What did you discuss outside when the interview was going on inside?

2. What do you think, is it good to have long interviews or short duration interviews?

3. What is your CGPA? (CGPA was not added in my resume), asked any particular reason for it.

4. What does IIM U logo stands for? Any particular reason for design and colour

5. Family Background

6. Learning experiences from my undergrad college (NIT Surat) after doing entire schooling from

Kerala

7. Brief about the professional experience with Infosys (the role, domain, contributions)

8. What is the role of treasurer in Toastmaster club?

9. How did joining toastmaster help you in developing?

10. Brief about summer internship

11. Three favorite subjects

12. Brief about the valuation of Intel in my academic project under corporate valuation

13. If I ask you to value myself, how will you do it

14. What would be the cash inflows and cash outflows

15. How do you calculate WACC in this case

16. Dream company and dream role

17. Why crisil

18. Any questions?

19. Location Preference? Why are you looking for a southern location particularly?

So tell us something about yourself

2) What exactly was your project in GE

3) Why did you not get a PPO?

4) Tell us more about the term paper? They grilled a lot. They asked questions as to what was it

different that we did than just collecting secondary data. Also how could you have done the

term paper better

5) Asked about the strategy project. It was a rural market strategy for a company. This was the

most horrible part. Grilled me so much that I had to admit that yes I could have done a much

better feasibility work.

6) Then asked me to describe any project that I have done well. Spoke about the rural immersion.

7) What are your long term goals ( what do you see yourself 5 years down the line)

8) Tell us more about your work experience.

9) Why did you leave the job? You could have taken a break and joined back

10) What are your strengths and weaknesses? 3 each

11) Why finance? Why CRISIL?

12) Which role in CRISIL? They spoke about a lot of negative things about consulting and were

looking at my reaction to it

13) Was IIM Udaipur a good decision? Why?

14) Why did you not wait for IIM A/B/C?

15) Rate yourself if you are in the top 20, 20-40, 40-60 etc. and why?

16) Finally how do you feel your interview went?

Q1: Do you think you did well in Quantitative section of CRISIL test?

A: I feel I did reasonably well as I had finished the section after checking it twice 5 minutes before the

time

Q2: Do you think you are overconfident?

I am not overconfident. But I am sure I have done better in Quant than other sections

Q3: Explain time value of money to the HR

A: I explained but they said they got confused. The answer should have been more crispier and direct.

Q3: Why do you think interest rate in Japan is negative?

A: Told about saturation in productivity of Goods n services and relationship with human capital.

Q4. What are your Career Goals?

A: Told about being in Financial domain and credit research and why I am interested in it

Take us through your resume.

Follow up questions on hobbies and interests.

Tell me about your internship.

Tell me about the BFMS study paper.

Follow up questions on the findings.

Name your favorite 3 subjects and the subjects you didn’t like.
Follow up conceptual questions on favorite subject. The interviewers were pretty cool. My interview
lasted for around 30

minutes. The interview started with “Tell about yourself” question. As I emphasized on economics, the

discussion went into the basic economic questions like how the current economic outlook of India is,

about economic indicators (lead, lag & coincident), efficient market hypothesis, information

intermediation, India’s GDP projections, etc. New NDA governments reform push in labor,

infrastructure, FDI. They asked about World Bank & IMF. I stated about their role in the global
economy.

But I don’t know about the history of formation and of these institutions and who have the greater say

in their decision making processes. Then the discussion went on in the current decline in crude oil prices

and its cause and impacts on various economies.

They glanced through my resume. I was expecting questions from finance certifications and projects, as

they were the ones occupying the major chunk of my resume. But to my surprise, the interviewer asked

me about the Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3, I had mentioned it in under the Project

Management subheading. I explained about the project, its importance, various stakeholders and the

challenges faced during its implementation phase. Then the other interviewer asked how much time had

you spent on this project. I said around 25 hours. He confronted me asking “Do you think 25 hours is

sufficient for a detailed study of this project”. He asked this because my resume point read as “Detailed

study on planning and implementation of Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3 by GMR”. I told
the study

was based on secondary data available and I believe I have done justification to that project.

