1. Tell me about yourself?

Non core:

I was born in a small family in Agra. My father is a dealer of sleepwell products and my mother is a
housewife. I have an elder brother who is currently working at Hindustan Unilever.

I started out my professional journey as a blogger on AOL in my first year. I wrote 39 blogs in
a span of 2 years which received more than 6000 page views. I was awarded knight writer for
writing most popular articles in dec'12 and april'13. Then I got an opportunity to mentor 6 first
students in my second year. I guided them through the first 6 months in the campus which are
considered very crucial for a
fresher. I did an internship in a startup called ReleaseMyAd after my sophomore year in which I
worked on a strategic project of the firm which
was starting a new venture in association with Google India. During my stint at Students Place
ment office in my 3rd year, I helped student community by
organizing of mock interviews and career counselling sessions. I led a team of 20 company co-
ordinators for smooth conduction of placements in december 2013. I was part of the internship te
am and we were successful in enhancing the number of internships by 47% compared to previous year.

Recently I was selected as a delegate to 19th

World Business Dialogue to be held in Cologne, Germany in the coming march.
I am excited to visit Germany and share ideas and culture with students across the globe. My hobbies
are learning life skills, writing articles, playing lawn tennis and squash. Life skills
basically include following life coaches and motivational speakers, reading articles
about health, leadership, productivity, entrepreneurship, developing some good habits like
jogging, drinking water on waking up, meditation and so on.

2. Tell me something that is not in your resume?

I was part of a startup called Doccit, which was an acronym for Doctors, companies, IT for
around 4 months in my
3 year. I and 4 of my friends decided to start a venture for organizing marketing representative sector in
rd

pharmaceutical industry. We initially decided to build a booking system for MRs through which they cou
ld book their appointment with doctors and could save a whole lot of time which they waste waiting out
side the doctors office.

We could not continue with the plan since one of our team member who used to code started
working on a new idea and also the venture required a thorough knowledge of pharmaceutical
industry. It was a good experience overall as I was working with some of my good friends and we
were trying to solve a real world problem. I also realized that I could be a good team player and co
uld add some interesting ideas to the task.
3. What are your strengths and your weaknesses?
Strengths:

Non core

I believe that my strengths are my communication skills and my leadership qualities.

As a student guide, I developed strong relations with the junior batch and was su
ccessful in acquainting them with academics, culture, fests and other organizations of the institute. I r
eceived appreciation for my work during my internship at ReleaseMyAd mainly be
cause I was able to connect with the business head of the
firm and he started trusting me. As a leader, I led a team of 8 members to successfully co
mplete a semester long project in which we had to design Ethyl Benzene plant. I was clear in com
municating what was the work of each person, how their work was important fo
r the project, what was the progress of project, how we would be defending our presentations,
and how we will compile our work in a 30 page report. The result of this was that we stood 2 nd

among 10 groups and everyone made their effort count.

I have read
books such as How to win friends and influence people and One minute manager which have hel
ped me to keep in mind the interest of other person while talking due to which I am able to better conn
ect with people.

Other strengths:

1. Good at planning and organizing

2. Curiosity to learn
3. Self motivated : mainly because of the great thoughts I follow
4. Positive attitude
5. Ability to motivate people
6. Great in developing good habits

Weaknesses:

My first weakness is that I find it difficult to just follow orders and act upon them. Dur
ing my tenure at Students Placement Office, our Overall Placement Co-
ordinators (OPCs) used to give us a lot of commands and we had to just follow them but I used to questi
on them regarding the purpose of doing a particular task in order to make
myself clear about what exactly I had
to do and in case I could think of some better way of doing it, I could use it.
My second weakness is that sometimes I tend to become too involved in a task that I fo
rget other things like exercise, entertainment, talking to family and friends and so on. In the last
month, I was so involved in placement preparation that I restricted my frequency of playing tennis to jus
t once a week.

