Interview Questions

I.

Personal Questions
A. Background

1. Tell me about yourself. Sir, I was born in a middle class family in a small town, Sirsa, in Haryana. I did my primary and high schooling from there and then went on to prepare for JEE to pursue my interest in engineering. I would describe myself as an assiduous and diligent individual with an innate inclination towards spirituality. This spiritual inclination supports my outer personality by providing me with a calm and confident outlook while carrying out different tasks. I also have a deep love towards India inspite of the many problems that face her today and I do read about her history and culture whenever I get the time to do so. 2. What would you like me to know about you that is not on your resume? Sir, apart from the things written in my resume, I have another side to my personality too which covers basically my inclination towards spirituality. This spiritual inclination supports my outer personality by providing me with a calm and confident outlook while carrying out different tasks. 3. What are the three most important events of your life?

1. 2. 3.

Selection in IIT-Delhi: Winning the first prize while representing my hostel Giving my first public speech

4. What were you doing during this gap of time I see here on your resume? 5. Where did you grow up? Sir, I grew up in a small town called Sirsa, in Haryana. Its a small city and that gave me the benefit of experiencing both the rural and urban settings at the same time. I did my primary and high schooling from there and then went on to prepare for JEE to pursue my interest in engineering. 6. What are your three major accomplishments? 7. What was an experience in your life that you would want to go back and change? Sir, although I dont regret any experiences because I believe every experience everything teaches you something, but there are some experiences which if had the power to change, would have turned my life for the better.

B.

Self Description

1. How would your friends describe you? Although I cannot authorize that this is their particular view about me, but I think, based on their comments about me, they would describe me as polite, a good listener and a little bit of introvert kind of person. 2. Give me three words to describe yourself. Assiduous, Diligent, Spiritual

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C.

Goals

1. What new goals have you established for yourself recently? 2. What are your five to ten year career goals?
Given that your company is one of the fastest progressing firms in its field, I assume that there will be immense opportunities for progression for me also. Within a couple of years I hope to be promoted to an ____ and then sometime after that to ______. So I could easily see myself working for you in five or even more years time

What are your career and educational goals?

My career goal is to find a position where I can practically implement my knowledge and enhance my skill set. I want to effectively participate in the growth and the success of the company I work for.

3. What are the attributes of an ideal job for you? If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?
For where I can practically implement my knowledge and enhance my skill set. I want to effectively participate in the growth and the success of the company I work for.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

What are you looking for? How long a commitment do you plan to give me? What is your ideal job? What other types of positions are you considering? What kind of boss would you prefer? Why are you pursuing this field? What would you like your lasting impression to be? Do you have a final statement? What are your career options right now? How could you have improved your career path? What salary are you expecting? In addition to salary, what benefits would most interest you? Describe the job or the activity which has had the greatest impact on your career goals.

D.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Values

What does success mean to you? What does failure mean to you? Which is more important to you: money or the type of job? Who do you admire? Why? What do you get passionate about? Who is your hero, and why? The greatest answer is if you can use a family member or friend; try to stay away from celebrities. And back it up with a good why! Sir, I consider swami Vivekananda as my ideal and the one person to whom I can turn for inspiration anytime I am in depression or feeling any lack in my motivation towards action. His fiery speeches filled with everlasting wisdom and a firm solution to most of our problems, not based on some abstract philosophy but on his firm experience, gives me the surity to rely on him whenever I need to.

II.

Management / Leadership Style

1. What is your management philosophy? I sincerely believe in the Bhagwad Gitas philosophy of Karmanye Vadhikaraste ma faleshu kadachan, i.e.to perform ones work for the sake of work only and not lusting after result of your actions. 2. Define leadership.

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Tell me about a time when you successfully resolved a conflict. Give me an example of a leadership role you have held when not everything went as planned. What two attributes are most important in your job? Give an example of a time in which you worked under deadline pressure. Name a point in your life where you turned a negative into a positive. Tell me about a decision you have made that you later regretted. How do you feel about working overtime? Give me an example of how you manage multiple projects. What would you say to a boss that has a sub-par idea?

III.

Strengths / Weaknesses and Skills

1. Are you creative? Give me an example. What have you done that you consider creative? I do think that I am creative and Ill tell you the basis of that assertion. For once, I am always involved in generation of new ideas whenever I work with a team and I have observed that most of my ideas are actually accepted, though maybe with slight modifications. For example, during my internship at Whirlpool GTEC, Pune; I developed four new product ideas and presented them to the management and all of them were selected for further development. 2. What are your strongest abilities? 3. What is your biggest weakness? Never say that being a perfectionist is your biggest weakness. Some applicants think that this makes you look better, but it seems that you not secure. Sir my character trait which I consider my biggest weakness is my inability to say a strict NO to someone. That is something that my termed as being polite but I have actually been on the losing side because of this quality. For example, during the final exams, there are hoards of people who havent actually studied throughout the semester. And the day before the exam, they would come to my room essentially asking for help regarding different subject. Although I knew that it would be better if I neglected them, many a times I do help them because of this particular weakness. Thankfully I have actually made quite a progress in this regard and now I have actually learnt that sometimes it is better to say NO to people than to be on the receiving end. 4. 5. 6. 7. Why should we hire you? Give me an example of something that you have done that shows initiative. What makes you stand out among your fellow students? What makes you different from the other candidates for this position?

