Tell us about yourself *

I am from Bhilai, Chattisgarh and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering

from IIT Roorkee. My first job was a 22-month stint/period at Tata
Motors of which one year was in Sales where I was/had to increase the
sales of vehicle "Winger" through replacement and I was successfully
able to increase sales with 166% growth.
After that in my 10 months in operations, I handled maintenance of
assembly shop which rolls out 2700 vehicles monthly i.e. a business of
around 1600+ cr in a year. And I saved 20 cr yearly (by reducing the
mean time to repair and increasing Mean time between failures). I was
also responsible for the implementation of a new assembly line and
rolling out of the first 100 new TATA ACE Intra.
Currently, I am pursuing MBA in Marketing from IIM Udaipur with an
inclination towards Consumer behaviour and Sales distribution.
In my summer internship, I interned with ConnectOSH where I was
responsible for executing digital marketing campaign and creating
marketing strategy around it.
At college, I am a part of International relations committee where I am
responsible for facilitating student exchange process.

Why are you doing MBA? *

I worked for 22 months in Tata Motors and 1 year out of that was as a
Territory Sales Manager. I had to travel a lot and meet with dealers,
professionals and customers as well. I also had to execute various
ground level activities like customer meets, product launch and
activities in north-east India .As I went along I found that I like
meeting new people and organizing events. I eventually realized that I
was good at interacting with people. This really got me interested in
sales and marketing. However I also realised the guys I used to interact
had much better understanding of business than me. And hence, I
decided to pursue MBA.
Why have you chosen the above specialization? *

I have chosen an MBA in marketing because I found that In my

previous job working in sales and marketing, I developed an interest
and started liking sales. I like to interact with people. And I received
feedback about our product, namely, the things customers are looking
for, what they want or the kind of perspective they have. My
experience that after in production showed that lack of customer
interaction leaves the lacuna in customer interaction that I felt could
only be filled up by an MBA in marketing.
If you have worked before, tell us about your work experience *

The sum total of my work experience in Tata Motors stretched across

22 months. For the first year I worked in sales where I was handling
three dealers of North-east. I was responsible for increasing the sales of
Tata Winger and there I worked on the 2P’s of marketing i.e. place and
promotion for TATA Winger like trials, customer meet and Ek din ka
malik. And I also made the plans of execution of these activities. This
resulted in my successfully increasing the sales to 166 percent.
There after I worked in operations as a senior manager. On the
operations side I handled the maintenance of the assembly shop. In that
shop, the roll out of vehicles per month was 2700, the revenue from
which was around 1400cr per month. In the first 10 months I was
actually able to bring the reduced Mean time for repair down by 11.11%
and increased Mean time between failures to 3%. And I saved 6 cr . I
was also responsible for the implementation of a new assembly line and
rolling out of the first 100 new TATA ACE Intra.
Tell us about your Summer Internship *
During my summer internship, I was able to acquire 6000 plus
customers from the industry domain and before that, the company had
only 10000 customers. So through my marketing skills, I increased the
customer base by more than half within the period of my two-month
internship. And the customers we were targeting, they were from the
industry in manufacturing industries, health industries, safety industries
but mainly the safety industry. So my recommendation for the
company was that they should focus on the safety and HR
professionals. Because the digital marketing campaign we ran had the
best response from these two segments. So that's why I think
companies should focus on them for the short term, they have to stick
to those people and invest and they should be the priority. I also found
some new opportunities in the discovery that safety and HR
professionals have a real need for the products. So I think that is the
opportunity they should be looking for in their short term goals and the
channels they should target.
I have interned in ConnectOSH as a digital marketer. There I did the
first digital marketing campaign for that company. And in the
marketing campaign, our goal was to acquire new users through a
campaign. At the start of the internship, I analyzed the data of 10,000
users which company had and segmented the audience to target and the
choice of content and channel accordingly. We kept improving the
strategy which had worked well for us. So I reanalyzed all that and on
that basis a lot of hit and trials were done. Consequently, at the end of
the internship, I was able to generate 6000 plus customers within two
months of my internship. And my recommendation for the company
was that they should focus on the safety professional as well as HR
professionals as they are the ones whose response was better (click
through rate were 11% more than average users) in comparison to other
customers.
Where do you see yourself in your career 10 years from now? *

10 or 15 years is a long time to visualize but what I am clear about is

the next 3 years. I see myself managing a marketing team in a certain
territory for the company. Working to a very high standard and
hopefully gained promotion and advancement.
Being respected by my work colleagues and supervisors is very
important to me, so I would expect to be a trusted and reliable member
of the organization within that time.
What are your strengths? *

