CQ_Finforte | Nitika Shroff | JP Morgan Chase QR
Interviewer- Hello Nitika! This is Ashutosh, secretary at Communiqué, IIT Kharagpur. Heartiest congratulations from our side for securing your placement at JP Morgan. I’m pumped to be interviewing you, so shall we start with the interview?
Nitika- Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Interviewer- Could you please introduce yourself to our audience?
Nitika- Yeah, sure. Hi, I am Nitika, and I’m a final year undergrad student in the Mechanical Engineering Department. This placement season, I got placed at JP Morgan Chase in the quant profile.
Interviewer- Great! Would you like to brief us about the role that you have been assigned in the company?
Nitika- Yes. So, I will be joining JPMC as a Quantitative Research Analyst. My role here at JP Morgan doesn’t revolve around finance. It’s mostly related to programming, probability & statistics.
Interviewer- That was nice. Could you share some insights about the recruitment process and some advice that will prove helpful to the aspirants of this profile?
Nitika- The process involved applying through the ERP portal and also on the company’s website. Then, there was an online test that had two sections. The first section was the quant section, having 30 questions based on expectations, probability, and puzzles. It penalized for wrong answers. The second section was the coding section, it had two coding questions of moderate difficulty. Four rounds of interviews were conducted for this profile. The first three were technical rounds and the last one was the HR round. The questions asked in the technical rounds revolved around the concepts of graphs, dynamic programming, probability and puzzles. Aspirants who are aiming for this profile should have a strong background in programming and a strong hand over quants, probability & statistics problems. Some books that I used to practice from are — Heard on the Street, 50 Challenging Problems on Probability, Xinfeng.
Interviewer- How did you prepare for the rounds once you were shortlisted?
Nitika- The shortlist came out, two to three days before day one, the day interviews were to be conducted. After the shortlist was out, a session was held for all the shortlisted students where they told us about the kind of questions that we can expect in the interviews, the topics that they’ll be assessing us on and they also spoke a bit about the role. I talked to the seniors who were already placed in the company in the previous years to gain more insights about the interview rounds. After this, I brushed up on probability & statistics questions, puzzles, coding questions and also the concepts related to object-oriented programming. I gave a few mock interviews to some of my seniors. It helped me a ton during the interviews. It is very important to manage your time during this short period. One has to be prepared beforehand for the placements. There’s not much time to prepare all of it in these two or three days. You should have things at the back of your mind. That is just the revision period. One should make short notes and just go over them during this time.
Interviewer- That was a very insightful answer. How do pre-final year students maximize their chances, and what resources and suggestions would you like to give to them?
Nitika- For someone specifically targeting this profile, they should start practicing coding questions from online platforms like Leetcode & InterviewBit. I started practicing quant problems around September. So, if someone is targeting a software profile, they should start coding early to get a hold of it. It will come in handy during the test and interviews. Quant problems are basically that of CAT-level, even a bit easier than that. It’s just about the time crunch and quick math practice can help. These are the few things which can help during the exams. For the interviews, one should be well versed with the things mentioned in their CV. The interviewer can get hold of any technical word and start asking questions on that. After shortlisting, there’s not much time left for preparation and sometimes people tend to miss out on the HR and CV preparation so it’s important to prepare for everything beforehand and not wait until the last moment.
Interviewer- Any courses in KGP or any MOOCs that would help in the preparation for this profile.?
Nitika- Probability & statistics course offered by the Math department helped me a lot. For coding, one has to practice on it’s own with the help of online resources like GFG, company wise problems, etc. PDS is very basic, so doing only that won’t be sufficient. Some online platforms are providing coding classes and one can also join those. Otherwise, you’re always free to learn it on your own.
Interviewer- What do you think is the role of PORs for your profiles? Did they come in handy during the placements?
Nitika- Yeah. It’s helpful in the HR round. Once you have cleared the three technical rounds, they know that you have the technical skills required. In the HR round, they check if you are suitable for the company. For example, the questions they asked me were “What do your teammates think about you?”, “List some of your students and weaknesses.”. Along with these, they can ask situation-based questions. One can prepare for such questions beforehand.
Interviewer- Could you please tell us what internships you had done? How did they help you during the placements?
Nitika- At the end of my third year, I did an internship at Vedanta, which was a core intern. Before that, I did one research internship in my second year, at IIM Ahmedabad and had done one software development internship. The core internships did not help me much for this specific profile because I was not targeting core. During the interview process, they ask you to introduce yourself and you can talk about the relevant internships. It will help create a good impression of you on the interviewers. They were really impressed by one of my research projects and this helped in building up a good conversation.
Interviewer- Any general advice or anything that you would like to share with your juniors & the readers?
Nitika- Placements can be a very tiring process. You need to keep your calm and prepare from the beginning itself so that you don’t have to face any kind of obstacles or issues due to lack of time. You should practice with your peers, stay in constant touch with your friends, and keep motivating one another. You will have a lot of tests during this time and you will not have much time to study during that time so start preparing beforehand. Be thorough with your CV, stay calm and patient during the placement process. You should always take help from your seniors. They have gone through the process and have sat for those companies and they can help a lot. You should also do mock interviews with some people because practicing beforehand is always an advantage. The key is to stay patient and not give up.
Interviewer- Thank you very much Nitika for taking out time from your busy schedule and I hope all the information and knowledge that you have given here, would prove to be very helpful for our readers.