8. What can you do for us that someone else cannot do? What was the most important thing you learned from your previous experience/internship? Capacity to stay calm and composed during difficult situations Zeal of a perfectionist 9. How do your skills relate to our needs? What can you offer us? A 10. What have you disliked in your past jobs? 11. How long before you can make a contribution? In the past year, what have you been dissatisfied about in your performance? 12. What major problem have you encountered and how did you deal with it? 13. Have you ever had any failures? What did you learn from them?

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

How do you feel about working in a structured environment? Are you able to work on several assignments at once? In what kind of work environment do you do your best work? What kinds of tasks and responsibilities motivate you the most? What has been your greatest challenge? Sir, as I have told you, I have lived the greater part of my life in a small town where I believe the required emphasis on the overall development of an individuals personality is not given. Thereby, for most of my educational career, I was severely lacking in the required communication skills in English. When I came to know about the importance of it, I started to seriously work on my skills. It was difficult initially, because there was no such environment around which can help me cultivate this skill. But over the time, I believe I have improved quite a lot. Nonetheless, it was a great challenge and the one which in I loved to accept!

IV.

Interpersonal Skills

1. How competitive are you? 2. How do you work under pressure? 3. Give me an example of a time when you successfully worked within a team. During my last three and a half years at IIT, there have been many times that I had to work with a team as in course projects, on internships, and summer projects. But my most successful experience have been with the Formula SAE Team of IIT Delhi. I was a part of the team for nearly two years and worked with the team to design a formula style racing car which were then to compete then with all the different cars made by numerous universities throughout the world. All the procedure, from Designing to manufacturing to marketing and collection of funds was done by the team collectively and the best moment of all was when the car was finally fully manufactured and performed very well. That was actually a successful and satisfying end to a very arduous but at the same time enjoyable journey and that is something I cherish. 4. 5. 6. 7. What types of people seem to rub you the wrong way? Define cooperation. What kinds of people do you enjoy working with? What kinds of people frustrate you? Although I love to meet new people and work with them in different types of situations, there are some character traits that I dont appreciate and I would rather not work with them unless it has a negative effect on the whole team or it causes a disturbance to our common objectives. These include people who are not sincere about their work, who dont appreciate the timelines given to them and delay their work un-necessarily.

8. Have you ever managed a conflict? How? 9. Have you ever spoken before a group of people? How large? 10. With what kind of people do you like to work?

V.

Extra Curriculars

1. What extra-curricular school activities are you involved in? 2. What have you learned from your activities? 3. Were your extracurricular activities worth the time you put into them? Yes sir, In fact, I believe that it has been a very educational experience for me as it helped me to open up with my fellow batch mates and led me to recognize some of my hidden talents. Also these different activities actually taught me to take the lead of a team and march it towards success. For example, I am a resident of Zanskar hostel which is relatively compared to others and thus there was no specific culture for all the different club activities. So it was really difficult prepare for many of the

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inter hostel activities and to create a standing for zanskar among other hostels. But then it was also a wondrous opportunity to lead the hostel to a new platform. That was something that I think I, along with other members of the hostel, was able to do giving me a really great educational experience. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. How did you become involved in your extracurricular activities? What do you enjoy doing outside of work-in your free time? What is your favorite book/movie/song/painting-or author/actor/singer/artist? Which magazines/newspapers do you read regularly? Which books have you read recently? Have you ever done volunteer activities?

VI.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Job / Company / Industry

Why are you interested in ______? / Why do you want to work for us? What makes you want to be a _____? What makes you think you would be successful in _____? What do you think this job requires? Given that you have no background in this field why are you interested in it? What do you predict is going to happen in this industry in the next 5 years? How would you go about evaluating a business? What do you know about our company? Do you know who are competitors are? What interests you most about this position? What parts of the job do you think you would find the least satisfying? You have five minutes to describe the most relevant and specific items in your background which show you are uniquely qualified for this position. What would you add to our firm? What particular expertise do you have that would lend itself well to this position? Demonstrate/illustrate skills that you can transfer from past experience. What concerns you about our company? What do you believe are the key issues and problems in our industry today?

VII.

Location

1. Why do you want to relocate to______? 2. Are you willing to relocate every two years or so? 3. How do you feel about travel? Sir I love to travel! Maybe that is because that gives a moment of peace between the entire tiring schedule and also gives me the time to read some books that I have been resting in my cupboard for a long time. 4. Are you familiar with how taxing travel can be?