Identidad visual

Name Vikas Pavankumar

Name of company interviewing with Siemens Management Consulting Name and designation of the

interviewer

Stephen – VP – SMC/India Office Head Interview round (first/second/third) First

Personal interview questions (please write the questions only)

The interview revolved around PI

A large number of generic questions such as Why Consulting? Why SMC?

About yourself?

A large part of my interviewed revolved around Stephen discussing one of my projects that I had mentioned on my resume

The fag end of the interview was questions that I had about Siemens Management Consulting and my view on certain business units of Siemens. He also discussed about his experience of consulting Siemens businesses in India versus in Germany

Comments on the PI rounds (please elaborate on what went right and what could have been done better)

It is very important to have your story in place. It will help you answer important questions such as Why SMC and Consulting?

Especially for Siemens the importance on personal interview is extremely high since they evaluate candidates on the cultural fit since eventually a candidate is expected to move to a Siemens Business

Case question (as narrated by the interviewer)

No Case How did you define the scope of the

case

Case Analysis presented by you Final recommendation / summary What do you think went right while solving the case?

What do you think could have been done better while solving the case?

Outcome of the interview (optional) Selected for Round 2

Name Vikas Pavankumar

Name of company interviewing with Siemens Management Consulting Name and designation of the

interviewer

Nishant Gupta – Consultant Interview round (first/second/third) Second

Personal interview questions (please write the questions only)

The interview revolved around PI

A large number of generic questions such as

120

Why Consulting? Why SMC?

About yourself?

Whether you had a conflict with a top management in your previous organization? How did you deal with it? What if a similar situation were to happen with you at Siemens how would you deal with it?

Also asked me to run through a project that I felt was the most exciting to me?

Comments on the PI rounds (please elaborate on what went right and what could have been done better)

Again at Siemens the importance on personal interview is extremely high since they evaluate candidates on the cultural fit hence it is extremely important to have a strong grip on your story

Case question (as narrated by the interviewer)

Role Play How did you define the scope of the

case

Case Analysis presented by you

Final recommendation / summary Try to play the situation when you are in a role play Always maintain a few important traits

 Honesty

 Analytical and off the feet thinking

 Communication Skill

 Presentation skill What do you think went right while

solving the case?

What do you think could have been done better while solving the case?

Outcome of the interview (optional)

Name Kushal Patwardhan

Name of company interviewing with Siemens Management Consulting Name and designation of the

interviewer

Apeksha Khadelwal (senior Consultant) Interview round (first/second/third) First

Personal interview questions (please

 Three words your friends would use to describe you

 Tell me something that is not on your resume

 Why Consulting?

 Why SMC?

 Hobbies Comments on the PI rounds (please

elaborate on what went right and what could have been done better)

It was an extensive PI (Close to 40 mins) . This interview was a month before day 1 so I had not prepped for PI too well. Except 'Why SMC?' which I was able to answer very well

121 Case question (as narrated by the

interviewer)

CEO of Siemens India wants to reduce accidents happening on sites

How did you define the scope of the case

Asked what constitutes an accident - any work related human injury

What sites- Mainly power plant, turbine etc project sites Limited to employees? - Yes

Case Analysis presented by you I laid out a structure that No. of accidents = No. of risky situations X No. of humans exposed X % likelihood of injury We can look at each aspect and identify opportunities to improve.

1. No. of risky situations - can reduce by better equipment, better planning, better reporting of risks ,etc

2. No. of humans exposed - We can try to keep employees away from the risky situations by using more automation, etc

3. % likelihood of injury - This further depends on following factors

%risky behavior X % use of preventive equipment

We can focus on improving risky behavior with safety training We can increase use of PPE (personal preventive equipment) by increasing awareness and rules mandating use of PPE

Apeksha said these are all correct approaches however what is required to achieve all this at a higher level?

I answered these changes need to be driven from top level as a cultural change . 'Safety first'

a. Incentivize and mandate risk reporting

b. Empower employees to prevent a risky situation even if it means lost time and revenue.

She said that's exactly what SMC recommended.

She then showed me a graph showing no. of accidents

0 5 10 15 20 25

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

122

Y-axis representing no. of accidents and X axis months after implementation of SMC recommendation

The accidents started going up after SMC's recommendation was implemented. Why?

I answered, initially the actual reporting of accidents was probably low, so the initial increase just indicates higher % of accidents actually reported. Then eventually once the reporting

% stabilized the no. of accidents started going down.

Next she asked me, CEO wants to buy safety vests for 10,000 employees. How many vests he should buy?

I asked clarifying questions about types of employees (80%

workers 20% officers) Do they work in shifts (No, all work in same shift) How many sites (100 sites avg 200 employees) So I said the workers work simultaneously at all sites in same shift so we need 1 vest for each worker. = 10,000*80%*1= 8000 Officers probably don't use it all the time so we don't need to buy 2000 vests.

Here I could not really figure out how to solve it but she ended the case and asked if I had any questions for her

Final recommendation / summary Incentivize risk identification and safe behavior, empower employees to prevent an accident at the expense of work stoppage

What do you think went right while solving the case?

For part1: I got the feedback that structure was very good and recommendations were also good.

What do you think could have been done better while solving the case?

Part 1: I sometimes went too much into detailed recommendation for preventing certain types of accidents and Interviewer had to pull me back up to the big picture level.

For part 2 (guesstimate): I couldn't solve the last part (which required use of little's law) .

Outcome of the interview (optional) Shortlisted for next round in Mumbai Office

123