Interview Experiences
SP Jain conducts group interviews in the second stage of their selection process. The process comprises WAT, Psychometric test (Not there in 2020-21), Group Interview – 1 (Elimination Round), and Group Interview – 2 (Only for selected candidates). The process is as discussed below in the video.
Fresher, Finance
G1: There were three-panel members. One was an alumnus and the other two were professors who were middle-aged.
G2: It was more of a general discussion on matters like current accounts and spirituality.
SP Jian Interview, Mumbai (15th Jan)
1st round: 4 of us, and a panel of 3 ( one from Finance)
(I particularly remember the questions asked to me or all of us)
2nd round: 5 of us and a panel of 2.
“R1” — 3 interviewers 1 IM and 2 marketing faculties including the dean.
5 candidates – 3 finance 2 marketing
Lots of grilling done.
Sell me this biscuit, why marketing how will you market ola or oyo to start earning profits now.
Asked the following questions
All marketing rejected 2 finance accepted out of total 5.
“R2” — the first question “Convince me not to have this R2 interview”.
The faculty had to intervene discussion became a mad mess asked girls not to be desperate.
Other questions asked
What change do you suggest in the SPJIMR selection process?
**All were handed 16-32 GB wearable pen drives in the end*
Marketing – Fresher – B.Tech
I had my SP Jain interview today…
GI 1: 2 panelists: both male, one from finance (20 years of experience in RBI) the other was from quants department (don’t remember the exact name)
Panel details: I was from marketing, 2 finance, 2 IM
After this, we waited for round-2. Our panel was the first panel of the day where all of us were selected for round 2. No elimination.
GI 2: Panelists: 1 male 1 female
Panel details: 2 marketing 2 finance 1 Operations
The whole interview was about our psychometric tests… They had formed a character image about us and pushed us to the extreme to admit us to do something that’s the opposite of what we wrote.
Example: I had said I hate lies… He asked, “do u think marketing people never lie?”.
I said, ” they do but I will choose not to lie”. “But how can you sell without lying”
“Using emotional connections”…
A couple of follow up questions…
They tried to break everyone else too… Me and 2 others didn’t break…
The last two broke. One had said he avoids confrontations but later admitted to confrontation being a better choice… Then the interviewer admitted the interview was a bit pushy… But that was just to know us better.
They wished us the best of lucks and the interview ended. They gave us wearable pen drives.
Personal advice… Don’t budge from what you said no matter how much they push you…
Background: IM BTech CSE, 2.5 years software development
First Round
Second Round:
Background: Btech CSE. 2 years of work ex in IT.
Round 1 interview: Introduce yourself in one minute. IM as second preference. First was finance. (I have passed CFA Level 1). Why?
One technology that is the next big thing. I said Blockchain. Then they asked me how can it be used in banking ( I work in a bank ).
Fresher, Marketing
GI 1 (finance, IM, and ethics professors)
Finance: (fresher candidate)
GI 2
Most impactful period of your life (cross-questioning on the same)
IM – 2 Year Experience
GI 1-
GI 2-
IM- 2 Year Experience
The panel was from Marketing (P1) and Finance (P2). There was 1 candidate apart from me.
P1: We read about your form, Tell us few highlights about yourself mentioned in or out of the form for 1-2 mins?
We answered.
C1 mentioned economics, history, and current affairs as his interests. C1 has an IT background (I think C1 applied for Finance as an interest) and recently joined a working professional.
P1 to C1: What do you like in economics?
Some follow up questions on what C1 mentioned w.r.t stocks
P1 to C1: What is the history of Pune? (Pune is C1’s home town)
P1 to C1: What do you think about MSP?
P2 to C1: Do you know about the pigeon hole principle? They asked few other algorithms from the DAA subject
P2 to me: Do you know about pigeon hole principle? (Asked few more algorithm questions)
P2 to me: Tell us any 2 excel functions that we don’t use commonly? What is what if? (as I mentioned in the certification section)
P2 to me: Tell us what is emotional intelligence? (as I mentioned in the certification section)
P2 to me: Tell me about a recent air strip which came in news from Ladakh? What is the highest peak and the height in Ladakh? What lake is there? (Since I mentioned nature as my interest)
P2 to me: Tell me about your work exp role?
