Swan Group Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: I was fulfilling their criteria of 60% through out the academics.

Round: Test
Experience: Aptitude was easy. It contained basics of Quants & Logic . Verbal or English part was bit difficult and length. There was a sectional time and sectional cut off.

Round: Interview
Experience: There was only one interview. Both Technical and HR questions were asked in the same interview. Prepare puzzles from the book Puzzles to puzzle you by Shakuntala Devi. This book helped me a lot. Technical questions were very basic but nearly from every subject.

General Tips: BE CONFIDENT. Speak Confident in Interview even if you are not good with ur english.
Skills: English language, Communication Skills, Reasoning Abilities
College Name: Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College Aurangabad

Round: Test
Experience: Very basic(class 7 level) english, quant and DI from CAT preparation will do. I was asked to estimate the number of newspapers I would buy if I am a supplier for the campus. Then slightly complicated the problem four or five times.
Tips: Try to answer as many questions as possible--the test is the one major criterion for selection.
Total Questions: 65

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: One-on-one interview.Basic guess estimation and details about your projects. Try to show you have some knowledge in mathematics.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: HR interview--A panel of 4 or 5 people(who have taken the individual interviews in round I).
Tips: Be confident and try not to tell something which you can’t defend.

General Tips: As is the case for most companies, CAT preparation will definitely help. I don’t think much focus was was given on the essay but the other sections of the test are really important.
Skill Tips: A decent CGPA(mine was exactly 8) will help. HR interview--A panel of 4 or 5 people(who have taken the individual interviews in round I). Should be able to speak about your own projects and internships.
College Name: IIT KHARAGPUR

Round: Interview
Experience: The round was of 1 hour

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: 10 people per group

General Tips: This company, as I understand, is looking for future managers. No technical preparation is required as didn’t ask a single question related to academics. You just need to convince them that you are ready to do whatever they want you to do in the company be it coding or data entry and depending on your luck and soft skills you will get through.
Skill Tips: Cut off is 8.
College Name: IIT KHARAGPUR

Round: Test
Experience: CAT type questions on maths and English. Speed matters. Preparation for CAT helps, I did not sit for CAT but I went through is DI material before the test to increase my speed. Questions in general are easy. Conduct yourself professionally. Deloitte decides to allot you a profile depending on your score in this test most probably. So make sure you do well in this test. I think the highest scoring candidates are shortlisted for the S&O profile, though I am not sure about it.
Tips: If you are up for a career in management consulting and can't possibly be shortlisted by Mckinsey or BCG, this is your golden opportunity. You have to do well in the test for it. Deloitte is one of the best places in the world for management consulting after MBB firms and I believe some people might have gotten selected for this profile just because they did well in this test (by fair or unfair means!!)

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: You are given a case. Your group of 10 has to find a solution for a client. The process lasts for about 30 minutes. The key is staying calm and composed and not disputing and challenging others violently! At the end you are supposed to give a presentation on the problem and it solution, 5 minutes for each member.
Tips: Speak less rather than speaking trash. Introduce yourself first when asked to give your part of the presentation and behave professionally, they check more on your professional behavior than the effectiveness of your solution. 50 % of the students passing this round generally make it to the offer. Hence this is the most important round. If you have done very well in this round you will probably do well in the PI.

Round: Behavorial Interview
Experience: Behavioral questions base on your resume.
I had networked a bit with my interviewer before the interview because both of us were waiting to enter the interview room and it felt awkward not talking to him. I think that might have helped.

Dont go for a technology profile hoping you will get to enter the management consulting space some day. Technology consulting is a good career choice only if you are passionate about it, or else it is a disaster, since the only exit route is an MBA application.
Dont go without reading about the company, it was a big source of worry for me
Tips: Answer the questions diplomatically. Appearing confident helps. I kept a smiling face no matter how tensed I was, that might help.
Know all the points in your resume and prepare to answer all behavioral questions you can possibly think of.
Have some questions to ask at the end of the interview.

General Tips: Its good if you have some extra academic involvement to have some discussion points during your PI. Or when you are asked about an achievement you are very proud of.
Skill Tips: I felt the company loves to hire calm and professional people who can articulate themselves properly. And do well in the written test if you want a profile of your choice.
Deloitte is probably the only company to be able to compete with the likes of Mckinsey in management consulting and IBM in technology, at the same time. No doubt, it is a great brand name to work with. It is highly rated in both the fields.
Strategy and Operations is a very good career if you are looking for management consulting, they have a program to train and sponsor you for the best B-Schools in the world.
The technology profiles are good if you are passionate about technology and its integration.
So be careful about your choices.
College Name: IIT Kharagpur

