Ratnakar Regional Head Interview Questions and Answers for Experienced

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - be yourself and interview was only on your skill set

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: Case study related to banking sector where the MBA skills need to be applied
Tips: Be to the point
No faf required
Use decent language
Dont be too loud
Say valid points only

Duration: 30 minutes

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: Direct the interview as per your desire in the first few minutes..make it a point to direct as per your stream..as the final profile offered to you would be based on this!
Tips: Be confident
Direct as per your preference to get the profile of your wish!
Show some concrete long term plans

Skills: Attitude, Communication, Finance, Behavioural Skills, Learning Ability, Commitment
College Name: SPM, PDPU

General Tips: Join HDFC BANK LTD only if you can work for 12 hrs a day because there will be no use after wards if you crib at the bank that there is no work life balance.
Advise to freshers there is no role in a private bank as such which is not a sales role. Every one has targets and should achieve productivity benchmarks
But the best point is that they pay very good.
Skills: Communication, Analytical Skills, Presentation Skills
Duration: 1-3 Months

Round: Test
Experience: Easy to clear; Each section had its own time limit.
Tips: No special Preparation Needed
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Questions: 100

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: 1. Axis Bank would like to minimize the losses incurred by transactions being declined. Suggest strategies and formulate it as an optimization Problem.

2. Suggest a situation where you have guided your team through a difficult situation.

3.Would you be okay with working in Mumbai?
Tips: Ans:
1. Main loss incurred is through ATM running out of cash.
Possible solutions are increasing refill frequency and increasing amount refilled. Multi-objective problem with objectives as reducing the cost incurred for refill and reducing the losses due to ATM running out of cash. Constraints being maximum refill amount and maximum refill frequency. Try to think of additional constraints which will be experienced real-time.

Skills: Optimisation, Analytical Skills
College Name: IIT Madras

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This round was primarily a personal round revolving around the CV. The question broadly covered the various things done at ISB and the extra-
curricular. A lot of expected question were there on the Strengths, weaknesses, successes, Stay at ISB, Comparison with Undergrad education at IIT-B.
The interviewer was insistent that I answer both but I answered the first part and said that there was nothing I could think of for the second part because I just could not relate to such a separation in personal and professional personalities. Of course the answer was detailed and elaborate and ultimately convincing.

The conversation was a very easy one. I think I was able to break ice very early in the discussion and was always conscious for the crispness of my answers. As a result we were able to have a long discussion about a lot of different issues during the 30 minute+ long discussion. I was also trying to build a coherent storyline throughout by citing examples and connecting back to things I had earlier said in the interview.
Tips: Be sure to have a consistent story for all of the above and make sure that you keep corroborating your claims and assertion from time to time. For every aspect I was asked to site an example.
Be very thorough with you CV. Elaborate every point of your CV and prepare answers to the standard expected questions. Make sure you have rehearsed them well enough.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I started by looking at the international retailer (Company) and its Indian partner? Why the venture, what strengths, type of contract, etc. it seems the company had efficient back end operation and the front end expertise was with the Indian partner. They would need 6 months to get out of contractual obligations. The operation is merely breaking even right now. I also looked at the competition and customers buckets and there was not enough information available on this.
After this initial analysis the case question was flipped to find out the drivers of setting up a retail store. Some of the drivers discussed were :
- Geography (decided by regulation, logistics, operations, etc)
- Store format (Departmental, Hypermart, location in city or outside city)
- Product Mix ( What would be item stocked)
- Partnerships (potential allies)
- Competition
- Target Customers (to decide Footfalls X Conversion Rate X Ticket Size)
The next part of the case was that where will I gather information about all these, customers, geographies, etc. I said there could be two ways of collecting information: Primary Research and Secondary Research. Primary we can collected from other stores, scanner data, Pilot study, survey, etc Secondary could be done through industry and analyst reports like Crisil, Datamonitor, ISI Emerging markets, These reports normally give detailed outlook about cities, types of formats, conversion rates, catchment area and other parameters. Given that we had just one monthinformation, Secondary research would be more appropriate.
Tips: Keep your cool

Skills: HR Skills, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

General Tips: It was quite crisp and to the point. Specifically related to my domain and thoroughly professional. One should be transparent and precise in thoughts and directions in order to build a career and the interviewer can easily figure out the same.
Skills: Communication, Body Language, Problem Solving, Leadership, Presentation Skills, Time Management, Decision Making Skills
Duration: 1-4 weeks

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: On the basis of banking experience

General Tips: Should prepare about the job card and give the best as much as u can and dont try to answer if u dont know also dont give wrong interpretations
Duration: 1-4 weeks