Rakuten Researcher Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Test
Experience: 10 candidates shortlisted through aptitude test (50 ques in 12 min, cut off was 50).
Duration: 12 minutes minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: 1st interview was technical with some general HR questions. I related the work done in internships to the work being done in the snapdeal company. I was asked if I had any other interview to which I replied flipkart. He then asked me why snapdeal and not flipkart. I had studied everything about the 2 companies and was thus able to defend my choice. Next he gave me some puzzles, I did all with little inputs from him. I was asked to wait for 2nd interview and not go to Flipkart GD but I went anyway.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: This interview round was again technical. This time there were 2 panellists and they again gave me 4-5 puzzles, which I did successfully. I was asked to wait for a HR interview.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The HR interview was just a formality, he explained me my responsibilities in the organization and made me a spot offer.

General Tips: 1. Pre placement preparation is very important. Begin early and try to distribute time to all the areas especially your shortcomings.
2. Try to remain calm and confident in the interview.
3. Do not cram up the answers to hr questions or puzzles.
4. There are plenty of companies with handsome compensation. Just give your best in preparations and interviews.

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: It was a bit disappointing to not get shortlisted in a couple of companies I was looking forward to, but I really didn't expect much with my CPI (6 pointer during placements). But my internship helped me loads and gave my resume one 'spike' which became crucial.
Tips: Maintain a good CPI, as you've heard from every senior, but is necessary. Also keep a couple of profiles in your mind, which you want to work in, and then create a resume as such, and take up internships and POR's, all good spikes for which a recruiter, mostly including an IIT alumnus look for.

Round: Test
Experience: A make or break situation for me due to my poor CPI. Fortunately I got shortlisted in almost all companies for which I gave the test, for GD and so on, so it's a very very crucial part of the placement process.
Tips: Be smart during giving your tests. The recruiter judges your decision making skills and speed skills through this. Specially with students with an average CPI, this is the most important step as companies that come for mass recruitment make their decision on this basis.
Duration: 12 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: For SnapDeal, they had what they called a Group Activity but it was per se a GD. They gave us a problem, a general aptitude question and they gave us hints in order to solve it. I tried to take charge and maintain decorum among 20 people there and it helped.
I was way more silent during my GD for Flipkart and that is the worst thing I could have done.
Tips: Always speak up. Content matters less, being smart and practical matters more. You can twist the points of another person, but keep your stand, whatever side you take. Just keep calm and speak your heart out. Also, give everyone a chance. If someone in the room hasn't spoken a word for some while, take the initiative to stop the discussion then and there and ask that person his/her views. A moderator is not always looking at a person who starts or ends well, he might be looking for a person who is a team player.
Duration: 20 minutes

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Unfortunately never had the chance to tackle this part of the process.
Tips: Do what you feel is right, even if it's going wrong. An attempt matters, don't leave the space blank.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There were different approaches to tackle this problem, and I mostly took the most complicated and inaccurate one. But I was confident in what I was doing. I estimated the amount of pizzas delivered and purchased on the spot, estimated the number of people served by the outlet area-wise, where I could have used an age distribution method. I guesstimated the cost of one pizza, also dividing into sizes and also included other side orders. The interviewer was happy and got selected in to the next round. This is for a company by Indus Insights, a consulting firm.
Tips: Practice makes perfect. Cover all case interviews and practice hard, specially for a consulting firm obviously. Be confident with the method you use, and constantly interact with the interviewer. Do not underestimate the importance of keeping the interviewer in the loop. Tell him/her what you are thinking, even though it's rubbish, and ask them for clarifications wherever you're stuck. It's not just your problem solving skills, it's a test to how you present the solution to a potential client.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I started off with my basic introduction i.e. Name, Branch, hometown etc. Then I shifted to my intern as it had been the most recent activity I had done. So on, I continued covering all my internships and POR and then told some of my hobbies. Regarding the why e-commerce question, I mentioned the fact that it's the fastest growing market in the world, and the company is among the top firms in this market.
Tips: Its important to prepare these questions before hand. These are make or break questions as these relate to whether you'll fit the dynamics of the firm. Its important to be energetic and lively. What you show in the interview is exactly what they perceive to be your general status and personality. Always saw the firm excites you and you should be aware of the functioning of the market and the firm. Studying up earlier is a must, regarding recent developments in general as well.
Don't be afraid to cross question regarding the company and other affairs related to the company.
I wasn't asked a behavioural question as such, but try not to get cocky. Keep it simple, and don't get frustrated.

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: I started off by asking the time frame. Nothing was cleared by the interviewer so I started asking the basic questions, regarding city, etc. I broke down the costs i.e. Personal and related to maintenance. Asked a ton of questions in order to keep the interviewer involved.
Tips: A guesstimate is quite similar to a case interview, but this tests more general knowledge wherein a case questions your intellect on the case itself. Similar tips as to tackling a case, but you make loads of assumptions yourself. Read some population and area data of major Indian cities before hand, and keep asking whether the assumptions you're making sound reasonable or not. Don't worry if the answer is too random, it's more about the process rather than the figure.
Also, if you have read up before on how to solve guesstimates, you'll face something called as Sanity check. In the interview, you aren't asked to do one, try and avoid unless you are really confident.

