Parthenon - EY Consultant Interview Questions and Answers for Freshers

Round: HR Interview
Experience: this round was a mix of PI questions as well as one Guesstimate. The interviewer was trying to gauge my motivation of applying to Parthenon and the reason of switching from a core finance profile to consulting role. There were a few counter questions to whatever I had to say about my motivation, essentially to determine whether or not they should be spending their time interviewing me.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: As we know, there is no right or wrong approach or answer such questions. I started by breaking down the problem on the basis of use of the product. I divided the printers into corporate uses, residential uses and other uses.
As for corporate uses, I further divided it into Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities. For each of the cities, I used the following approach:

India’s total population >> Population in Tier I / II / III cities / >> Division of population into age brackets >> Estimation of working population basis the age classification >> Estimate number of working people per printer Summing up the 3 city types, this would give total printers for corporate use.
For residential uses, I used the income approach for households and used the number of households in India as the starting point. Number of households >> Classification on the basis of Rural and Urban households >> Classification on the basis of income of each household >> Assumed a hit % for households only above a certain income level in Urban cities
For other uses, I primarily had Schools and Colleges in mind and went about estimating this using the population as the starting point.
India’s total population >> Population in Rural and urban >> Division of population into age brackets >> Estimate school and college going population >> Estimate average number of students per School / College >> Estimate number of printers per School / College Add everything up. Ask yourself whether the number looks realistic – Give your opinion whether it’s a conservative estimate or an optimistic estimate. Summarize the case.
Tips: Be very confident during PI. That is one thing which is completely in your control. The more you think about it and practice, the better you will get at it. PI is the only way for the recruiter to know you as a person, the rationale about your choices in life and whether you can stand your ground when pushed a bit. A good PI is more than half the job done (for that round).

The case was not a very tough one and since we had already spent considerable time on PI, the interviewer told me to go real quick about the case. There is no right or wrong answer to guesstimates, but there are certain things that you must follow in order to seem structured. A few do’s for guesstimates:
1. Narrow down meaning of the “product” ask clarifying questions
2. Think of various uses of the product and break the problem down.
3. Walk the interviewer through at each step – He wants to know how you are approaching the problem!
4. Give your prima facie opinion whether the answer looks reasonable – it is absolutely ok to arrive at an answer which is way off its mark
5. If possible, tell the interviewer the single most assumption you made in your approach To sum up it, guesstimates are not as arbitrary as they might look. There is a method to the madness

Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)