ZS Business Operations Associate Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: CGPA cutoff was > 7.5
Tips: Try to maintain a decent cgpa.

College Name: NIT Durgapur

Round: Test
Experience: Normal aptitude questions of varying difficulty. Not adaptive.
Tips: Accuracy matters but so does speed. General trend says people who answered at least 85-90% of the questions received a call.
Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: You will be provided a written case study with all the details pertaining to the format and galf an hour to solve it.It will be followed by a case interview regarding the case study. Basic quants would suffice but common sense is vital to succeed.
Tips: Do not cram on case study resources before your interview.
Focus on your interviewing skills.
Focus on the approach not the answer.
Be precise and donot make calculation mistakes.
Remember:The interviewer is here to help you. Understand his mindset. If he believes you are a worthy candidate he will give you ample opportunities.
P.S.: Interviewer might twist the case study a bit to understand your thought process. Also be ready for puzzles and questions related to your resume.

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: Interview with an Associate consultant. Guesstimates based on anything the interviewer finds interesting from your resume. Puzzles and Resume based questions.
Tips: Guesstimates are not as difficult as they seem. It can be based on your hometown or hobby etc. Get to know small details like approx. population and area of your hometown etc..
Associate the variable in your guesstimate to some variable that behaves the same way.
Egs. No. of vehicle is a function of the population and etc.
Please think before you speak and donot blurt out anything that comes to your mind. The interviewer will give you time if you ask him for it.
Be thorough with your resume and do not make any sort of mistake in it. They will find out if you are lying.
Be prepared with the Motivation, Experience and Learning of every aspect within your resume.
Remember: Do not bullshit.

Round: Fit interview
Experience: Best time to get all your doubts about the company and job profile cleared as the person interviewing you would be a senior stakeholder at ZS.
Tips: While trend dictates Reaching this round indicates selection. But i have seen otherwise as well. Donot take the round lightly as the person interviewing would be your future boss's boss's boss's boss's boss.
There is no specific guidelines for the interview but be yourself, accept your mistakes and stick to whatever you say if you are right. Donot accept this round to be predictable,anything can happen.

Skills: Reasoning Power And Aptitude, Logical And Structured Thinking, Problem Solving Abilties

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Based on CGPA

Round: Test
Experience: Basic Aptitude test, CAT exam practice enough to clear it
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 60

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Questions based on the case study questions given to us to solve

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: General questions, Internships, Projects to check who well u fit in company culture

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Final round with top management personnel again hr interview with basic info about you

General Tips: Be cool confident and think logically
Skills: Attention to detail, Data Analysis, Intelligence
College Name: NIT Surathkal
Motivation: Great culture and great growth for a fresher, good perks and compensation
Funny Moments: Interviewer asking whether the things on my CV are real or fake

Round: Test
Experience: The online written test was conducted by Aspiring Minds (AMCAT), contained 4 sections.
1) Apptitude
2) Reasoning
3) Verbal
4) Attention to Details

Round: case study
Experience: They gave us a case study to solve with in 25 minutes and after that every candidate had to discuss the case study one-on-one with interviewer.
The interview regarding case study lasted for 1 hour.
In the case study we had three sections
a) Data Interpretation problems
b) Some tables were there which we had to solve using SQL.(Hint: use left join, right join etc)
c) Some theoritical problems situations based.
The case study could be anything from a Credit card company running into losses, calculating Incentive Compensation for Sales representatives etc.
Tips: Do not indulge into CALCULATIONS. Just work on APPROACH.

Round: Behavioral Round
Experience: In this round manager asked some puzzles and gave some mathematical problems to analyse and told me find the final results.Some behavioural questions were also given in which a situation was given and your response was judged.
e.g Defective Coin problems, number of traffic lights in your city, Finding maximum of array without sorting etc.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This round was with Principal(Kind of Senior most Manager) of the company. This round was quite similar to HR type interview.
e.g One good reason why ZS should not hire you.
And finally i got placed in ZS Associates as a Business Operations Associates(BOA).

