I got a call from MS HR asking me to solve a case study ( A normal case study for consulting / MBA guys)and send them within 48 hours.He also asked my present CTC and told me to be happy with 10-15% hike.After submission & evaluating my slides, they asked me to fly to Bangalore during the weekend for further rounds. On Friday night, they kept an interaction session cum dinner.
This interaction session was just boasting & bragging session about the company. The management felt proud by working 24X7 and thought it to be some kind of achievement for the company. The folks were making the candidates feel that people in Mu Sigma are the only people engaged in some very hi-fi rocket science work & others are just warming their seats.
They perceived themselves as category defining company in spite of many other biggies in the same area with much better work culture & salary package. After excessive boasting for more that 4 hrs, they finally asked for dinner and it was 2230 in the watch.
From this session, I could make out that they were not exactly solving any business problems, they were actually into data analysis of the client at a very cheap fees.They do not have any expertise, they have just a bunch of statisticians who play with numbers and are engaged in menial work of large corporations and give some petty decision making capability at an operational level (Mind it, not at strategic level). I feel, there is not much for MBA guys into this company given their modus operandi for resolving any issues is 90 % Stats & 10 % through business principles (This was as said by them)
Next morning, we ( 21 called, 19 turned up) were supposed to be in the company at 0800 hrs for giving the presentation of the case study, only to be replaced by a pathetic aptitude test.
The next round was video synthesis test (2-3 min movie clip and jotting down the key "Take away") which they assumed it will reveal candidate's listening skills, writing skills ( I would suggest they should read the resume for testing this skill). Crap round- My takeaway :P
Next , Programming skill round, Question: Design a logical structure to calculate the number of small rectangles(different dimensions) that can be made to fit in a square of a particular size. Nice round, but dunno what they are looking exactly from Managers.
Group case study: Give solution to reduce traffic congestion. Messy round with no structure and proper evaluation.
The worst was yet to come, the creativity test. For a moment I thought I was here for an Ad campaign company.
In all these hours, someone was monitoring you and giving points on your activities, I doubt if those person even had that much time to see how I interacted with fellow incumbents.
Till this time , the hiring manager has not even looked at resume.
Now they have summed up your total marks, if the hiring manager likes you/ your resume/fit he will give you numbers to increase your overall total and probably hire you.
Now, even if you have good marks from the preceding rounds and the hiring manager views your resume and thinks you are not a good fit, he will dismally mark you in the interview rounds and makes sure you do not get the offer. Same thing happened with me, as I was marked pathetically in the interview round just because my experience was not relevant
(Contradictory to what they said in the interaction session that they are not bothered by the past experience). But nevertheless, the interview was awesome; the interviewer was intelligent and knowledgeable)
The good thing is that they let you know what your overall performance was and you can compare with your peers and can know at what marks they hired the candidate. So I was short of just 3 marks and as per my knowledge they hired 3-4 candidates out of 19.
My personal experience & judgement: This overall process is time consuming and useless. This entire process can be made lean by proper screening & selection of the right candidate for interview. Just by calling people from different background and not hiring them is just a waste & non value adding activity.
I think this is a mismanaged Lala company with no hiring sense.