S and p global interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

Data Analyst

S and p global
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2 rounds | 16 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
I started my journey by getting admission to DTU. After exploring different courses and training programs, I finally decided to start learning about data analysis. For this, I took a course from Coding Ninjas. The course helped me create some great projects, which played a significant role in helping me secure an internship at Unified Mentors.
Application story
S&P Global arrived on campus to hire candidates. The application process was very simple. They provided us with a website where we had to apply for the job. After that, our resumes went for screening and shortlisting. After 2-3 days, I received an email from Avalon Consultancy stating that I had been shortlisted for an onsite interview.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I was not able to clear the second round because the interviewer went very deep into data structures, and I only have basic knowledge of DSA. Also, I don't have any real-life project experience.
Preparation
Duration: 1 month
Topics: Basic concepts of Python, Machine Learning, SQL, Excel, Tableau, and Power BI
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Practice basic coding questions, such as writing a program to generate the table of 5.
Tip 2: Practice SQL query questions.
Tip 3: Learn Excel, from basic to advanced.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7.5 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Add at least 2 projects. 

Tip 2: Don't include irrelevant information in the resume. 

Tip 3: The resume should be clean and concise.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Face to Face
Duration45 minutes
Interview date11 Dec 2024
Coding problem7

In this round the examiner ask me questions from my resume. He had given me 1 basic coding questions to solve, and given some SQL query questions to solve. Also he ask me questions from excel and questions from projects.

1. Check If The String Is A Palindrome

Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SprinklrCIS - Cyber InfrastructureSamsung

You are given a string 'S'. Your task is to check whether the string is palindrome or not. For checking palindrome, consider alphabets and numbers only and ignore the symbols and whitespaces.

Note :

String 'S' is NOT case sensitive.

Example :

Let S = “c1 O$d@eeD o1c”.
If we ignore the special characters, whitespaces and convert all uppercase letters to lowercase, we get S = “c1odeedo1c”, which is a palindrome. Hence, the given string is also a palindrome.
Problem approach

Create two utility functions to get the first and last positions of characters present in the string.

Start traversing the string and keep finding the positions of the first and last characters during each iteration.

If the first and last characters are the same for every iteration and the string is completely traversed, print 'YES'. Otherwise, print 'NO'.

Try solving now

2. DBMS

Write an SQL query to get the current date.

3. DBMS

Write an SQL query to create a new table that contains both the data and structure copied from another table.

4. DBMS

Write an SQL query to find all the employees whose salary is between 50,000 and 100,000.

5. Puzzle

How to Freeze the Top Row and First Column in Excel?

6. Technical Question

What is conditional formatting in Excel?

7. Project Question

Which process do you use to clean unwanted data from a large dataset?

02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration60 minutes
Interview date23 Dec 2024
Coding problem9

In this round, the interviewer asked me two medium-level coding questions. He also asked me questions about machine learning, DBMS, Excel, and Power BI.

1. Set Matrix Zeros

Easy
30m average time
65% success
0/40
Asked in companies
AmazonDunzoGoldman Sachs

You are given an N x M integer matrix. Your task is to modify this matrix in place so that if any cell contains the value 0, then all cells in the same row and column as that cell should also be set to 0.

Requirements:

  • If a cell in the matrix has the value 0, set all other cells in that cell's row and column to 0.
  • You should perform this modification in place (without using additional matrices).

You must do it in place.

For Example:

If the given grid is this:
[7, 19, 3]
[4, 21, 0]

Then the modified grid will be:
[7, 19, 0]
[0, 0,  0]
Problem approach

The idea is to maintain two additional arrays, say rows[] and cols[], to store the rows and columns that contain at least one element equal to 0. First, traverse the entire matrix, and for each mat[i][j] = 0, mark rows[i] = true and cols[j] = true. In the second traversal, for each cell (i, j), if either rows[i] or cols[j] is marked as true, update mat[i][j] = 0; otherwise, continue to the next cell.

Try solving now

2. Tower of Hanoi

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
AppleFacebookLinkedIn

You are given three rods (numbered 1 to 3), and ‘N’ disks initially placed on the first rod, one on top of each other in increasing order of size ( the largest disk is at the bottom). You are supposed to move the ‘N’ disks to another rod(either rod 2 or rod 3) using the following rules and in less than 2 ^ (N) moves.

1. You can only move one disk in one move. 
2. You can not place a larger disk on top of a smaller disk.
3. You can only move the disk at the top of any rod.    
Note :
You may assume that initially, the size of the ‘i’th disk from the top of the stack is equal to ‘i’, i.e. the disk at the bottom has size ‘N’, the disk above that has size ‘N - 1’, and so on. The disk at the top has size 1.
Example :

Example

Problem approach

The idea is to use the helper node to reach the destination using recursion. Below is the pattern for this problem:

  1. Shift ‘N-1’ disks from ‘A’ to ‘B’, using ‘C’.
  2. Shift the last disk from ‘A’ to ‘C’.
  3. Shift ‘N-1’ disks from ‘B’ to ‘C’, using ‘A’.
Try solving now

3. DBMS

What is the order of appearance of the common clauses in a SELECT query?

4. DBMS

Write an SQL query to retrieve the last N rows from the SQL table.

5. Technical Question

What is dictionary comprehension? Give an example.

6. Python

How do you differentiate between a List and a Tuple? (Learn)
What is a docstring in Python? (Learn)

7. Technical Question

Why can't we use linear regression for a classification task? (Learn)

8. Machine Learning

What are some of the hyperparameters of the Random Forest Regressor that help avoid overfitting?

9. Machine Learning

Explain some methods for handling missing values in that data. (Learn)

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

What is recursion?

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