CQCoreCombat: Nirmalya Panigrahi:- Jaguar Land Rover

One of the reasons why I chose core Mechanical Engineering is by the time I completed my 3rd year and I was ready for placements. I had a research internship in the core field, I had a few involvements with research groups in the core field and I felt that I have expertise in that field. So I think it is a very important decision to take because thinking a bit ahead in your career and kind of being in a field in which you are trained in or you’re an expert in or feeling like you have the highest potential in, will actually give you a kind of inner motivation. So I think one of the pros of choosing the core field is that you already have a lot of experience in fact and you already have prior expertise in that. But of course, it is true that the opportunities in the core field are a bit less. Although not less but they are not that rewarding in the first few phases as compared to other fields so kind of builds up an intuition that core fields are tough but I would like to say that there are a lot of companies which give adequate remuneration if you consider the kind of growth opportunities you have and one of the most timely argument that I would like to give to anybody to fix the issue between core and non-core fields is to first realise where your expertise is. Like you may feel that you’re a good manager and have a lot more managerial skills. Then I think the next question should be what are the core properties I want to build? Like you could be a good manager but how? What do you think you’re a good manager at? Are you good at managing designs? Are you good at taking design decisions? Are you good at taking innovative decisions? So that is how I think. A lot of whys’ need to be asked before deciding which field to choose and in my personal case, like on Day 1 of placements I had actually 3 companies in my mind. The first one was Sony, Japan which had a profile in Robotics, the next was ITC which was mostly managerial but as far as I can say it was mostly on Operations Management and third was Jaguar and Land Rover which was about automotive design and stuff. So I first decided what are my core competencies and I realized I have a lot of experience in automobile design and robotics of course. So that is how I started out so realizing where your expertise lies will actually help you in deciding your profile and which companies you want to go for. Also, before you go for companies and stuff you need to sit down and ask yourself a why question which is like suppose I want to go for consulting so my first question would be why? So I should list out a few factors like maybe I’m good at coming to innovative decisions, or maybe I’m good at seeing things from a broader perspective which is good for consulting or maybe that yeah I love a job which helps me in travelling. So after you have those things settled out you have to again ask yourself a why question like why am I good at innovation so you could know that ok well I can connect dots before people can and so on and finally why do you want a job that gives you the scope to experiment at various places and you think that you love innovating. So I think it boils these questions down to find a core pattern of your expertise and from that I think you should choose the company you want to go for.

I think when you’re applying in core then there is something that I call as the Goldilocks zone for CG at end of 8th semester which for Mechanical is roughly around like I think if you have a 9+ CG it could but the interviewer in dilemma whether to take you or not because at 9.1 or 9.2 CG you can get into foreign universities and recruiters do not want to recruit you if you want to go for higher studies. So the Goldiloc’s Zone for CG is mostly around 8.5 to 9.1. And if you’re above 9, then the basic question you need to answer is why don’t you want to go for higher studies? So that is a question you always have in the back of your mind when you go with a high CG. If you’re below 8.5 or 8.6 then the question that comes to you is that what is the reason you have a low CG? So there the question actually falls in 2 places — the first one is you can say that I’m good in the core field, but some other subjects like Biology and Economics which I was kind of forced to take as a part of the curriculum are the reason, and the other thing is that you can always balance your CG with a mix of your aptitude. Like your work experience aptitude. And how that works is like you can say that I have worked in fields which required me to work on knowledge that is not much covered in my curriculum like e.g. you can say that I’m good in power systems and power systems are not covered in mechanical curriculum. So I think there’s always a place for rational decision on this part but the point is that you need to clear it for the interview round and for that if your CG is below 8.5 then it will be most good for you to do well in the pre-interview tests. That is where I think some of your focus should go to if your CG is between 8.5–9.1