My third weakness is that I sometime hesitate in asking a favour from someone. For
example, I wanted a feedback on my resume from seniors and whenever I used to send my resume to
a senior, I used to think twice considering that senior might not take out sufficient time and provide me
genuine feedback but eventually I overcame my concerns and took a genuine feedback from 3 seniors.

Other weaknesses :

1. Workaholic
2. Take too much responsibility
3. Get moved easily

4. What are your short term and long term goals?

My short term goals are to learn some new ideas from students and speakers coming t
o World Business Dialogue in march 2016 and do well in my thesis and obviously get placed in a
good firm.

My long term goal is that

I would like to see myself in a management position wherein I could use my experience and skills
to lead the organization to greater heights. In this time span, I want to learn and acquire a nu
mber of skills that could make me an asset for the organization. I would like to conti
nuously learn and grow with the organization and at the same time inspire myself and my
team members to achieve goals.

5.Where do you see yourself 5 years down the line?

5 years down the line, I would like to see myself in a management position wherein I could use my exper
ience and skills to lead the organization to greater heights. In the span of 5 years, I want to learn and acq
uire a number of skills that could make me an asset for the organization. I would like to continuously lea
rn and grow with the organization and at the same time inspire myself and my team members to achiev
e goals.

6. Why should I hire you?

You should hire me because i think I have been an excellent team player in all my endeav
ours so far be it at students placement office or during various course projects.
I had shown great leadership skills during Campus Placements, 2013-
14 as I led a team of 20 company coordinators for smooth conduction of placements. Workin
g for student welfare helped me develop strong relationship building and comm
unication skills. I think my interpersonal skills, my innate quality to coordinate wit
h people coupled with my organizational experience makes me a good choice for __________
_.

7.Why do you want to join this company?

I want to join this company because I am really excited to work in an environment

where I can collaborate with some of the great people from different educational and cultural b
ackgrounds and can demonstrate my creativity, problem solving and analytical skills on live proj
ects. At _________, I think I will undergo a continuous learning process which will not
only help me in growing in the organization but also make me an important player in the indust
ry.

7. What is your most significant achievement?

My most significant achievement is clearing IIT JEE and taking admission in IIT Kanpur. It
is so because it has filled my parents with immense happiness and they feel proud of m
y being here which gives me a sort of satisfaction. Apart from that it is the biggest achievement
for me because it has taught me so many things which I wouldn't have learned or experie
nced anywhere else.
Starting from my first semester to the end of 9th semester,I have seen a change in my per
sonality and continuously learned and applied some of the inevitable attributes
of life. After learning some Business ethics and strategies during my internship in a startup,I w
as able to help my father at his shop and this was only possible because of my clearing JEE and
making most out of it.

8. What is your most significant achievement apart from JEE?

My most significant achievement apart from JEE is the appreciation for my work during
my internship at ReleaseMyAd after sophomore year. I worked directly under the bu
siness head of the firm and during the course of my internship, he started trusting
me and gave me enough liberty to decide upon things and get them implemented as per my
choice. Like I had to make changes in the sample ads on their website. So i searched some good
ads online and took his advice, so he said that I trust you and you decide on which ads to put an
d give them to designer.

9. What is your biggest failure?

My biggest failure is that I could not get a good internship in my third year. I consider it a
s my failure because I think I could have prepared better and have got a good internsh
ip considering the opportunities that were there. I got an interview of some of the very big
firms that visit our campus like HUL and Shell but due to lack of preparation and awareness,
I could not convert such great opportunities.
I took a lesson from this failure and prepared really hard for the placements. May be my
destiny was directing me to citi group.

10. What was the toughest decision you ever had to take?

The toughest decision that I had to take was to decide on whether to stand for Overall P
lacement Co-
ordinator or not. It is so because it would have been a biggest test of my life, since ma
naging POR of OPC along with academics is a really tough task. I decided to not
stand for the post inspite of such a good chance of becoming OPC and the spike in my
profile that I would have got because I did not want to compromise on my
academics and want to develop some habits like jogging and playing squash. I am
happy with my decision because I was able to reduce my weight in that year and do well in my
acads.