Now, the interviewers started focusing on the business/role fitness of me, the candidate.

1) Why CRISIL?

2) Mention your 3 weaknesses

3) Are you open for relocation?

As they saw my summer internship was in Chennai, they asked the above question. Followed

with a brief enquiry on my summer internship

4) Justify your fitness to this role

5) How confident are you in getting through this interview

6) Any questions from your end

I asked whether the company encourage the employees to do certifications like CFA

TIPS:

No quantitative questions were asked. Just qualitative ones. They check on your subject

knowledge/understandings.

You can guide the discussion in the direction you wish to. I wanted my interview to focus not on

accounting concepts and I managed to drive it to economics while I told about myself.

It is important to have a good depth of knowledge in finance, economics and current affairs. But

it is more important how you are able to answer more convincingly. I didn’t get through the

interview. On retrospecting, I think I should have managed to answer the HR questions (2) and

(5) convincingly and try not to put keywords like “detailed study”, “in-depth analysis”, etc.

Questions were based on resume and projects done so far.

1. Tell us about your family background, education and work experience.

2. Questions about project from International Business Strategy course. [around 20 mins]

In depth discussion on the financial considerations along with strategic alignment.

3. Detailed questions about internship project. [around 15 mins]

4. Detailed questions about the project from Organizational Behavior course.

5. What are your three weaknesses?

6. Which location would you prefer and why?

It is very important to know about your resume and the projects written on it. Study in detail about all

the projects done. Energy level should be high.

The interview was a stress interview for around 20 minutes

1) Tell me why did you ask us whether the test had negative marking? (I had question them during

the test). So are you risk averse?

2) Tell about summer internship project? Some unique experience in PSU?

3) Why crisil ?

4) Tell me something about your work ex and your client? Other than your work, what were your

contribution to team?
5) Tell me about IBS project? Cover the financial aspects of it? Did you do breakeven analysis?

What was the horizon of all these analysis? Did you travel to get the information for this

project?

6) Are you really good at finance? if yes rate yourself in the batch ?

7) Do you have any question for us?

Verdict: Rejected

Tips to crack:

Study the resume clearly line by line

Be sure of the projects which you did as part of the academic course.

Prepare well for generic HR questions.

Interview Notes

1. Tell us about yourself and along with it walk us through your resume – I talked about myself

for 2 minutes and highlighted important points from my work experience. Then I told them

about what I had done at IIM Udaipur in the last one year. And then I started to explain the

various points in my resume. I explained about the finance project in which I was most

confident. [tip – it was a good opportunity to guide the interview and I made sure to explain

it in as much detail as possible]

2. How did u go about studying the company? Tell us the approach. – I explained about the

fundamental analysis process, i.e. starting from economy, then industry and then the

company. [tip- mention the sources of getting the data as it shows research capability]

3. How did u so the revenue projections for the valuation project? – explained in detail.

4. They asked about WACC, Cost of Equity, beta, etc. – explained

5. How would you value a start-up company which is not listed? - I said that we will pick a

similar listed company which is comparable to this company.

6. What are the risks in your valuation? - explained. Mentioned everything. [Tip - try not to

outsmart them and clearly explain about the major assumptions taken in the valuation and

how it may affect the valuation.]

7. If you had to value Kingfisher, 3 years back, i.e. before its debacle, how would you have gone

about it? Would you still have given a BUY recommendation (I had given buy
recommendation in my valuation project) - I said that I may have come up with a BUY

recommendation but I would have clearly mentioned the rising levels of debt in my report.

8. What do think about the current state of Indian economy? - we discussed about many

issues such as power sector companies becoming NPAs for banks, infrastructure in India,

coal block issue, etc.

9. What do you want to do in life? – answered

10. Would you prefer a front end role or research based role? – answered.

11. Do you have any issues in relocation? – No

12. Would you be flexible to work in any role in the company? – answered yes.

Then I asked them a question, and after they answered the interview got over.