General Tips: Don't lose hope. Placements are a tiring process. People with brilliant resumes don't get placed and haven't gotten placed yet. So keep on fighting, you will get placed in a good company with a good package soon. Also don't reject a company if the package is okay, it's your first job. You are being awarded money based on one interview, they don't know your work yet. So choose a job where you like the profile instead of the money.
Skill Tips: Speed is crucial in the tests. Half of the people usually complain on missing out on questions.
Skills: Speed, Aptitude
College Name: IIT BOMBAY
Motivation: It is a fast growing company in the fastest growing market. A company where growth is fast and leaning experience is endless. They have also taken up social projects towards which I have some inclinations so that helped.
Funny Moments: One of my friend got placed a day before me in Olacabs, and had a higher CPI than me. The day I got placed he was with me, and I could not help laughing the fact that I had a higher package.

Round: Test
Experience: It was a speed Test. Question including all the aptitude areas English, Calculations, Mental Ability etc.
Tips: Be a human calculator, you shouldn't do calculations manually. Everything should be done in your mind.
Duration: 20 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: It was GD of 20 students at a time so you can guess there was no time for everybody to speak their mind. But still in the end everyone was a given chance so that they can speak. I was given the chance to speak in the end and I utilized every bit of it. I used snapdeal (the company in which I was appearing) in the illustrations and some good management keywords which make my impression very good in-front of the Invigilator.
Tips: You don't need to be mind blowing in English, all you need is the content. Don't speak in layman language, try you use some big words and always say all the good things for that company in illustrations. Try to avoid using competitor of the company.
Duration: 10min. minutes

General Tips: 1. Dont take written test lightly. Prepare as much as you can.
2. Join any CAT preparation websites or coaching.
3. Prepare for GDs with groups other than yours regularly.
Skills: Aptitude, Puzzle solving, SQL, R language
College Name: Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Motivation: Big Package
Good profile, the one I was looking to enter into.
Had a great internship their, so kind of PPO
Funny Moments: How I was almost out of the process??  First they announced a cut off 41 out of 50 in their written test. About 259 students were shortlisted. Just before the GDs were to be held in the evening of Day 2, a notice appears that cut off has been revised and new cut off is 47. Only 58 students were there in the new shortlist. Imagine other 200 students, all suited with preparations done, were asked to leave the scene !! I was very serious about working in an e-commerce company. Guess what, I had 42 marks in the test.We were walking back to the hostel, clicked some pics thinking at-least wore the suit for first time and abusing the company blah blah blah.But then came the news just half an hour after that and Luckily some guys convinced the Snapdeal's Placement coordinator and yes we were back in the race, actually won the race :D

Round: Test
Experience: There was a multiple choice test with 11 questions based on quantitative and analytical ability. Attempt all the questions as the cutoff was as high as 9 out of 11.
Tips: You should have a good command over +2 mathematics and logical and analytical problems. You should have an explanation of whatever is present in your resume with documents to back it up.
Total Questions: 11

Round: Interview
Experience: It was completely a profile based interview and questions were asked directly from the resume.
Tips: Don’t write false information in your resume as it is scanned thoroughly.

Round: Interview
Tips: Good puzzle solving skills and presence of mind are required.

Skill Tips: 1) CGPA doesn’t matter
2) Good analytical skills and logical reasoning are all they look for (qualifying competitive exams like NTSE gives you an edge) 
3) Internships play a vital role 
4) Knowledge of Business Process Improvement methods is an add-on but not a necessity. 
They don’t exactly look for any extra academic involvement but if a person has done some work it will be beneficial to show managerial skills. They tested quantitative ability in written test . In the interview for the profile of Product Analyst all they looked for was your logical reasoning ability and presence of mind. Internships are crucial and your HR interview revolves a lot around them. If you like to solve puzzles, the interview will be a piece of cake. If you are not in habit of solving puzzles, do read books like “Heard on Wall Street” and solve problems on websites like www.techinterview.org. These will not only help you in this interview but will be very useful in all the puzzles you face in such interviews.
College Name: IIT KHARAGPUR

Round: Test
Experience: Aptitude Test - 50 simple questions - 12 minutes.
Tips: Shortlisted candidates were given coding questions (C/C++/Java) - few MCQ's and 3 coding questions.
Duration: 12 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Two interviews -Technical and HR.

Technical interview had basic questions about Algos and their implementation as well as a few puzzles thrown in here and there.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: In the HR interview, they scrutinized the resume thoroughly.
Tips: Preparation : Read about a lot of Startups. Learn about the company and business mode. Expected to have a good understanding of the components of Analytics-quant and data interpretation. Coursera courses about Analytics are useful

College Name: IIT MADRAS
Motivation: Snapdeal is an online marketplace, New Delhi, India. The company was started by Kunal
Bahl, a Wharton graduate and Rohit Bansal, an alumnus of IIT Delhi in February 2010 , as
part of the dual degree M&T Engineering and Business program at Penn.

Round: Test
Experience: The test is easy one.
Tips: Speed is what matters.
Duration: 12 minutes
Total Questions: 50

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: The topics are pretty relevant to the e-commerce fields.
Tips: Stick to general Group Discussion fundamentals.
Duration: 8 minutes

Round: Interview
Experience: Easy peasy.
Tips: Normal guesstimates practice should be sufficient.

General Tips: Be confident about what you are writing in the CV and you must be able to defend each points in the CV.A startup might help you.
Skill Tips: ""
Skills: Analysis, SAS
College Name: IIT Kharagpur

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Really good company and can enjoy myntra benefits a lot .

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Interview is so simple. Don't hesitate if someone looking for going to Paytm. They can free you in half n hour. All the documentation they can do on same day. Kindly get your marksheet and graduation degree certificate while you go for interview.