Company: Impetus Turnomatics Pvt. Ltd.
Profile: Sales Engineer
Salary: 2.5 LPA
Place: VVP Engineering College Rajkot
Number of Rounds: 4
Result: Selected
Job Application process
I applied for the position of sales engineer at Impetus through my college’s placement office. It was a campus drive, so the entire batch applied in bulk. Job location was Rajkot which was the primary reason why I wanted to apply. The company is currently India’s largest merchant exporter of electrical fittings, refractory equipment, industrial transmission, pumps, valves, and pipe fittings.
Job Interview Rounds
We faced 4 rounds in this campus drive, namely:
Aptitude Test – Aptitude contained questions dealing with Number series, profit loss, percentage, work and time, direction test, coding-decoding, alphanumeric questions etc.
Technical Test – The technical section has questions about thermal science, material science, production techniques, the mechanics of solids etc.
Group Discussion – There were 2 GDs, and the topics were India versus China and Demonetization respectively.
HR Round – The last and final round was a personal interview with the HR.
My entry:
It was scheduled for 8:00 AM sharp. Students from Mechanical and Electrical Engineering departments were only permitted to appear for this interview. I reached the spot three minutes late and in fact, I was the last one to arrive. I asked for their permission to enter and in no time, I was given a non-verbal nod from one of the presenters as an approval to enter.
I scurried to a vacant seat in the last row and stationed myself as quietly as possible there. I found two pairs of eyes gazing at me from a distance. It was the company’s owner, Mr. Grinij and his wife. They did not look happy about my late arrival. All of a sudden, they passed me a soothing smile. What did that mean? I wondered.
Leaving that ‘Ten Seconds Section’ aside, I concentrated upon the words of the presenter, a young man in his late twenties, dressed in a crisp business suit. He had a very dynamic personality and continued discussing the company’s profile, key persons, products, and services.
The pre-placement talk
: The slide was titled ‘Our Core Values’ and five points were enlisted under that heading in the bold red font. He requested if anyone could read them aloud for him. A wave of complete silence flooded the room as if someone had just passed away! No one spoke up or raised their hands, I don’t know why! But I knew it was my chance to make the first move and become the ‘Red cherry on the cake’. I only wanted to compensate for my late coming.
Being an extrovert, situations like this always seem easy to me. I threw my hand up with full enthusiasm and heard “Yes, the gentleman over there, please read it aloud”. All of a sudden, I became the center of attraction. Everyone was staring me with their eyes wide open. I stood up and read the points as loudly as possible in fluent English and waited for a signal to be seated.
The founder’s words of wisdom:
Surprisingly, Mr. Grinij stood up to address the gathering. With a tone of sheer dissatisfaction, he began, “What’s wrong with you people? You are here to get hired for a sales profile and you can’t even read out such short content amidst your own friends! How am I supposed to entrust you with selling electrical equipment in such an enormously huge market? You all need to learn to take initiatives and develop leadership skills. What’s your name boy”? “Harsh. Harsh Cholera, sir”, I answered. He appreciated me and told me to sit down. He was impressed and it was no surprise to me. The presentation lasted for twenty more minutes and became more interactive after the eye-opener by Mr. Grinij.
Q&A at the end of induction:
In the end, they answered a few of our questions to clarify some confusions. Seventy shortlisted candidates were then divided into groups and the group that I belonged to had two extra candidates. We were instructed on how to conduct ourselves and then we were requested to reach the conference room in designated groups.
When group 1 was summoned, nineteen of us entered the room. We were 9 mechanical engineering boys, 7 electrical engineering boys and 3 electrical engineering girls. The room was pre-occupied by four people, the interviewers. We took our seats and waited for further instructions.
Mr. Devang broke the silence and began, “we will be conducting two rounds of GD, seven minutes each. For the first round, you are free to use either Hindi or English but the medium of debate for the second round should be English only”. I was as happy as a lark during the first round because I knew that English was one of my strengths.
GD rounds 1 and 2:
“India vs China. This is your first topic. You have two minutes to think. Your time starts now”. Everyone hurried up like a metro train, fetching their pen and paper to make notes to jump-start the discussion. But I believe chaos leads you to lose your calm. I could serve for no more than 2+7 minutes to emboss everyone else. I noted down a few points, yet the most effective ones which can serve as missiles against an unarmed army.
With a signal from Mr. Devang, the GD began. “China and India, two of the largest populated countries are developing countries where population explosion, poverty, and pollution are major issues”, began Virut, a boy from the electrical department. “Looking at the current development, it can be observed that China is dominating over India in terms of technological advancements”, Rakshit, another guy from the electrical department added. Shrushti, a girl from the same department shared her views on the quality and competitive rates of Chinese products. Two minutes were already gone. The boys from my department we literally tongue-tied and I felt really bad about that. Out of nowhere, Hardik struck a statement about showing a comparison between Indian and Chinese products and entered the discussion on behalf of our department. Three minutes were over. One by one, everyone started presenting their point of views and unknowingly, they amended the topic from ‘India vs China’ to ‘Indian products vs Chinese products’. I kept silence and listened to their off-track points.
