MBA Mania

My XLRI interview was on 26th February (2009) in Chennai. The interview was at 12 o’ Clock.
I reached there by 11.15. 4 guys were sitting there. Had chat with them. 2 of them had finished their graduation last year and had chosen not to work. Another guy has been with IBM for 3 years and the last one is a fresher like me. He was from NIT Trichy.
Usual best of lucks for every guy going for interview and whispers about questions with guys exiting. And finally it was 12 and my turn!

My profile
10th :96%
12th :94.5%
college NIT CALICUT: 8.2 CGPA
XAT :99.79 (sectional 98.25,98.98,97.22)

I had an idea bout the interviewers from XL brochure and previous interviewers. There was a senior faculty (Abhijit Gangopadhyay)-S, Rajeev Sharma,File guy (one who checks our file) -F and Guy with our resume and answers to personal qns filled online ( Supriya Kumar De) R.

I expected a stress interview as my friends had earlier but they din stress much.

I: May I come in sir?
S:Yes come in

I:Good Morning sirs
S:Morning
(They din offer me seat)

I:Sir, Can I have my seat
S:Thats your seat, if you don’t sit who else is gonna sit?
(I smiled)

S:Give your certificates
(I gave it to S and he handed it over to F who started going through it)

S:Sign it
(I signed)

S:So you are from Calicut. Why is Kozhikode and Calicut, 2 names?
I:It was actually Kozhikode, when British people came they made it to Calicut for pronouncing.

S: Acha, thats how Kozhikode ( he pronounced it as Kojikode) became Calicut
I: It is actually Kozhikode not Kojikode.

S: Then why it is written like that ?
I:The ‘zha’ sound in Malayalam has no Equivalent in English.

S: Acha.. So you had your schooling in Calicut?
I: No I am actually from Kannur. Did my high school there and attended 12th in Thrissur in Central Kerala and
got into NITC which is in Calicut, ie, North Kerala.

S: Thrichur and Thrissur it too has got two names right?
I: Yes, like many cities having two names… Kolkata, Calcutta..
S: yes yes..

S: Where are you placed?
I: hp

S: Hindustan Petroleum?
I: No it is Hewlett Packard. I am placed in hp procurve, It is a Networking R&D wing of HP India.
S: acha, whats the pay
( I told the pay)

S:That’s a good amount. Then why do you want to leave that?
I: I’m interested in financial field and is my 1st choice to work on

S: Name a Non-Banking financial firm
I: Muthoot Finance

S: What is it?
I: It is a non banking financial firm from Kerala and they issue loan on guarantee of gold.

S: Can you tell any other national level firm?
I: Insurance sector

S: Give an example
I: Bajaj Allianz

S: What is Allianz?
I: It is a European Insurance major

S: What are they doing with Bajaj?
I: It is a joint venture between Bajaj and Allianz

S: Joint Venture? why? why can’t they invest alone?
I: In some sectors Indian government doesn’t allow full FDI and so they have to make joint ventures

S: So what is the advantage?
I: If complete FDI is allowed in some sectors big firms would come and dominate, like in retail if we allow full FDI our domestic firms can’t compete players like Walmart… and in Joint Venture Domestic firms can use international players’ expertize and it will help them
(they din ask anything about retail sector which I know and I was trying to drive)

S turns to F and asked him to proceed. F had finished going through the file and had kept it in front of me.
( S got up and started walking behind me. I donno why)

F: What is the difference between computer science and computer engineering?
I: hmmmmm…. Computer science is actually the underlying theory of computation and engineering is more of the appication side(!).blah..blah…hmmm..my college offers the course Computer Science and Engineering

F:What is a differential equation?
I: hmm…. d/dx… differential…

F:What is Fibonacci sequence ?
I: sequence whose nth term is the sum of (n-1)th term and (n-2)th term like 1 1 2 3..

F:What could be the complexity of an algo to find nth term
I: hmmm.. can I use the paper?

F: yes
( i wrote sthg and )
I: O(n^2)

F: Why?
I: tn = t(n-1) + t(n-2)..so..hmm ..

F totally screwed me as I couldn’t answer anything properly
F turns to R

( S came back and sat and started reading news paper)

R: Tell me about the Indian IT sector
I: Indian IT sector contributes to 25-30% of GDP..

R(interrupting): are the figures correct?
I: I’m not sure but IT and services together contributes to 50% of GDP.

R: What is GDP?
I: Gross Democratic Product ( major blunder.. it just came off!)
( R looked suspicious)
I: It is the sum total of the goods and services produced in the country

F(interrupted) What does GDP stand for?
( I thought he din hear.. so again blunder)
I:Gross Democratic Product

R: What else about IT sector?
I: Major firms are Infosys, Wipro , TCS etc.. and IT field provides job for thousands , like Infosys alone provides job for more than 50k people ( shouldn’t have said another figure!)

R: Is the figure exact?
I: No the exact figure is actually much higher
( I should have used this opportunity to drive the interview to Satyam and related issues)

R: Is there anything you would like us to know about you
I: I did my internship in Texas Instruments…

R(interrupting) : Yes I read about that in your answer (which we had to submit online). You worked really hard. You are a hard working guy!
I: Thank you sir

R: OK then
I: Thank you sirs
( I took the certificate file and left)

(Interview was less than 15 minutes)
Came out. Whispered the questions with others wished best of luck and left.

(I din convert the call)