Students’ Speak: Preparation strategy to crack placement interviews

By: Kuljeet Singh

Getting a good placement in college is the most common goal of an MBA student. And so, considering the tough competition and the complex and intricate hiring process of companies, preparation for it becomes very important.

My strategy included dividing every company’s placement process preparation into four divisions namely: Current Affairs, Domain Knowledge, HR questions and Company Knowledge.

For the first part i.e. Current Affairs, start at least four weeks before the placement season begins. Read at least two newspaper editorials (I chose Business Standard and Hindu Business Line). Read at least 8-10 editorial articles daily and make notes of the important topic. Read diverse topics ranging from marketing, economics, sales, finance, HR, IT, Analytics, AI, markets, etc.

Preparation for the second part i.e. Domain Knowledge varies from company to company. E.g.: For Deloitte (Strategic and Consulting profile), practice guesstimate as much as you can. One can find an ample amount of guesstimate examples online. Also, do read ‘Case in Point’ book completely. While reading this book, try to see various business models used to solve various case questions. For ICICI (Corporate Banking profile), one must go through all terms used in the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss statement and must study each financial ratio used to analyze companies. For Fidelity Investment (Business Analyst profile), one must go through all the analytics concepts. Also, see various technologies used to implement Software development Life Cycle (SDLC) namely Agile, Scrum, etc. For ITC or Value Labs (Marketing profile), you must go through Kotler book (marketing Bible) and brush up all your marketing concepts. For Mahindra (General Management Profile), they may ask you about your strong area, so prepare for this answer with in-depth knowledge of your strong area.

For preparation of the third part i.e. HR round, prepare a common set of HR questions like one’s strength and weakness, turning point of one’s life, how one deal with pressure, etc.

Preparation of the fourth step i.e. Company’s knowledge requires one to visit the company’s website and try to understand the company’s business model and various products they are offering. Also, try to see the unique value the company is providing to its customers. Prepare a roadmap of what according to you should be the future plan for the company and how should it achieve it.

With this strategy of dividing the whole process into four divisions, I was able to prepare A to Z for the placement process of any company visiting the campus.

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