Mr. Grinij was looking at me anxiously and it clearly indicated that he was expecting me to speak up. Four minutes were gone and then it was my turn to explode. Finding a second of silence, I began, “Hey buddies, What’s all this fuss about? Why are you getting off the track? Our topic has got amended you see!” All four interviewers nodded their head and exchanged looks about the genuineness of my point. I continued, “India and China are alike and different in many aspects. We can talk about their cultures, their economies, their ruling conditions, their climates and many more interesting aspects rather than criticizing the quality of Chinese products and be ranting about higher production prices of Indian products”. I presented some statistical data that I recollected. In the midst of their irrelevant arguments, I conquered those last three minutes and dominated like a boss leaving everyone dumbstruck. The second round commenced and it too ended up with me being the terminator. Mr. Grinij’ s expression of ‘I want this guy’ after the first round seemed to have converted into ‘I need this guy’ after the second round.
My result:
Even before the results were out, I was sure that I will make it to the next round. Results were out and as per my forecast, I made it into the next round along with fourteen other candidates.
The written test was a ‘Nightmare’ for me and now it was only a few minutes away. I knew that if I cleared the test, PI was no big deal. I was not so confident about the technical section. The test comprised of twenty questions of which ten were technical and the remaining ten were aptitude.
Time provided was only fifteen minutes. Both sections were mediocre and less likely to mitigate my morale. I was confident that I will score at least 50%, i.e. 10/20. Results were displayed and my eyes went wide open as if a UFO had landed in front of me. I had secured 14/20, the highest among all candidates in my department.
My score led me to the personal interview round. My name was called out first. I entered with a broad smile on my face. “Oh, Mr. Harsh. You deserved to be here. You scored the highest. Please have a seat”, Mr. Devang welcomed me. I thanked him for the compliment and took my seat. They began with very common interview questions like “Tell me about yourself”, “What are your strengths and weaknesses”, etc.
I comfortably answered those questions. It was a kind of conversation rather an interview. They gently asked me questions and patiently listened to my answers. In short, it went the way I had expected it to be. I left the room saying, “Thank you so much, thank you very much” as a cheesy closure. Within half an hour, two e-mails popped up on my phone screen, one from my college placement cell and other from the HR department of the recruiting company disclosing that I had been successfully selected.
Till date, I cherish this memory of ‘My First Job Interview’.
Interview questions I faced in the HR round and how I answered them
Almost all the questions were normal and commonly asked ones. I expected these questions and faced them happily. Some questions I faced were:
Introduce yourself
I started my answer with a brief description of my family and educational qualifications. Then I finished my answer like this, “Being a fresher, I have not worked in a corporate environment yet. But I have been an active member of the college placement cell. During that time, I picked up some great PR skills. I am also a tech savvy person and I am very much into different software platforms and systems. I am keen about pushing my career to the next level. I seriously want to become a full-time employee of an organization such as yours and add value to your team”
Why should we hire you?
I answered like this, “I am not as experienced as your full-time employees. But this job role is pretty much like my dream assignment. I have been trying to crack open an opportunity where I can work my way up in this domain. Today, I feel my job search might come to an end as my skills meet your requirements. Besides, I really respect the CEO of this company as he is a philanthropist as well as a revolutionary figure in his/her domain. This will be a great chance for me or anybody else to work under him.”
Where do you see yourself after 5 years
This is how I tackled this question, “It’s too early to predict where I will be or what I might become after 5 years from today. But I do have a rough idea which I would like to implement. If I get an offer today, I surely see myself as one of the support pillars for the IT team here. If not, I project my skills will pave way for me as a leader in this domain itself, in some other organization.”
My tips for a placement interview with Impetus
In the written test, remember that there is a common approach in both tests. Scan the paper thoroughly and solve the easy ones first. If a tough one comes up in middle, skip it and move on to the next one. Don’t let tough questions break your morale. Attempt them only after you are done with all the easy ones. And yes. Remember that easy questions, and your strengths are the best ways to score.
The first and foremost rule I would advise you to stick to is to be honest. Don’t pretend. Try to see the interviewers as friends. This will keep you motivated. Answer questions as per your perspective and not on the basis of what you have randomly read online. Same answers don’t work in every situation. If you don’t know any answer, be honest and accept that you don’t know it rather than fooling them. Wear proper clothing and groom up properly and hold a broad smile on face and you’ll be most likely to crack it.
Never ever be submissive, that was my thumb rule. Don’t hit blunders. Speak what you know exactly and whatever is fact. Try noting down relevant points, recall as many things as you can relate to the topic before the interview starts. And do speak up or you’ll be thrown out of the league.
All the best!