Ola Cabs Management Trainee Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be thorough with the company information and the recent amendments in any subject are given more importance

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be thorough with the company information and the recent amendments in any subject are given more importance

Round: Test
Experience: Aptitude Test on hackerearth platform. Simple CAT level questions with a few puzzles from geeksforgeeks puzzles section.

Round: Technical Interview
Tips: Try doing a course on probability & statistics before your job semester. If possible also do a course on econometric methods and some economics courses. Helps a lot in other interviews as well

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Tips: Go through How to Ace brainteaser,50 challenging problems, Day 1,geeksforgeeks . This will be common for all analytics companies.

Skills: Big Data Analytics, Probability And Statistics, Management Skills

Round: Test
Experience: Test was open to everyone regardless of CPI. Test was totally based on CAT format. A person preparing for CAT could easily score well. They selected 21 people out of around 800 who appeared for the test.
Tips: Everyone sitting for the placements prepare for Aptitude and LR+DI, but they ignore verbal part. That is the game changer.
Duration: 3 hours
Total Questions: 60

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: This round went for 35 min. It was a face to face interview. I was the third one and because of that I was asked rather simpler case study questions than those who went after me. For the second case study question I couldn't think of a third parameter and I took some time for thinking it. Ultimately my answer was different that one in the mind of the interviewer but he liked my answer.
At the end he asked me if I wanted to ask anything. That was the time when I struck a conversation with him. I asked about the future of Ola and when are they expecting to become profitable business. I think he was impressed by seeing the interest I was showing towards Ola.
Tips: 1. Always be confident about your answers and keep a gentle smile on your face.
2. You can take a time of 30-50 seconds before answering a question. That is totally ok.
3. It is Ok to be nervous. They try to get you in comfort zone.
4. If you are going on right track during a case they will help you in coming to an answer.
5. When they ask you if you have something to ask, use this opportunity very wisely. If you are able to strike a conversation, then that can even cover up your previously fucked up answers.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: 4 people were selected for this round and 2 of them were to be selected after this round. This round was on skype and went for some 50 min. Some answers were prepared and some answers were not. I was totally honest in giving all the answers. For almost every answer I gave some justification from my resume. I told him strictly that I don't know coding and I am not interested in that. Mine was the very last interview. During the last 10 min it was looking like it has become a conversation rather than an interview.
Tips: 1.During HR interviews they try to judge what kind of person you really are. So be 100% honest and DO NOT try to fake things or even exaggarate.
2. Try to justifify every answer through your resume.
3. HR questions are very limited, prepare for each one and try to formulate your experience in the form of short stories to make it more attractive.
4. Try to show HR that you are very excited to work at Ola but you also equally respect the companies where you did your internships.

Skills: Thought Process, Communication And Confidence
College Name: IIT Kanpur

General Tips: In resume: (tips)  For non-core, mention related POR’s.  If not sure about courses (related to the company’s profile) mention later towards the end of the resume.  Focus on quantifying your work. Display the work through numbers. Eg. 100% increase in the efficiency of the process due to my involvement.  Arrange the items either by dates or through importance.  It is preferred if peaks are mentioned at the top of the resume.  Check for formatting errors.  Restrict every item in the resume within 1 line. This is done to save space & add up more data.  Try not to exceed 1 page. In interview: *don’t display negativity: end in a positive tone (when asked about your weakness).
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: HR Interview
Tips: (Missed 1st round)  2nd round: A probability based puzzle was asked followed by other general questions. The candidate was given an opportunity to ask questions to the company. Suggestion- Ask them about their company or processes they carry out.  For some students there was a 3rd-round: The interviewer started off with HR questions. The candidate was asked to explain about the project & related questions were asked. A guesstimate was asked to make about the profits of an Ola cab driver. Manish specifically asked them about the verticals of profiles offered by the company when he was asked to ask them some questions.

College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Test
Experience: A selection test was used to screen the applicants initially, with MCQ questions, focusing on quant abilities, analytical ability. A testplatform ‘Cocubes’ is used by almost all companies to conduct the tests. I had good quant ability, which helped me ace the tests.
Duration: 60 minutes minutes

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: I did not attend a single GD. But Tanuj, my friend, had attended quite a few, and he can be approached for GD fundaes ;)

Round: HR Interview
Experience: There were two rounds of Interview.A total of 150 people wereselected for a first round of interview, out of which 40 students were shortlisted to form a ‘priority’ list. All 150 students were interviewed for asecond time; the students not in the priority list underwent a HR interview followed by a second main interview, while the candidates in the priority list were directly interviewed by the main panel. Only 6 candidates from the non-priority list made it to the final interview.Communication skills and puzzle solving ability were given importance in the interview. The shortlist was released late, and the coordinator in charge of handling Ola Cabs got busy with some other work, so when I went to Sabarmati hostel, I had to rush directly to the interview. Due to this, I could not maintain composure and performed poorly; I didn’t solve even one simple puzzle. But I explained my position to the interviewer, and the interviewer agreed to re-interview me; I performed well in the re-interview. The interview lasted for about an hour orso.The experience gained inspeaking to a lot of clients helped improve my communication skills, which wasvital in helping me get placed. My re-interview went really well; the guesstimate of the approximate expenditure incurred by Ola Cabs Ltd. was almost spot on, and this helped me in getting placed.
Tips: With regards to placement nervousness, NOT being nervous is a sign of overconfidence; everyone is nervous, but it'simportant to not be nervous beyond a limit.Building arapport with the interviewer was very important in getting placed early.Placement is a conversation and not a ‘ragging session’ for the interviewee toget tensed and nervous. In my interview with housing.com, I eventually ended up speaking to the interviewer in Hindi :) NEVER PUT FALSE DETAILS IN YOUR RESUME OR INTERVIEW. It is impossible to pull off a lie in an interview.

General Tips: Maintain a high CGPA. There were many companies for which he didn’t get shortlisted, only because of my CGPA. I performed well in tests, had good quant ability,good communication skills, the other points in my resume, such as hisinternship performance was very good, and I had good PoRs. Everything in my resume was good except CGPA. Even if I had performed exceptionally well in thetests, and if the company decides to shortlist based on test performance and CGPA, I wouldn’t have got shortlisted, the sole culprit being his low CGPA. Maintaining a CGPA about 8 is critical to getting shortlisted for interviews. That doesn’t mean that peoplewith low CGPA won’t get placed; But for that to happen, a lot of otherfactors, such as good communication skills, quant ability, performance intests, puzzle solving ability etc are needed to overcome the minus points dueto low CGPA.Certifications like NCFM help for finance; having such a certification made no difference to Ola CabsLtd.’s selection procedure. I didn’t have any of these certifications.
Skill Tips: I started off very late,hence couldn’t do any online courses. But itwould be difficult, if not impossible, to learn vast subjects like coding oranalytics during the 7th/9thsemester, as the pressure of placement preparation, academics, tests etc would be too much to bear. Don’tuse final year to start learning coding/analytics.With regards to placement preparation, be open to many choices, as it will be difficult if one fixates on a particular type of job. There were some friends of mine who applied only for one type of jobs, e.g. analytics. If one does that,there is a good chance that one might cup in the interview, and thus end upwithout a job. Also, one can never be sure if they would like a certain type ofprofile; it might look interesting at first, but might become boring sometimein the future. So one must be open to all options.Istarted preparing for placements 2 monthsbefore placements i.e. during late September.With regards to whether starting early helps, it depends on other factors; there are people who prepare for just 15 days and thulp placements, while there are others who prepare for months but end up with not-so-exciting offers.
Skills: Communication Skills, Puzzle Solving Ability
College Name: IIT MADRAS