P2 to me: What is Agile methodology? How is it different from traditional methodology?
P2 to me: what is the spiral methodology
GI1: 2 Finance people, 1 Operation and 1 Marketing
Introduce yourself (2 mins)
Marketing questions:
Finance people:
Operations:
Work ex related, Projects related
GI2: Questions on mental health (situation-based)
GI: 3 Marketing, 1ops
Finance, Fresher, B.Tech
Hi guys, sharing my interview experience with you all:
(9th Feb, Slot 2)
WAT: What is the one thing you would change about the primary education system in India? Give your reasons.
GI 1: (Two marketing fresher candidates including myself, One finance fresher candidate and One Ops and SC candidate with work ex)
Why Marketing?
What was the proposition of your MUN marketing campaign?
How did you segment your audience for your MUN?
What was the Product wrt the MUN?
Which P out of the 4 do you think is most important?
What do you like about Cadbury’s marketing?
Name the brands of Cadbury?
Is Cadbury itself a brand? Don’t you think HUL is a brand? (A lot of cross-questioning)
Are you aware of the entire fiasco around Republic TV and the allegations of irresponsible journalism surrounding them? What are your opinions on it from a marketing perspective?
How do you think Cadbury can diversify, don’t mention anything related to food items.
How is your engineering background going to help you in Marketing?
Finance:
A lot of technical jargon, assets and liabilities , capital , etc.
If you were the CFO of a company, what would your response to the pandemic be?
(Several other questions on technical concepts, did not understand much)
Ops:
Work experience related, future goals, and aspirations.
Explain Bullwhip Effect to your three peers who have no understanding of the Supply Chain.
GI 2:
Analysis of an ethical dilemma.
Context: A company has sent one of its employees to the executive program using its own finances, the faculty has confirmed that his assignment was plagiarized.
Should she report it to the parent company?
(She wanted to mention a related dilemma but she understood that I was anticipating the follow-up question)
So Ishan you tell me, what is the other dilemma I have here?
I have another constraint, he is the sole bread-earner of the family. Would that change things for you?
( Same situation for the two other candidates and their responses. )
General discussion on ethics in life.
SP Jain 09-02-2021 Slot 1
WAT: The people most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic were the daily wage workers. If it were in your hands what three policies would you implement to help them
GI 1:
1 fresher Marketing, 1 workex Finance, 1 workex Operations, Me (marketing)
1. State 2 unique qualities about you
2. Question on work experience
3. How would you design a code to solve sudoku puzzles
4. Gave a situation where you are consultants for Flipkart and had to help Flipkart compete against Amazon. It was a group exercise where each had to provide a solution with respect to their specialization.
5. New CEO of Amazon
6. Ask to explain to a layman one aspect of your specialization. Cross questioning on the answer.
GI 2:
1. According to you what percentage of people in the business world possess ethics
2. What is your ultimate goal in life?
3. Do you have a moment which you regret
4. Has there been a moment when you had a fight with your parents
5. What would you do if you have a similar altercation with your superior in your organization
6. Ethical dilemma situation explained in this video https://youtu.be/yg16u_bzjPE
7. Questions on different variations of the same problems
GI 1- was a long interview. Went on for 90 minutes
3 students including me. One for finance, one for marketing and one for ops (me).
P1: General question to all; Tell us the important aspects of your profile and something not in the application.
Started with the finance guy
1. You went to IIT Delhi, then tried your luck at UPSC for two years, now MBA in finance. Why?
2. Why don’t you want to continue in the family business you’re currently in?
3. What is it about finance that interests you so much.
4. What courses have you done?
5. Cross questioning on the courses.
6. If I were to set up a pharmaceutical company in Pune, what would I require the most from a finance point of view.
7. Lot of cross-questioning at this
8. What recommendations would you give to a 30-year-old and a 50-year-old (he said he wants to end up in investment banking)
P2 to the same guy:
1. Tell me what services does the GoI pick for through UPSC.
2. Cross questioning when he couldn’t list all of them
3. Questioned on concepts studied during the engineering
4. Questions regarding financial statements
Next was the marketing girl
P1:
1.Why did you choose marketing?
