CQ_DataCrux | Anant Bhavsar | Wells Fargo
Interviewer: Hello Anant! I am Sindhi Vishal from communiqué. First of all, a big congratulations on making it into Wells Fargo. Please tell us about the general interview process for the companies you interviewed? Please mention the number of rounds and the nature of the interview process.
Anant: I interviewed for Wells Fargo, Citibank, and Walmart. So in Wells Fargo, there was one technical round for around 1 hour and 1 HR round. In Citibank, there was 1 technical round but I was unable to clear that, So I have no idea about further rounds and in Walmart, there were 2 technical rounds after which I was rejected.
So, in Wells Fargo, the questions were not as difficult as compared to Citibank. There were guesstimate questions in Citibank, and in Walmart, one coding question was asked. And they were of moderate difficulty.
Interviewer: Could you please list down questions you were asked in the different rounds? Puzzles, HR questions, any other discussion in general that you think will prove to be helpful for students.
Anant: In all the interviews I was grilled on my CV and my projects and internship that I had done in ML and NLP. Other than that, there were Probability and statistics questions that were asked. In Walmart, a coding question was there, which was based on scheduling. In Wells Fargo, I was given figures based on the number of passengers travelling through business and economy class of particular airlines, during some period. So, based on those figures, I was asked some questions like why there was a drop in the number of passengers travelling through business class and some quantitative questions based on that. Also, I was not asked any kind of puzzles, most questions were based on probability and hypothesis testing and questions based on ML models that I used in my Projects and Internship.
Interviewer: What are the things that a pre-final year student can do to maximize their chances of getting through a company in analytics?
Anant: For the pre-final year students, I would suggest that for an analytics profile, you must try getting some projects and internships related to ML/DL on your CV. Also, I would suggest that, Don’t neglect coding at all, because many companies ask coding questions in their test, which is important to go through the interview. So, you should continue with the coding and have command over Data structures and Algorithms, and have some courses related to ML/DL on your CV.
Interviewer: Which would you emphasize, more for an analytics profile? FT or Internship??
Anant: I would say, Internships have a better edge as compared to FT, because if you are doing FT then companies might think that you are inclined towards the research part and companies want the implementation part. So it is better to have some internships or else you can also do some self-projects. I personally don’t have any self-projects but I mentioned all the course projects that were in the courses which I took. They were helpful as I was asked many questions related to them.
Interviewer: Can you suggest some strategies and resources that can be helpful for the preparation?
Anant: I watched the TedX puzzles on YouTube and for the aptitude test, I practiced from the Pariksha app. Other than that, I looked for the common ML questions that were generally asked in the interviews and I did coding from the Interview Bit. Also, you should prepare for Probability and statistics as they will mainly grill you on these things only, so you should have a strong command of that.
Interviewer: What content in the CV can make it stand apart from the general public?
Anant: Mainly, you should have the projects/Internships related to ML/DL, then there should be some courses mentioned there like Machine Learning foundations and applications, Deep Learning foundations and applications, and also the projects that were there in those courses. Basically, all the standard courses that everybody takes and mainly it all depends on the projects/Internship that you have mentioned in your CV.
Interviewer: How did you prepare for the rounds involved once you were shortlisted?
Anant: First of all, I just went through my resume and I prepared some questions which I thought that these questions can be asked based on my resume. Other than that, I read about the company, which is important for the HR round, like the founder and locations, etc. After that, I just looked at some of the common HR interview questions that are generally asked.
Interviewer: What are some of the Frequently Asked Questions in the companies that you faced and think students must prepare for? More specifically, in the context of HR rounds.
Anant: The most asked questions would be the weaknesses and strengths. Other than that, one was like How are you going to prepare yourself for joining the corporate world. Basically in the HR round, they just have a general discussion with you, they just want to know about you. You don’t need to prepare much about the HR round, you can just focus on the technical rounds. No technical questions were asked in HR rounds.
Interviewer: Anything else that you’d want to share with the students?
Anant: When your Internships are over, you should not wait for PPO, just start your preparations as soon as the internships are over. That is the mistake that most of the students make and they don’t prepare really well. For an analytics profile, Probability and statistics are the must, it will be asked in all the interviews. You should know each and every word which you write on your resume, and you should not fake in your resume. Also, You should apply in those companies only, in which you are willing to go otherwise you will get exhausted in giving the continuous tests one after the other.
Interviewer: Thank you so much Anant for your time. It’ll surely be very helpful for all of the KGP junta preparing for analytics profiles. Thanks a lot for giving this interview to Communiqué IIT Kharagpur and we wish you all the very best for all your future endeavours.