In most of the companies I went for there were mostly 1 or 2 rounds of interviews. In JLR there were 2 rounds but I had to do only 1, I think I was fortunate in that part. In most of the interviews there were actually 3 parts. So the first part is where they ask you general process about mechanical engineering and in this part for some companies like ITC and somewhat in Bajaj Auto also that give you an option to choose your preferred subject and in others like JLR and Sony, Japan they come out with their own questionnaire to maintain uniformity across students. But whatever be the case you should always be ready for answering the questions out of you comfort zone also and in your comfort zone you should be able to answer questions which involve critical thinking. Another important thing in this part is most of the questions are actually related to practical applications such as what is the loading pattern? How do you pull that? So I think it is important for anybody who’s interested to prepare for questions on practical applications and critical thinking and this can be thoroughly developed through hands-on experience either via research groups, projects or internships. Next part of the interview is the CV round. In this round they run through your CV for what you’ve done. They try to find out what you have obtained from the work you did and they often ask you how you can replicate that experience in the scenario that they have set up for themselves. So for example I was working at University of Tokyo on Intelligent Vehicle Systems and they asked me that if Jaguar Land Rover wants to launch an intelligent vehicle then what is your role as a mechanical engineer in supporting that. So that I think is the exercise we need to do. So go through the details of the job you’re appearing for and how your past experience is linked to it. And the third and the final round is what people call the HR round and in my case, JLR asked me guesstimate questions, they asked me questions about how I manage teams and how I work with teams and what’s my overview on project management. I believe it isn’t something that can be built in a day but of course you can go through a lot of management books and other books you have interest in and that gives a fair idea of what you need to do. At the end of the day I think being able to find out things from your experience which relates to that question is all that you need to do.

So I was involved in various places and hence I learned a lot from there. But I think uniformly you need to revisit everything you’ve mentioned in your CV and you should know what you’re speaking of. Apart from that, for core I think you should go through a book that details out everything important which is just for the review before the interview to revise all the concepts. For the placement session it is important to give yourself a complete exposure to quantitative reasoning problems. At the back of your mind your analytical reasoning capacity should be good. And also if you’re in touch with those things then it’s easier for you to come up with a solution and also most of the people will also be open for the consulting profile so there are some mathematical models that you can use. Also, it is useful to have concise notes of the subject matter for a revision before the interview. Particularly for JLR, question sets from Gate entrance are a good resource for core mechanical engg. practice. Months before the placement session is it important to have daily practice of coding and reasoning question sets, these are crucial parts of the pre-interview tests. In this regard, having a peer group helps to remain focussed and derive motivation. Please avail test series if possible. Apart from all this some overview on guess-estimates and mathematical models will help.

For every company there is actually a kind of mindset which they come for like when you’re sitting for something like ITC we should be aware they are very much focused on your analytical ability. Which is like they want from you to solve problems that other people in your place cannot solve. However in JLR, when you need to provide them is that you’re an integral part of the team and you can work wherever it’s required and you have a decent exposure to the work. But in places like Sony, Japan what they want from you is that you should have a prior experience in your work area. So for every company you need to know what is it’s type of interview, you need to find out from people what is the kind of preparation that you need to do and you need to change your strategy, of course. You need to have a predefined strategy for each company.

For placement you have to build up on the work you’ve done. You have to justify to them how exactly their requirements are met by you? And my advice to anybody sitting for any company they want to is to form a strategy as we talked before which is particular for that company to know what kind of interview process it is and then strategize your resources in that manner and I think that is the exercise you can do for a month before your actual placements, So the day you fill in for the company you should actually have an idea about what they might ask like this interview is going to be about my CV, so I would have every point of my CV in my mind and I would have a defence for every word that is in my CV which they may ask about. Or maybe for company like JLR, I would know that I’m going to face a lot of questions on core mechanical concepts so let me have a cheat sheet where I have all those formulas and all those concepts written so that would actually give you the confidence to go in for the interview and that is the best advice, to have different strategies and have prior knowledge about every company that you’re going to sit for.

Yeah, so I think a lot of people want to go into core sectors. Also one of the most lucrative options of the core sectors is that you can work on your expertise and that what is more important for you is to know what you want to play out in these parts of your life. So it’s basically like seeing this resource in a broader perspective and being very focused on it. So you need to know what it is that you want to take after being at a company. Do you want to be in that job for 5–10 years? Or you want to be in management so you want to take off a little bit of time to go ahead. So that will give you a very clear idea about what kind of companies and what kind of field you want to go for. That I think is another important thing while choosing the company. So I think in the whole placement process, choosing your company is as much as being there in the interview because what it does is in the interview process it takes away much of your load off as you then have a lot of information which empowers you to go there and deliver almost everything that you know. So then you have a lot less surprises in the interview and you can actually give your best.