Round: Test
Experience: My first Interview was for the post of Network Engineer in HCL Technologies held in April 21, 2009. In the morning in that day at 9.00 AM I am with dressed up with formal dress code, black shoes and a tie. I waited there for around 2 hours for the company officials to come. They came at around 11 AM. Then they started giving information about HCL Infosystems through a powerpoint presentation and what all procedure they are going to follow in their recruitment process.
The recruitment process consisted of two sections:
1. Aptitude Test
2. Personal Interview.
The Aptitude test consisted of 30 questions in Quantitative Aptitude and 30 questions in Non Verbal Reasoning and the time allotted to complete the test is 60 minutes. The questions were quite tough and challenging. It was evident that the HR were expecting more talents for their company. I could answer about 40 questions and there were no negative marks so I answered all the questions. I was quite confident that the cutoff would be less that 40. We waited for the results of Aptitude Test. The result came around 2.30 PM. About 45 candidates were selected for the personal interview and I am glad that I am one of them. From the results we could guess that the cutoff was 35. The Personal Interview was at 2 PM after lunch. At 2 PM we waited there for Personal interviewer. Four different panels were there for conducting the interview. My turn came at evening 5 PM.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: HR: Are you Anbarasan?
Me: Yes Sir.
HR: Take your seat.
Me: Thank You Sir.
HR: Introduce Yourself Anbarasan.
Me: (I gave a brief Introduction about myself)
HR: What is your father?
me: He is a Civil Engineer Sir.
HR: Why didnt you join civil branch in engineering
me: I am more interested in Computers than civil Sir.
HR: What is your mother?
me: She is a housewife Sir.
HR: What is your career Objective!
me: My career objective is to work in a challenging environment where I could
constantly upgrade my knowledge thereby contributing for the organisation where 
I work and my professional growth as well. And my life ambition is to become a 
reputed Ethical Hacker.
HR: Good. Who is your role model?
me: Bill Gates Sir. Because he is the best programmer in the world. I like his thoughts more than his programming. He became the best businessman in the world because of his great thinking. He is a really innovative and inspiring personnel.
(Then He asked questions from all topics in Networking . As I am good in Networking I could answer his questions. I could see that he is satisfied with my answers.)
HR: How did you learn Ethical Hacking?
me: I learned through lectures of Ankit Fadia Sir. But still I need to learn more in Ethical Hacking.
HR: Will you join HCL if you were placed anywhere?
me: Sure Sir. When it is HCL, I wont hesitate sir.
HR: Your Personal Interview session ends here. You can leave and wait for the results
me: Thank you, Sir. 
That interview session took 30 minutes to complete. And the result came at 6.30 PM. Out of 45 students, 30 got placed. I was also got selected in the interview. Almost all of friends got selected. I was glad that I got the Network Engineer Job. That was the most happiest moment I ever had.

College Name: NA

Round: Test
Experience: This was a simpler round, concentrating on basic questions like-
1. Deleting last 'n' nodes of a linked list
2. Check out the given tree is a BST or not.
3. If an array a[i] is a then a[i+1] would be either a+1, a-1 or a so in this array how do you search an element
4. write a ship quality code
Total Questions: Online

Round: Test
Experience: The questions were of this type-


1. Given a tree and all the leaf nodes form a double linked list ( complete tree is given ). How do you find the height of the tree?
2. an array of negative and positive numbers are given. find all contiguous subsets whose sum is equal to zero.

Round: Test
Experience: The difficulty level went up, with questions like-


1. Find Longest Increasing sequence subject to some constraints.
2. An array is given of size n and the elements are in the range 1 to n. Some elements are missing and some are repeated. Find the missing elements and find frequency of all the repeated elements.
3. Three arrays A, B, C. find subset a in A, b in B, c in C such that a + b + c = 0

Round: Test
Experience: Really tough test, with questions like-


1. A tree is given, make a linked list of leaves.
2. for amazon online store what data-structure is used. That is hierarchical structure
3. Asked about make file. How do you club into a single object file.

General Tips: Before making the shortlist, you'll have to sit for an Online written test. The test consists of two parts.
One part will concentrate on aptitude and output of C programs.
1. aptitude, 2. C aptitude, 3. Operating Systems and Time complexities etc.,
Second part will be coding Questions
1. One Question on Trees - definitely
2. One more simple questions on string manipulation
Skills: Algorithms, Puzzles, Data Structures
College Name: IIT ROORKEE

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: 1) BBG shipping has experience of turning around two companies and is one of the largest companies in this segement



2) City shipping is largest private company into ship repair and ship breaking but not in similar segment.



3) Sonyo shipping is one of the oldest shipping company and has various businesses related this. It is looking forward to expand in china and India and looking forward to expand and acquire some ship breaking company to create a low cost base.



Bids are:



BBG: 100% of debt for seven years 9% interest pa



City: 90% of debt for seven years 10% interest pa



Sonyo: 85% of debt for five years 13% interest pa



As a manager you have to take decision. Your senior has called up to look for bid of City and this will help to build relationship with city. The bank already has relationship with BBG. What will you recommend?

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I can’t say I was 100% right in all my answers but I tried to simplify every answer. I knew my CV very well and was able to anticipate questions like why less marks.

General Tips: Through knowledge of sectors and other fin subjects. Was confident as I had prepared well for the interview. In GD one has to contribute 2-3 good points that was sufficient. There were people who remained silent but contributed even 1 good point were selected for interview atleast. In interview they gauge your fitment wrt role and their core values.
Skills: Economics, Finance
College Name: NA