11. Why Data Analytics?

I want to work as Data analyst because I really enjoy making decisions based on
data. Whenever my opinion clashes with someone and it is quantifiable, I try to check
data in order to either prove or disprove my hypothesis. Apart from that I will get to
solve some really challenging problems which will help me in acquiring knowledge
about the intricacies of business and this resonates with my long term goal of becoming
leader in the organization.

12. Describe a situation when your work was criticized?

During my internship at ReleaseMyAd, I had to present a moqup of the website that we

were planning to launch . Since I didn't had much knowledge about the UI/UX so I took an idea
from a website and just altered some aspects of it and showed it to my boss. My boss had
already seen that website and he reprimanded me immediately. He then asked me to do it
properly in a team with other intern. So I took that criticism very seriously and made a very user
friendly and appealing moqup with my teammate.

13. Describe your ideal job?

The most important thing that I look for in a job is the learning curve. I am a kind of a
person who gets fascinated by the new idea and starts to research, relish and feel
the implementation of that new idea. Apart from that in a job I look for the kind of
people with whom I would working with because it will in turn affect my learning in the
organization. I believe that maximum learning happens during peer to peer interaction and thus
the kind of people with whom you work becomes important.

How your friends describe you?

My friends describe me as a really passionate, enthusiastic and a disciplined guy. It is

so because I do everything with equal enthusiasm be it academics, sports, PORs, internships,
extra currics, parties, hangouts, spiritual things and so on. They believe that I live the life to full
capacity and find meaning in whatever I do.

14. Whom do you admire most and why?

The person whom I admire most is Elon Musk. Firstly he realized his true interest
which was entrepreneurship and dropped out of PhD programme to pursue his passion.
Secondly the kind of ventures he undertook is remarkable be it SpaceX ,Tesla Motors or Solar
City. He is trying to solve a very important problem of human society which is
dependence on non renewable source of energy through his ventures Tesla Motors and Solar
City and thus the impact of his work on society is huge. He believes that nothing is
impossible in this world and even proves that through his actions.

15. Are you creative? Give me an example of your creativity?

Yes I am creative. During placements, we used to call HR of each company to inquire about
their logistics requirement, number of people visiting campus, ppt and test schedule and so
on. So I came up with an idea of making an exhaustive google doc so that we could have all the
information in one place and properly manage the logistics. The idea was appreciated by OPCs
and we were able to better manage the requirement of each company.

16. What are your hobbies?

My hobbies are learning life skills, writing articles, playing lawn tennis and squash. Life skills
basically include reading holy book, following life coaches and motivational speakers, reading
articles about health, leadership, productivity, entrepreneurship, developing some good habits
like jogging, drinking water on waking up, meditation and so on.
I was a blogger at AOL for a couple of years in which I wrote 39 blogs on IIT Kanpur which
received more than 6000 page views. After that I developed an interest for writing and now I
have around 300 notes in my evernote spread across 10 notebooks. I started playing tennis at
iitk and now play at an intermediate level.

17. What makes you stand out among your peers?

I think the one thing that differentiates me from my peers is my attitude towards
life. I remain positive in each and every situation and inspite of worrying about future or
cursing my destiny, I move on and work to rectify the situation because I believe that nothing is
permanent in this world. I have developed this attitude on following some of the life coaches
like robin sharma and sneh desai. Their lectures, quotes and ideas helps me to take decisions in
my day to day life and keeps me motivated towards achieving my goals.

18. What do you prefer hard work or a smart work?

I prefer smart work over hard work because in smart work we first think of the
best possible way of doing a task and then we go about doing it. This greatly saves
us time, money and energy. In hard work we keep on doing the same tasks for long hours and
in a similar manner. In some situations, smart work might not be possible like mastering sports,
painting, designing and so on and in that case we should do hard work.