2.Are you trying to tell me that you enjoy manipulating consumers?
3. Would you like to change your answer? (She said she didn’t mean manipulative strategies)
4. Do you think you should market to children aged 2-15? Would that be unethical?
5. Do you think marketing should be done only to retain existing customers in the existing products? (Based on her answer). How do new products enter the market then?
6. How would you create a marketing strategy for frozen yogurt then? (They wanted concepts, like stp, etc)
7. What are the new channels that the youth are using that people my age aren’t using
P2:
1. What are assets? What is impairment of assets?
2. What will be the effect of impairment of assets on your financial statements?
Then finally came to me
P1:
1. Why did you choose computer science and engineering?
2. What exactly is your family business. What products do you supply?
3. Can you detail the exact supply chain process which you follow?
4. How many products do you supply.
5. What is the biggest risk in your supply chain?
6. Do you know of any concepts of Operations?
7. If you became the chairman of your company, what are the two things that you want to change completely.
8. What is the bullwhip effect?
9. Difference between an or gate and an and gate
P2:
1. What is normalization in DBMS?
2. What is object-oriented programming?
3. What is polymorphism?
4. What is inheritance?
5. Why would you use a language like Java whereas C was perfectly easy to use.
6. If your final product was charged at ₹100, how much rupees would you have to pay towards different activities.
7. What are the external threats that your industry is facing. Do you think your company can survive the competition from China?
GI 2- This was longish as well. There were two faculties and 4 candidates
(Started with a light discussion, mostly centered on upcoming Bengal elections- another candidate and I were from Bengal)
1. Your 3 major qualities and something not in the form.
2. How do you define an “Adarsh Bhartiya naari/purush”?
3. Has their ever been a circumstance where you have been so angry at your own company that you decided to leave the company?
4. (Only to me) what are two steps that you took during the COVID lockdown to help your factory workers.
5. Have you heard of a “vision wall”. What are the things that will go on your walls?
6. Something that you have done and ticked off your “vision wall”
7. If I were your boss, and I gave you an assignment and told you to figure it out, how would you rate my leadership skills?
8. If now you are my boss, and you see that this is how I work. Would you still consider me for promotions?
9. What is the one thing that makes you the happiest in life?
10. One quality that would help your selection and one deficiency that might lead to your rejection.
2 Marketing/ 1 Finance/ 1 operations
WAT Topic: Do you think the e-commerce industry has benefitted from the lack of physical stores during covid times?
Two Marketing candidates (including myself), one for IM, and one for Finance
Finance :
1. Tell me about yourself which is interesting and not in your form
2. Why finance after tech consulting? Grilled a bit here
3. What’s repo rate?
4. Is the RBI more powerful or the commercial banks bigger?
5. How does the recent budget affect the banks?
6. What factors would you consider before investing in a company?
Marketing 1:
1. Why marketing?
2. Talk about BAJA and your role as marketing team head
2. Roles and responsibilities at work?
3. What factors would you consider before launching a product which is consumed by both children and adults? How would you position it?
Marketing 2:
1. Both of you work in the same industry, do you see his company as a direct competitor?
2. Grilled about roles and responsibilities
3. Favorite ad
4. Another favourite ad
5. Same case problem
IM:
1. Why IM?
2. Roles and responsibilities. Was asked a lot of follow-up questions
3. Talk about three buzz words in the tech world and define them in le man terms.
G-2
1. Describe yourself in 90 sec
2. Amitabh Bachchan KBC issue. Asked a lot of follow-up questions
3. Anything you’ve done recently that has had an impact at work or in your community
4. Hobbies
5. A few questions from the 10 statements question on our forms
Applied for: Marketing
WAT: Tell about a time when you had a conflict with a team. How crucial was your role in ensuring a smooth outcome
GI1: Started with an intro which is not in cv in 2 mins. Cross questioning started here. Started with the other marketing person. Asked about STP and to explain STP with an example. Then started asking questions from my undergraduate studies.