College Name: NIT BHOPAL

Round: Test
Experience: *As in 2010, but probably the process has changed now. Get in touch with your immediate seniors

Skills: English, logical reasoning, math
College Name: na

Round: Test
Experience: Around 110 students were shortlisted for the online test (CGPA>=7) from all branches of B.Tech. Online test had 4 sections namely Simple Quantitative, Logical Reasoning, Verbal and attention to detail. 30 students were shortlisted for interviews based on the online test and interviews were taken according to the profile opted.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In case interview, a case study would be given and one is supposed to analyze it within the time limit.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Technical interview varies for each profile, for BOA and BAA it would be mostly puzzles, case analysis and a brief on one's projects and internships.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: HR would be a bit tough, try to be confident. 11 students were offered placement. The whole interview process goes for a day long.

General Tips: It's challenging to crack the tests, interviews and get placed but at the same time don't get exhausted or dejected ever. From all that we have experienced, patience and wait always rewards you. Don't just sit for a company unless you the profile suits you. Once you are placed in a dream company you cannot sit for others. So choose wisely before you act.
Skill Tips: Use your summer effectively, though you are busy with internships and projects, a little beforehand preparation for placements would be really helpful. Do know about the company and job profile before going to an interview and pay attention to the company pre-placement talk. Knowing about the placement process helps too. If, you are applying for a core company, know your basic concepts thoroughly, be clear about your academic projects and internships.
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL

Round: Test
Experience: There is a written test for everyone above CGPA 7.This test includes general aptitude questions. There were in total of 30 students who were selected for the Interview Rounds.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There was a case study round in which everyone was given a case study told to read it for 30 mins.Then questions were asked based on that case study.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Next was a Technical Round which was kind of a test, of your management and analytic skills.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Last round was the HR interview.

General Tips: Placement season is just another race for all the students where everyone is trying their best to be the best.I t was quite exhausting as a lot of things needed to be managed like classes, assignments, interviews and tests.
Skill Tips: Books never helped.Internet did.Search for case studies and estimations.There is a lot of material on the web. Put more focus on the needs of the company and prepare accordingly for it.
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL

Round: Test
Experience: Online Aptitude test-AMCAT (verbal, quantitative, qualitative, logical) -Time is a crucial factor here than difficulty, the test is quite average.

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Day-2- Case study of Real life problem statement.(Math Skills & ideas needed to qualify here)Most important Round according to me. Majority was eliminated here. Those remaining usually make it through final interview. First a Case study is given to solve in around 30-35 mins.(4 questions with subparts also). Next, a "Case study discussion" takes place,1 to 1 discussion where you have to explain your approach/ideas/answers. This round takes up 40-50 mins at least.

Round: Guesstimate Interview
Experience: Tech./Guesstimation Round- Internships/Projects (asked to explain the project and what your role was in it). Guesstimation questions are always asked here and are quite important to the process. Practice a few questions online beforehand to get a grasp of it. Approach here is more imp than the actual answer.(Elimination round)

Round: HR Interview
Experience: HR interview/Behavioral interview- Casual round of HR questions( Hobbies, interests etc are discussed). Qualities are asked to justify with real life examples. A quant questions (average difficulty) were also asked to solve.Almost everyone made through this round.(Final round)

General Tips: Stay CALM and confident. Keep the basics right and be very sure with the companies you want to sit for. Dress smartly and always answer to the point. If confident about yourself, can skip companies for your dream offer.
Skill Tips: Online materials are enough. Practice Apti. questions in summer for at least a week to build up the speed. Materials from seniors also helped. Trick questions/Puzzles are integral part for some companies, so knowing it beforehand helps. Almost all puzzles are available online.(just Google INTERVIEW puzzles). Andtry and read about the company you are planning to apply for, might come handy in HR rounds.
Skills: Puzzles, Trick Questions, Apti
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL

Round: Test
Experience: Aptitude test - You have to select the track you want to apply for.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: For Interview rounds - 30 people were selected.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Eliminations in each round. Though 17 out of 30 selected for interviews had applied for BAA and two were finally selected, and in total 11 were recruited from the college.

General Tips: Just be confident and justification for your answers is important. They look for your thought process so be clear with your answers and try to convert your reasons supporting them.
Skill Tips: Search for a few general HR and behavioral questions for interviews, which you have to do for.
Skills: Guesstimation cases., Some other case studies.
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL
Funny Moments: It was fun actually.. We all were fed cheese bursts from domino's.(everyone selected for the interviews)