Sears Holdings Data Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Resume shortlist was CPI cutoff based mostly.
Tips: Highlight all your strong points in the resume and don't forget to make different resumes for different profiles you are targeting. Other than that, your resume is what you make of it in your 4 or 5 years of your stay here!

Round: Test
Experience: The test was common for software analyst as well as business analyst profile. So that was sort of a drawback for the people targeting business analyst profile. But most of the coding questions were easily solvable and required little knowledge of coding.
Tips: Just try to improve your aptitude skills and freshen up some basic C++ concepts - very basic ones. You'll do great!

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: Though I am not able to recall the puzzles asked, but they were moderate in difficulty level, plus the interviewers were helping a lot and were very friendly
Tips: Practice some basic puzzles, mostly the ones asked for coding interviews (you can search them online). Keep your calm and think thoroughly. Also, don't hesitate to ask for help whenever required. They would love to offer help more than you would like to get!

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Since my background in coding was not that great, and I had already told them so, thus they mostly asked me strategic questions like the ones mentioned above.
Tips: Think logically and just spit out whatever comes to your mind would be the best option/strategy. They are looking for innovative answers and also a wide variety of alternatives, and then choose the best ones. Again, they will help you in case of any confusion or in case you need some example strategies.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This round initially focused primarily on my internships. The interviewer seemed interested to know about the work done in internships, the accomplishments, the moments worth remembering from the foreign internships. Later she moved on to the hobbies, strengths, weaknesses and was quite involved with my life stories! She had a pad to note down my answers and judge abilities like communication skills, fluency, confidence in answers etc. At the end, I got the remark "This was by far the best interview I conducted" (and I was the last candidate to get interviewed!)
Tips: Answer the questions with total honesty and keep them involved with intriguing stories that depict your strengths or weaknesses. Interest them with your hobbies and be ready to answer questions on any hobby! Keep your stories prepared for the happiest moment, failures, things you would change in life etc. Read the book "64 HR interviews" and prepare answers for most of them. This round is mainly to see your confidence, your passion, your liveliness and your enthusiasm for the position.

General Tips: Most of the tips were discussed in respective questions. In general, I would like to say that never lose hope no matter how hard you struggle through the first few days. The moment you lose hope, things start going the wrong way. Also, give the interviews with relaxed and calm mind, after proper sleep. Take the interviews to the direction you want them to go - it can be easily done and I can tell you that from my own experiences. Be honest, otherwise you will take the interview to the direction you don't want it to go!
Skills: Confidence, Communication skills, Logical thinking , Problem solving, Brainstorming skills, Rational thinking
College Name: IIT BOMBAY
Motivation: It is a well reputed firm, a Fortune 50 company and the experience would be a good launchpad for ahead. I wanted a work-life balance slightly tilted towards "life" and Target is the company to go for that (which I came to know from my seniors, glassdoor.com etc.)
Funny Moments: There were no specific funny moments as such but overall, the interviews were relaxed and the interviewers were very friendly and cheerful. So I had some great moments while sharing my hobbies (eg. I told them I like to read poems so they asked me to recite one!) etc.