Strength:-
Accountability & Responsibility- In my previous operations role, I
was given the task of increasing the sales of winger. I was very new to
the team, but my boss has given me sole responsibility of the target to
be reached, and my task was to increase the sales of the Winger in
different parts of the Manipur.
Every first day of the month I made the plan, and allocated budgets for
promotional activities to increase sales. And I also used some of the
excel tools like regression modeling to analyze the optimum utilization
of the budget allocated to specific areas. According to that I have
planned and visited and carried out the ground related activities.
And because of that, I was successfully able to increase the sales with
166 percent growth.
Analytical ability- There was a time in my sales job when we
generated a significant number of customer pipelines, but we were not
able to control the loss of sales.
I had to figure out the problem and how to overcome it.
By applying pareto tool I found that most of our customer meets and
demos were more focused on generating the leads but their conversion
was low. We were focusing more on generating customer pipeline but
we were not focusing on live deal visibility and customer conversion.
So I propose a solution to the problem and suggested to the boss and
team that they increase the number of fuel trial and Ek din ka malik
activities with the customers who are in live deal visibility of
competitors.
These type of activities help customers to test the product on their roads
for a day. We had increased these activities which had resulted in high
growth of sales in FY 18.

Impact & Convince - In my sales job, I got a lead of an Arunachal

Pradesh school with a requirement of initially 1 van. And then the
principal provisionally confirmed 3 more Vans for the other branches,
if they liked the product. The dealer sales manager subsequently told
me that they didn’t have stock of school winger but they wanted to
clear old stock and not take unnecessary risk.
I later told the GM about the potential of this customer and long-term
benefits as the school’s 3 branches were planning to integrate
transportation for children’s safety. I convinced the GM of the dealer to
stock the school variant of winger and bill them to that school.
The very next month GM confirmed me on phone that school principal
was satisfied with school winger and booked 3 more wingers for the
subsequent month.

Ambition- I had a great passion for singing, ever since college.

Thought that I had a good tenor voice. I practiced a lot, I auditioned
But, reality did hit me hard when I gave an audition for a vocalist in
IITR music section.
So, after that incident, I took online vocal lessons. But wanted for the
progress which would cost me money so when I got my first salary. I
hired a personal vocal coach who would rectified my mistakes and help
me in adopting good vocal habits.
Meanwhile, I was searching for a stage. As my sales job took me
travelling all over the north east. Meeting with dealers, customers and
strangers in particular. and Somehow, I ended up in the church. There, I
joined a band as a Lead Vocalist in AG Church, Guwahati.
Explain any failure of yours and how you recovered *

1) When I first started work in my previous role, the manager gave me

a task to complete that involved carrying out a stock check of all spare
parts that we had available.
In my haste to do a good job, I failed to listen to his brief properly and I
ended up including items in the stock check that I should’ve excluded.
As soon as I noticed my error, I informed my manager and I explained
to him the reason why I had made the mistake. I then went away and
put things right.
I learnt a lot from that situation, especially with respect to making sure
I took notes when a brief was given to me. If I ever do fail at
something, I will admit to it before putting things right and making sure
I learn from the experience, so it does not happen again.

2) SITUATION: When I first started work in my sales role, my

manager asked me to book a conference room for an important meeting
he had with stakeholders.
TASK: It was my responsibility to check that the hotel had all the
facilities needed and that it was in the right location to meet my
manager’s needs.
ACTION: Unfortunately, after I had booked the conference room, I
realized there was no parking, and I could not get a refund. This meant
the meeting attendees had to park a 5-minute walk away from the
venue. This was a bad decision on my part because I had failed to
thoroughly check the conference facilities had everything we needed.
RESULT: I apologized to my manager and I assured him I would never
make the same mistake again. As a result of that situation, I created a
definite check list that I always used moving forward whenever I was
required to book meeting rooms or conference facilities.
3) My biggest weakness is the fact I find it quite hard letting go of
projects.
I tend to get really engrossed in my work and I spend too much time
seeking perfection when I need to learn to let the project go once it’s
been completed.
Having said that, one of my main strengths is my ability to take
onboard feedback from others as I do genuinely want to improve.
On that basis, if you see an area you want me to improve upon, I will
go away and work on it.
Why should we hire you? *

I believe you should hire me for three reasons. Number one, having
read very carefully and answered the job advertisement, I already have
the necessary skills, qualities and experience to perform the role to a
high standard.
Number two, I will learn my duties quickly so I can start contributing
to the team in the fastest time possible.
And number three, I will add value to the organization by making sure I
provide exceptional customer service, I will work hard under pressure
and I will do all I can to help you achieve your financial and
commercial goals.
Why do you want to join our company? *

I have chosen to apply to become a Sales Manager with your company

for three specific reasons.
The first reason is, having researched your products and services
extensively in the build-up to the interview, it is clear the time, effort
and resources that have gone into developing these has been extensive.
On that basis, it will be easier for me to sell these to your customers and
also help my sales team to do the same.
Secondly, you have a strong reputation within your industry which will
help my team to overcome sales objections as and when they arise—
this, in turn, will help us to consistently achieve our sales targets.
Finally, I want to become a Sales Manager in an organization that
supports its staff to enable them to achieve their objectives — again,
having researched your organization, and also having spoken to current
and former employees, it is clear I will be supported in my role to be the
best Sales Manager possible.