They then went on to finance people then operations and IM person at last. Everyone was asked a fair amount of questions.
GI2: 4 candidates. Started with a discussion on right and wrong and on values. Then somewhere moved on to marriages and divorce and is it right or wrong. Then took up sp Jain’s motto of “Courage and Heart” and asked the importance or applicability of these terms in business and management. Asked work-ex people to give examples when their company has exhibited these. Finally ended with asking whether any of us had any questions for them.
SP Jain interview experience (Finance Specialisation)
GI 1: Panel-2 professors and 1 alumnus.
Candidates – 5 (2 ops and 2 finance, 1 marketing)
This was a technical interview. They were asking questions based on your work experience or on your subject of interest. They were given ample opportunity and were quite understanding. Questions asked to me (Most of them based on my work-ex)
Basic qualification.
GI 2: 2 professors
Candidates- 2 Finance, 2 Oposition.
This interview was based on your personality, values and focused totally on you as a person. They didn’t want to know anything about academics, achievements, or extra curricular activities.
Questions:
The second interview was a different and awkward experience 😅
Interview 1st round
6 members 3 in panel
3 finance 2 IM and 1 marketing
Introduce yourself which is not given in your resume.
They started with asking something about balance sheet to finance people.
2nd round
HR kind of round
Marketing, 2 years experience in Verizon.
GI Round 1: It was a group of 4. The panel had 2 professors.
1 Operation
1 Finance
2 Marketing
Only I got through GI 1
GI2: A group of 5 was interviewed by 2 professors.
Very abstract interview. Not sure how it went. Overall in the first interview, they might grill a little and the second one was like HR.
Operations, Work Experienced
PI- tell something about yourself with a focus on schooling, work experience, and hobbies
2nd round
Background: IM BTech CSE, 2.5 years software development
First round:
Second round:
My background 1 year CTS 1 year Digital marketing
Today I had SPJAIN Interview from 12 to 1. But had to report at 10:30. Many people faced delays coz of that. Make sure you have a copy of the graduation CGPA to percentage conversion formula as not many had.
Only originals enough… In the order as shared in the photo below. Eat well before you go and also grab something to eat like biscuits as my interview ended at 3.30 only.
If you go outside the first waiting room, refreshments are available at lunchtime.
GI1:
Pro Tip: Do as Ajay sir and Varun sir told:
Give crisp relevant answers as bullet points if possible in 45 seconds to one minute. In my panel, they were literally yawning for longer answers and one of my panel members started to draw something with 3 pencils together when a guy was giving a long answer.
Questions completely revolved around work-ex for everyone.
Introduce yourself and why they give that specialization as preference was asked to everyone. Then follow-ups…
They also asked about recent trends like blockchain AI ML etc. relevant to the specialization. For me, it completely worked ex.
What I achieved there what was my learning? My typical day and why the transition from CTS to Digital marketing.. then MBA…
GI2: Common questions to everyone
If you give short logical crisp answers, they don’t grill you… Else they do… Answer relevant to the question asked… Do clarify the question if you have doubts before you answer… They are pretty friendly…
All the best people!! 👍
Operations, Manufacturing 2 years experience.
GI-1:
Questions to All: Why this specialization and what have you done to justify it. What roles do you wish to work for post MBA? Two books you’ve read in the specialization you’ve applied for and what are your learnings.
Questions on Operations:
Questions on Marketing:
Questions on Finance:
Questions on IM:
GI 2:
3rd February, 9:30 AM, Slot 2.
When you join the meeting, you’ll enter a room with all the candidates from your slot. You will be given a WAT topic in the chatbox or on the screen. They’ll ask you to log in to the portal and you’ll get the link there as soon as the time starts. You have to mention the topic, and then start writing your WAT.
WAT: What is the best piece of advice you have received and why do you think it was the best? (500 words, 20 mins)
After WAT, the Admission committee people will assign you to your respective panel with 3 or 4 other candidates from the room.
GI-1: 2 Panelists.
Candidates: 2 Marketing, 1 Operations, and 1 Finance.
The finance guy was from this group.