19. Tell me a joke!

A German, an American, and a Mexican are traveling in the Amazon, and they get
captured.The head of the tribe says to the German, "What do you want on your back for
your whipping?"
The German responds, "I will take oil!"
So they put oil on his back, and a large Amazon whips him ten times.
When he is finished the German has these huge welts on his back, and he can hardly
move.The Amazons haul the German away, and say to the Mexican, "What do you want on
your back?"
"I will take nothing!"
says the Mexican, and he stands there straight and takes his ten lashings without a single
flinch."
What will you take on your back?"
the Amazons ask the American.
He responds, "I'll take the Mexican.

20. Why Consulting?

I want to start my career as a consultant because I believe that learning curve is very steep
in this industry. I'll get to solve some challenging real world problems on daily basis. I
would be interacting with clients who would mainly be owners and employees of some of
the large firms which will help me in developing my personality and my professional network.
Apart from that the impact of my work on society is huge since I am helping the firms in
becoming more efficient which in turn is good for the entire ecosystem.

2. Why Auctus?

I want to work at Auctus because its a growing management consulting firm, I believe that
there would be lot of opportunities for my growth in the firm. I would be given a huge
responsibility and would be expected to deliver maximum possible value since this will be
detrimental to our relations with the client and will directly impact our business. Apart from that
I am really excited to work in an environment
where I can collaborate with some of the great people from different educational and c
ultural backgrounds and can demonstrate my creativity, problem solving and analytical skills on
live projects. At _________, I think I will undergo a continuous learning process which will not o
nly help me in growing in the organization but also make me an important player in the industry
.

3. How is Auctus different from other consulting firms?

Auctus is purely a management consulting firm with focus on strategy. It is different from other
consulting firms in a way that it believes in becoming partner with the client rather than
just being the consultants. Auctus gets into the shoes of CXOs and believes in holding the hands
of client and guiding them through the rapidly changing business environment. It is ready to help
clients whenever and wherever they need it inspite of just taking up a 10-15 week engagement and
parting ways then.

4. Why are you a right fit for Consulting?

I am a right fit for consulting because of my passion towards solving business problems. I
started solving business problems from my intern at ReleaseMyAd after my sophomore year in
which I helped the firm in starting a new venture in association with Google India. I was like an
inhouse consultant to the firm. Then during my stint at SPO in my 3rd year, I was basically
doing sales by pitching companies and optimizing processes for maximizing the number of
students getting placed. Then I was part of a startup called doccit in which I and 4 of my
friends were trying to organize marketing representative sector in pharmaceutical industry. Then I
worked on another idea in which I was trying help people realize their interests and passion
by conducting some tests since it is the need of the hour and detrimental to growth of the nation.

5. You are prone to leave the firm and pursue entrepreneurship?

I have an entrepreneurial mind set . Currently I am looking for a job since I believe
that with my entrepreneurial mind set , I can reach greater heights in the organization . So till I
continue solving problems in the firm and keep learning and growing with the
organization, I won't look for any other option but If I feel that my growth has
stagnated and work is not challenging any more, I might look for some entrepreneurial
opportunity because I believe that I could be great at it.

6. Are you fine with travelling for work?

Yes, I am fine with travelling for work. I like travelling because of my love for exploring new places
and meeting new people from different societies and cultures.

7. What qualities does a consultant need ?

A consultant should love problem solving, be a good listener, be adaptable to

change, should like travelling, remain calm in difficult situations, should have
good communication skills and analytical skills, quick thinking and street
smartness. Apart from that she should be a good marketer since she has to continuously sell
herself and her firm to the client and get as many projects as possible. She should have the ability to
think from the client's perspective and deliver client friendly solutions. Ability to ask right
questions to get right data.

8. Difference between solving a case in an interview and solving a case in a

practical situation?
The most important difference is gathering data. In an interview I'll ask the data from my
interviewer, but in an actual case, I'll have to gather data from the client. In doing so I might have
to interview CXO's and other employees of the firm and ask them right questions to gather right
amount of data. In this process consultants have to face a lot of challenges like lack of support
from employees, anxiety among employees, some restrictions from management and so on. Then
consultants usually work in teams and brain storm on the ideas and hypothesis they have. This
adds multiple dimension to the case and the solution obtained is both client friendly and backed by
data.