzzles you can, you can find enough on the FTP server. Try to balance what you know and be alert.
Skill Tips: ""
College Name: IIT Madras

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: There are no tests for consultancies so make your resume very different and awesome.
Tips: Have a look at resumes of seniors who got shortlisted or placed in consultancies so as to get an idea of how to prepare your resumes.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There will be definitely one case study interview for a consultancy.
Tips: I would suggest start preparing from the start of the final year.Prepare in groups and practice regularly.I referred Victor Cheng's videos for studying case studies.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Only basic HR questions were asked.They just wanted to check if you are good fit for the company.
Tips: In tell me about yourself questions, you can tell about your other soft points which you couldn't mention in your resume.Go to company's website and see what type of consultants they are actually looking for and prepare your HR questions accordingly.Make sure you are not taking more than 2 minutes to answer!

Round: FIT TEST
Experience: They see if you can work long hours and travel on weekends.They also ask your future plans.All the questions are direct and the interview hardly takes 5 minutes.

General Tips: Prepare well in advance if you are targeting consultancies.
Skill Tips: Go through company's website and understand what they expect from you.
College Name: IIT BOMBAY
Motivation: I wanted to join only consultancy.The brand value of company obviously mattered to me.I got to know how exactly this company is from seniors.All of the above factors motivated me to apply.

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: I am shedding some light on the Nomura Recruitment Process and what you should do to avail such an opportunity (apart from Posting here:D). Please bear with me as i am using the same format as i posted in some other site smile emoticon smile emoticon .1: What was the reaction when you first got selected and how did your parents react?Trisha : Well, considering that I already had a job, I was happy and satisfied, but not ecstatic altogether. My parents however, were very glad. My basic emotion at the moment was contentment.2. Can you describe the hiring process in brief?Trisha : The hiring process consisted of a written aptitude test, followed by three interviews, two technical and one HR. The written test consisted of a quantitative section, a verbal ability section, and a section on Logical Reasoning. The first technical interview comprised of puzzles, basic questions on finance, some problems on programming and some questions about internships. The HR round was fairly simple and predictable. The second technical interview primarily revolved around a slightly complex programming problem.3. Which was the toughest question and how did you answer it?Trisha : I was asked to write a code/algorithm for a chess game in the last interview, and not being a Computer Science or Information Technology student, I was initially a little reluctant in going ahead with the problem. However, I started simplifying the problem to a code for a single King and a single Pawn, concentrating on protecting the king from all directions. The interviewer too helped me along the way by giving certain hints and directions, and eventually, over the pleasant interaction which lasted about twenty minutes, we had before us a well written algorithm for the question.4. What according to you was the company looking for in candidates?Trisha : I think the primary thing they were looking for was smartness and strong analytical skills. They wanted people who, when faced with tricky and perplexing situations, can do better than giving up right away. They wanted street smart and confident people, who had the inherent ability to quickly and efficiently develop decent programming logic.5. What tips you can give which might help other freshers applying similar jobs?Trisha : I will suggest that future aspirants practice solving some mathematical puzzles before appearing for the interview. They should appear very confident and composed throughout the entire process.6. What was that one thing which you think might have helped you over others?Trisha : I believe my confidence might have worked in my favor the most. Moreover, I am usually very good with puzzles and analytical questions, which I think was apparent, and might have played a vital role in my selection.7.Working at Nomura is going to be very challenging. What are your expectations?Trisha : As far as I am concerned, I would get bored without challenges. Hence, I look forward to a very competitive yet healthy work culture at Nomura, that enables me to acquire sufficient domain knowledge in the field of analytics, business and finance.8.Given that you have two offers now (Nomura and Indian Oil) which company are you planning to join and why?Trisha : Though I am still consulting some seniors on the matter and have not made my final choice yet, still I think I will probably join Nomura. That is so because considering my future aim of doing an MBA in finance, I believe my work-experience in Nomura will give me an edge over IOCL during the time of admissions.
Tips: Nomura and Indian Oil Corporation are two completely different companies with completely different profiles and still I being a chemical engineering graduate from BIT Mesra managed to land job offers from both of them. Nomura hires recent graduates from some of the top colleges like BIT Mesra, IITs, NITs etc. Nomura has a strong presence in India and offers a wide range of financial products and services. Nomura normally looks for analyst profiles in investment banking but from engineering colleges it’s usually for a technical profile either to create software to help other analyst make smarter trading decisions or testing profiles to improve upon already existing software. The starting salary for an analyst profile is around INR 8 LPA but within an year or two it quickly jumps to INR 13-15 LPA depending on the performance.

College Name: BIT MESRA

General Tips: Excellent communcation skill needed
Skills: Economics, Finance, Research
College Name: NA