The interview started with a casual talk about what we had for breakfast.
First question (Same to all in alphabetical order): Introduce yourself in 90 secs and tell us why you’ve opted for this specialization.
Operations: (The candidate had work ex in Aditya Birla, and has a degree in mining from NIT Rourkela I guess)
Questions based on his company, his role, and optimization of something in his company.
Does cycle time affect the final cost?
Finance: (Fresher, with a degree in IT/CSE I think)
Why finance? You will be competing with CAs and people with finance background for limited seats.
What is a fixed cost and variable cost?
Asked about his internship in ML. How can you connect ML to finance?
Questions on accounting.
Marketing: (I’m a GEM candidate with no work ex. The other candidate was also a fresher)
I had mentioned that I’m fluent in 4 languages (English, Hindi, Marathi, and Kannada). So P1 asked me to list the advantages of the 4 languages and how they’ll help me. I answered that they’ll help me in adapting anywhere in India. He then said I can use Kannada to impress a girl from Karnataka in Delhi.
P1 asked me to sell a chilled Coca-Cola to someone living near the north pole. I couldn’t answer it properly, so the panelist grilled me on this topic for the entire interview.
Asked the girl to sell Poha to the England captain for breakfast before the test match starts in Chennai. She said something like Poha is a North Indian dish, and that they’ll get to taste it in South India.
P2 gave me a scenario where she was my junior and I had to judge if she is good for an MBA.
P2: What are the necessary steps before launching a product. I mentioned STP.
P2: How will you decide which part to target? I started talking about surveys. She was expecting Primary research as the answer, and my answer was inclined towards Secondary research.
P2: What are the different roles after an MBA in Marketing? What is the role of Brand Manager, Sales manager, etc?
P1 to Marketing candidates: Consider people from your age group in Bangalore. During the weekend, determine how many go out to party and how many stay at home. He just wanted to check our methods of determining it.
No questions were asked based on my Marketing externship or the clubs I’ve been a part of. The interview was focused on selling a product and determining the target region for a product.
Hi guys, sharing my interview experience with you all:
(9th Feb, Slot 2)
WAT : What is the one thing you would change about the primary education system in India? Give your reasons.
GI 1: (Two marketing fresher candidates including myself, One finance fresher candidate and One Ops and SC candidate with work ex)
Why Marketing?
What was the proposition of your MUN marketing campaign?
How did you segment your audience for your MUN?
What was the Product wrt the MUN?
Which P out of the 4 do you think is most important?
What do you like about Cadbury’s marketing?
Name the brands of Cadbury?
Is Cadbury itself a brand? Don’t you think HUL is a brand? (A lot of cross questioning)
Are you aware of the entire fiasco around Republic TV and the allegations of irresponsible journalism surrounding them? What are your opinions on it from a marketing perspective?
How do you think Cadbury can diversify, don’t mention anything related to food items.
How is your engineering background going to help you in Marketing?
Finance:
A lot of technical jargon, assets and liabilities , capital , etc.
If you were the CFO of a company, what would your response to the pandemic be?
(Several other questions on technical concepts, did not understand much)
Ops:
Work ex related, future goals and aspirations.
Explain Bullwhip Effect to your three peers who have no understanding of Supply Chain.
GI 2:
Analysis of an ethical dilemma.
Context: A company has sent one of its employees to the executive program using its own finances, the faculty has confirmed that his assignment was plagiarized.
Should she report it to the parent company?
(She wanted to mention a related dilemma but she understood that I was anticipating the follow up question)
So Ishan you tell me, what is the other dilemma I have here?
I have another constraint, he is the sole bread-earner of the family. Would that change things for you?
( Same situation for the two other candidates and their responses. )
General discussion on ethics in life.
Wat- Apart from your parents, who is that one person that has impacted your life the most and how?
GI1:: Panel ( P1-M and P2 -F)
Myself:
P2:Tell me about yourself in a minute which is not there in your form
What are the services Infosys provide?
Revenue and about Quarterly profits
How do you describe Infosys to another person from the top level?
What is RPA and how it helps businesses?