Before applying for a job, I will spend time looking into the company to
see if I can make a difference to their team, and also if it is somewhere I
would like to work long term.
Having researched your organization, I was hugely impressed with the
quality products and services you offer, and also your company values.
If I get to work for you, I feel it will be somewhere I can make a big
difference and also somewhere I will be able to learn and grow within
this role.
Why you want to join this role?
I have been building both my personal and professional capabilities,
and I would like to put these to good use at a company where the
standards expected from everyone are high.
The specific skills and qualities I have that will benefit me within this
role include, a proactive mindset, technical expertise, a positive attitude
to all tasks I undertake, the ability to work well as part of a team, and
also relationship and interpersonal skills. I am also someone who can
make effective decisions and solve problems whilst under pressure.
I genuinely want this role with Accenture, and I feel strongly if you do
hire me, you will be pleased with my positive work ethics, my high
standards and also my ability to consistently achieve positive outcomes
for the company.
Why do you want to work for Accenture?
I carried out some research before applying for this role with
Accenture, and it was great to see you have very strong job satisfaction
ratings amongst your staff.
This tells me three things about Accenture. Firstly, you are an
organization who values its staff and empowers them to be great at
what they do. Secondly, you provide the right levels of support and
continuous professional training to ensure your staff continually grow
and develop; and thirdly, you do not sit still as an organization.
This is because you want to innovate and provide exceptional levels of
service. Apart from feeling I can make a positive contribution to your
already established team, those are the three main reasons why I very
much want to work for Accenture.
Describe a situation where you have to deal with difficult co-
worker?
I can remember working in a previous role as part of a small team and
one member of the team continually complained about how much work
he had to do.
Initially, I just put this down to his personality, but after a few weeks, I
felt his attitude was starting to have a slight negative effect on the rest
of the team, as I overheard a couple of other team members talking
about his approach to work behind his back.
For the sake of the team, I decided to speak to him in private, to
encourage him to see things from a different perspective. I told him
that, whilst we did all have a lot of work to get through, this was
actually a good thing as we were all learning new skills which would
help us in our future careers.
I also explained that it was good that the company had put their trust in
us, as a team, to deliver on difficult projects, and that we should be
grateful for that. From that day on, he never complained again, and I
think my small motivational conversation with him helped him to see
things from a different angleS.
What sets Accenture apart from other organizations?
Accenture is different from other organization’s primarily because you
diversify in so many different areas and sectors.
This means you have to employ a wide range of staff from different
backgrounds, different industries and also differing skillsets. This, in
turn, means you have a huge amount of talent to draw from within the
organization, and it also means you can provide a consistently high
level of service to your customers and clients.
The other thing that sets Accenture apart from other organizations, is
that you are well-respected by your competitors, and you also have
high staff approval ratings; much higher than the national average in
fact, which means you are a good company to work for.
Explain to me how you handle stressful situations?
I actually view stress as a natural part of my daily work, and I think if
stress is managed well, it can have a positive impact on the work you
carry out for your employer. I have two approaches to handling
stressful situations.
The first approach is to reduce stress by making sure my work is
organized and that I also plan for every eventuality. When I carry out a
task, or when I work on a project, I always try to foresee potential
problems, which allows me to reduce stress considerably.
The second way I approach stress, is to always remain calm within in
any stressful situation. I am a firm believer that you can only perform
to the best of your abilities if you look at difficult and problematic
situations with purpose and clarity.
If you follow this approach, you can more often than not, solve the
stressful situation quickly and also look at ways to prevent it from
happening again.
How did you utilize your time during the lockdown? How are you now relevant to
the post COVID-19 world? *

In the first three weeks of covid I did certifications from Coursera and I
have done a lot of certifications like strategic negotiations, digital
marketing. Also before my summer internship. I had done strategic
content marketing course and researched about the company and their
products and its competitors. For the next the two months I was busy
doing my internship wherein I completed all the required task activities
that I was assigned in my internship. After the internship ended I had
around 15 days left before my college exams and 4th term classes
started. In that period I did a course on R, python.

In my free time I have learned the skills which would be helpful for me
even in normal times. Apart from that I have executed a marketing
campaign which was based on the covid situation. Even after the covid
situation this sort of consumer behaviour which I analysed will persists.
So I think that marketing campaign has been useful for me.

What questions will you ask the interviewer, when they ask you "any questions
for us"? *

Who's your biggest competitor and how can I help you to beat the
competition within my role?
If I am hired, what would be the first thing you would want me to
concentrate on in this role?
What could I do in this role specifically to make a positive difference to
your organization?
What are the plans for the company over the next 5 to 10 years and do
you have any new and exciting products coming out?
How is the Performance evaluation done in your organization?
How open is the upper management to hearing the ideas of an
employee?
And the last question for me what from your prespective is the best part
about working for this company(Name) ?