Gearing up for Interviews

An exercise on answering personal, HR, and behavioral questions

Name Siddharth Gautam

Roll No Pgp10233
Total time spent on answering the 2hrs
questions
How would you rate your answers 2
on a scale of 1 to 5? (1 being
worst and 5 being best)
Comments (the challenges you I find it difficult to answer
faced while doing this, and help about myself in a professional
you may need to improve your way.
answers)

Non-disclosure undertaking: The personal answers submitted through this document will remain tightly
guarded and will not be disclosed to anyone or posted publicly.
Answering Guidelines

1. Answers to each question must be a minimum of 100 words (approx. 1 min in speech) and a
maximum of 200 words.
2. The quality of answers are paramount. Thus, the candidates are requested to reflect hard on their
personal and professional experiences, and refer to sources mentioned below and elsewhere
before writing here.
3. All answers must have a professional tone. Even to questions that sound personal, it is always
safe to talk about professional and career aspects. Keep your personal to a maximum of 25%.
4. Proof read and use Grammarly to check for grammatical errors before submission.
5. The documents will be run through plagiarism check. Do not lift from online sources.
6. The table in the first page should be filled by all candidates.

Personal Interview Reference:

1. Art of Storytelling for Interviews (Video) ; must watch to know the difference between assertion
and deduction in interviews
2. Interview Strategy from HBS (video)
3. How to win job interviews (Eric Kramer)
4. Video: 5Cs of being a Leader, Indra Nooyi

Gearing up for Interviews 2

Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
Reference video: Interview Skills – Tell me about yourself (Video from Fisher College of Business)

Hi..I'm Siddharth Gautam I'm from Delhi and I did my schooling from Indirapuram Public School and I'm
a hard working B.sc(h) Graduate specialized in Mathematics with an overall CGPA of 6.33. In addition
to academics I was a part of the quizzing society of my college called quintessence. During my period in
the society I actively participated in the quizzes and also host some of the quizzes in the annual event
of the society. I choose MBA for my personal growth and to develop the leadership quality which will
help me in leading my organization well in the future. Would love to complete my Master's degree in
business administration in Sales and Marketing as it is a core aspect of any business therefore chances
of it getting obsolete is minimum

Q2. Do a SWOT Analysis of yourself. Mention at least 3 points each for strengths, weakness,
opportunities, and threats.
(Hint: Keep the strengths and weaknesses at least 75% related to professional/academic/career-related.
Do not get into your personal side.)
Strengths-
1) I'm a quick learner
2) Flexible: able to adapt to changing situations naturally and without fuss or complains
3)I am goal oriented and self motivated person
Weaknesses-
1)Disorganized
2) Can only focus on one thing at a time, in short not a multitasker
3)I have thus habit if rechecking my work which at times consumes a lot of time
Opportunities-
1)- To get connections and possible networking from my peers group
2) To get trained by the sharpest minds in the country
3)To learn multitasking, time management etc.
Threats-
1)Lack of professional experience is one of the threats for me

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2) Rat and Cat competition- I often get afraid I might get fragile with rigorous competition.

Q3. State one instance associated with each of your strengths.

Initially when I Joined IIM Rothak I don't know about accounting equation Or rather i don't h an e
any knowledge about what comes under assets or what comes under liabilities but know after one
month I can prepare balance sheet. Also prior to coming here I only used to study in the morning but
because of the schedule here at times I'm working till 4 in the morning. This is the first time I'm living
away from home so here I have to keep myself motivated to get up and do things, complete every task
on time and to participate in every group project as much as I can.

Q4. State how you plan to work on each of your weaknesses.

Reference video: What is your greatest weakness?

I'm trying to work on each and every aspects of my behavior and on my weaknesses in particular. I
have started doing my work sincerely in the very first time so as to avoid rechecking my work and save
my time. With the existing culture here at the IIM Rohtak, I'm actually multi tasking so as to not miss
any deadline. To be very honest actually being disorganized person here it is actually working great for
me i don't spend much time in organizing my stuff rather I use those extra minute in sleeping or doing
something else productively. But actually I would love to work on this skill of mine.

Q5. Could you define your professional mission? What are your short term (3-5 years) and long term
goals (10-15 years)?