Tools Available for RPA and more questions related to my project
Explain a process and how do you implement RPA in it?
P1: How do you explain the prerequisites to implement RPA to a non-technical person?
Finance person( Work exp in Bank ):
P1:Banking related day to day operations
How can you implement Blockchain in banking?
Why banks keep interest rates while that is not the case in foreign banks?
More questions related to his work exp
Question on MCLR
Operations Person( Work exp in Maruti Suzuki)
P1: Role of him in the production line.
Comparison between ICE and EV
How will modify the production line for the EV vehicles?
Constraints related to EV and areas to improve
Employee work culture in India Vs Japan
Question-related to Kaisen and other Japanese terms
IT person:( Work exp in Adobe)
P2: Questions related to Adobe company and her role in the company.
Questions related to various products of Adobe and follow-up questions on it.
How Adobe can help to implement KYC in banks.
Question on Adobe flash and why it not much in use at present?
G1: Panel 1F and 1 M
me(marketing with no workex), a lady(copywriter 2+ exp), a gentleman(Finance 2+ exp)
Introduce yourself and what you have written on the form
The finance guy was asked budget-related ques like as a finance guy what structure of budget you expected and explain.
Having worked what thing stands out for you regarding your experience?(question for both)
Passed the question of what is the fiscal deficit and how it is financed?
Marketing
Why so we have you with no exp?
What is a brand you like?
I said apple (they grilled me over it)
Asked what is the relationship between social media and stocks(Elon musk,Gamestop)
The conversation went to Tesla and their value and why are they worth so much.
(All three got selected)
(Very very chill panel)
GI 2
2F
Since I have a baby face and 20ish, the question was will you go to a bar with Manu to have your b’day party if the bar doesn’t allow him in? (drinking age 21)
Mothers have greater qualifications than some fathers still they are forced to leave the job. What’s your opinion?
Sp Jain 5 strokes and their importance.
(Very chillllll)
The marketing guy was from IIT Kharagpur. His background wasn’t very clear.
The finance guy was working in Kodak.
Operations guy of a Mechanical Engineering background.
1. Tell me about yourself
To Finance guy
Explain about financial statements of a company.
How are they linked with each other? Difference between cashflow and balance statement.
What are the parameters you would check if you are evaluating a company?
Will you invest in a company that has negative cash flows?
To me and the marketing guy:
People have been losing retention capacity lately. Do you think digital marketing is efficient enough?
What is the diff between Adwords and Adsense?
How would you advertise in Alexa?
Didn’t see those two questions coming :3
The operations guy was really into automobiles. They had asked him the difference between the Internal Combustion engine and Electric cars engine.
No. Of components in each, how would they differ?
AI-based cars vs electric cars.
How would you use AI in manufacturing?
The Finance and Operations guys got through.
Two Male panelists. One was extremely friendly. The other one was pretty strict. The other marketing guy was actually asked to produce a tangible experience that would prove his interest in marketing. They even said how he could’ve cooked up his entire story a day before the interview.
I’m sorry I’m not that great with technical jargon. But I hope this helps. Good luck, guys!
2 Marketing/ 1 Finance/ 1 operations
WAT Topic: what is that one thing which was common 5 years but extinct now
Except for me, everybody was freshers
G-1 ( Friendly professor)
Finance :
1. Tell me about yourself which is interesting and not in your form
2. Explain to me in simple terms to interpret inventory turnover ratio
3. Walkthrough me your goals
4. Advice me on what kind securities to invest
5 explain beta and alpha
Marketing guy:
1. Why do you see yourself fit for marketing
2. Why does marketing attract you in the first place.
3. Pidilite has a product that was launched called Spray on, how will you reach the market, explain to me how to make it a success
4. About internships
5. Do you follow any marketing person/idol
Operations:
1. Explain me conversion cycle
2. Throughput costing
3. Sig sigma
4. About workex
5. Views on quality
6. Effectiveness Vs efficiency
G-2
Two FeMale panelists.
1. Discussion on handling WhatsApp dispute between yourself and another person in a group
2. How would you deal with a person who is not at all contributing to a college project
3. Then form specific points
4. Hobbies
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