ION Group Recruitment Interview Experience (On-Campus)

The selection process consisted of a total of 6 rounds, 1 online assessment, and 5 interviews.

1) Online Assessment

It was an online test, hosted on HackerRank(taken from home). It consisted of around 10 MCQs and 2 coding questions. Coding questions were of easy to medium difficulty level. I had a string-related problem and the second one was a DP one. I was able to solve the first one completely and the second one partially.

2) 1st & 2nd Interview Round (Technical + Case Study)

Around 115 people were selected for the interview round. I started with my introduction, following which I was asked 3 puzzles:

1. 50 red and 50 blue marbles
2. Camel and bananas (only needed the approach, not the exact answer).
3. Three jars of candies, sweets, and a mix of both

(All available on GFG)

Then the interviewer asked me to explain one of the projects mentioned in my resume in detail. He then asked a few questions related to that.

This was followed by a discussion on OOP:

• General idea of OOP and why we use it
• 4 pillars of OOP
• Explain each pillar
• Write an example to explain inheritance
• Gave me a sample code and asked whether it will work or not (it was regarding virtual functions)
• Gave a real-life scenario and asked to use OOP and Solid principles to write a code for that (want to design a calculator with 2 functions add and subtract and later add few more functionalities without modifying the previous code – expected to use the concept of method overriding)

Then he moved to DSA

• Explain linked list, doubly linked list, circular linked list, difference between each.
• Write a code to find a loop in linked list (first I told the brute force approach and then the optimized one)
• Given an array of 1 lakh numbers, first sort it and then separate even and odd numbers (had to write a rough code for that)
• What is space and time complexity
• Best sorting algorithm and its time complexity
• Explain Dijkstra’s algorithm and its working

Then I was asked, if one had to implement a phone directory then which data structure is the suitable one (was expecting Trie). Asked to explain the working of Trie in short (no code).

One question about DBMS – difference between MySQL and MongoDB.

Last part was the case study – If Amazon had to optimize their last leg of delivery what would you suggest. This was an open-ended discussion, we need not stick to the technical part only.

Ended with me asking few questions to the interviewer.

(for some people technical and case study were taken as 2 separate rounds)

Duration : 60 minutes approx.

3) 3rd Interview Round (Managerial)

This was like a techno-HR round. Initially started with the introduction. I had mentioned working with the design team for our club, so he asked about my responsibilities, type of work etc. regarding that role. Then gave me situation, where in, if I was a design team head at ION and I had to hire 25 people but received 50000 applications, what would be approach. Had a 10-12 minute discussion about this, he was cross questioning everything I was saying. Then he asked, if I was to explain concept of machine learning to a policeman, what would be my approach. Again, cross-questioned everything I said. A few questions about my family background and then ended with questions from my side

Duration : 25-30 minutes

4) 4th Interview Round (Country Head)

This was an online round. I was there with 5 others with the country head of ION. We were told to introduce ourselves with our name, native place, location preferences, family background and why we wanted to join ION. Later each of us was asked abstract questions for e.g, what is success according to you etc. The remaining 45 minutes were more of an informal discussion.

Duration : 60 minutes

5) 5th Interview Round (Global Head)

My round was scheduled with an Italian executive, he was the CXO of the company. It was a short online interaction and a very informal one. It started with my introduction followed by explanation of the projects mentioned on my resume. Then he asked about any places I had travelled to and wanted to travel to outside India. The round was more about testing your confidence level and communication skills.

Duration: 10-15 minutes