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Short-term Goals-

I would love to learn about the market dynamics, the on the job training by seniors or by HR.
Understanding the practical approach about how things are actually taking place in the real world using
the concepts I learned in my masters. In short I'll love to get the practical know- how.

Long term Goals-

10 to 15 years down the line I would love to see myself as an asset to the company. Also would love to
see myself as a proud alumni of IIM Rohtak, contributing towards the college, towards my company
and also would love to give back to the society from where I belongs.

Q6. Give an instance when you stepped in, took charge, mustered support & influenced the outcome
of a project by taking on a leadership role. (Use the STAR technique)

Reference video: How to answer Behavior Based Interview Questions (Fisher College of Business; they
explain the STAR framework)

In my college days, during the month of October we use to organize quizzing events for the college
students across Delhi University. We thought of organizing a cricket related event but none if the
members of the quizzing society were sure of the event and they actually lack cricketing knowledge
at that point of time i took the charge and planned the event accordingly. In the first round we prepare
20 questions fir the preliminary round and the final round was bidding. The event was huge success
almost 300 students participated in the first round. But I have to admit my teammates supported me
throughout the event, they help me in preparing the questions, keeping the scores check and they
also helped me in picking up the players for the bidding round

Q7. What decisions have you most regretted? Why?

I actually don’t regret any of my decisions till date.

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Q8. Why Finance/Marketing/Consulting/HR/Operations/IT? (Answer according to your first preference
of specialization)
Marketing can be applied across verticals and across industries and therefore it will give me a chance
to explore multiple industries. Marketing is primarily used to attract customers attention and create
demand for products and services. This means significant exploration of human behavior and
psychology and understanding of what we do and why we do. This will not only helps me understand
consumers but also my own self which is important Also, Marketing is a core aspect of any business
which means it will never get obsolete. Marketing is a field which allows great scope for creativity and
innovations its not limited by a set of rules and regulations.

Q9. Describe one latest news / development / emerging trend in your field (Finance / Marketing /
Consulting / HR / Operations / IT) that you’re excited about?
In may 2019, the cats protection, a charity house in UK started the campaign #catmendo created to
celebrate the relationship between men and their cats, encouraging men to tweet stories ,photos and
videos using the hashtag. The campaign spotlights the many men that have a fond relationship with
their feeling companions. User generated content is an effective way for the brand to get people
involved, with the charity's initial tweet garnering a lot of engagement and replies from cat loving
men in the UK.
(E.g. For finance students, it could be an unexpected IPO. For marketing students, it could be a new
campaign that is doing well. )

Q10. What was your favorite course at IIM Rohtak until now? Why?

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Marketing Management thus far is my favourite subject. Time and again you will get new case study
but with different learning objectives someday its about myopia and someday its about globalization
where I can apply different methodology altogether. And, As I mentioned above marketing is not about
formulas or set pattern people can actually experiment with their thoughts and can actually create
innovative campaigns or products for the company.It is also helping me in creating a wider vision where
more than one possibility can actually exist in reinvention or in case relaunch of a product or a company.
And, on a lighter note you actually don't have to devote a lot of hours in understanding the concepts if
marketing.

Q11. What was your favorite case study until date? Why? What did you learn from it?

The Adobe reinvention was my favorite case study till date in IIM Rohtak. The case tells about how the
company is trying to reinvent themselves so as to reach out to the customers and also they can save
their product from piracy.
I learned about the myopic vision of the company and how can they survive by planning their
competitive strategy not against any other company but against their own users,qhi earlier uses their
old product. I also learned about how can I convince my old customers for upgrading the new product
rather giw can u disturb my market share just by an upgrade which us particularly better for the users.

Q12. What are your key interests? What have you done till now to pursue them? (Describe instances)
I love playing cricket and also I love to collect cricketing data. I represented my school team in cricket, I
was also selected in the UP under -16 state camp once but didn't able to make it to the final 16. I
participated in various cricket quizzes during my college life and also i won couple if them. Actually I
love playing outdoor sports i used to play cricket, football,table tennis in my school on regular basis.
Also, I alsolove cooking and I Cook whenever I can and I would love to learn se new dishes if possible
fromy mom.

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