One of the reasons why I chose core Mechanical Engineering is by the time I completed my 3rd year and I was ready for placements. I had a research internship in the core field, I had a few involvements with research groups in the core field and I felt that I have expertise in that field. So I think it is a very important decision to take because thinking a bit ahead in your career and kind of being in a field in which you are trained in or you’re an expert in or feeling like you have the highest potential in, will actually give you a kind of inner motivation. So I think one of the pros of choosing the core field is that you already have a lot of experience in fact and you already have prior expertise in that. But of course, it is true that the opportunities in the core field are a bit less. Although not less but they are not that rewarding in the first few phases as compared to other fields so kind of builds up an intuition that core fields are tough but I would like to say that there are a lot of companies which give adequate remuneration if you consider the kind of growth opportunities you have and one of the most timely argument that I would like to give to anybody to fix the issue between core and non-core fields is to first realise where your expertise is. Like you may feel that you’re a good manager and have a lot more managerial skills. Then I think the next question should be what are the core properties I want to build? Like you could be a good manager but how? What do you think you’re a good manager at? Are you good at managing designs? Are you good at taking design decisions? Are you good at taking innovative decisions? So that is how I think. A lot of whys’ need to be asked before deciding which field to choose and in my personal case, like on Day 1 of placements I had actually 3 companies in my mind. The first one was Sony, Japan which had a profile in Robotics, the next was ITC which was mostly managerial but as far as I can say it was mostly on Operations Management and third was Jaguar and Land Rover which was about automotive design and stuff. So I first decided what are my core competencies and I realized I have a lot of experience in automobile design and robotics of course. So that is how I started out so realizing where your expertise lies will actually help you in deciding your profile and which companies you want to go for. Also, before you go for companies and stuff you need to sit down and ask yourself a why question which is like suppose I want to go for consulting so my first question would be why? So I should list out a few factors like maybe I’m good at coming to innovative decisions, or maybe I’m good at seeing things from a broader perspective which is good for consulting or maybe that yeah I love a job which helps me in travelling. So after you have those things settled out you have to again ask yourself a why question like why am I good at innovation so you could know that ok well I can connect dots before people can and so on and finally why do you want a job that gives you the scope to experiment at various places and you think that you love innovating. So I think it boils these questions down to find a core pattern of your expertise and from that I think you should choose the company you want to go for.

I think when you’re applying in core then there is something that I call as the Goldilocks zone for CG at end of 8th semester which for Mechanical is roughly around like I think if you have a 9+ CG it could but the interviewer in dilemma whether to take you or not because at 9.1 or 9.2 CG you can get into foreign universities and recruiters do not want to recruit you if you want to go for higher studies. So the Goldiloc’s Zone for CG is mostly around 8.5 to 9.1. And if you’re above 9, then the basic question you need to answer is why don’t you want to go for higher studies? So that is a question you always have in the back of your mind when you go with a high CG. If you’re below 8.5 or 8.6 then the question that comes to you is that what is the reason you have a low CG? So there the question actually falls in 2 places — the first one is you can say that I’m good in the core field, but some other subjects like Biology and Economics which I was kind of forced to take as a part of the curriculum are the reason, and the other thing is that you can always balance your CG with a mix of your aptitude. Like your work experience aptitude. And how that works is like you can say that I have worked in fields which required me to work on knowledge that is not much covered in my curriculum like e.g. you can say that I’m good in power systems and power systems are not covered in mechanical curriculum. So I think there’s always a place for rational decision on this part but the point is that you need to clear it for the interview round and for that if your CG is below 8.5 then it will be most good for you to do well in the pre-interview tests. That is where I think some of your focus should go to if your CG is between 8.5–9.1

In most of the companies I went for there were mostly 1 or 2 rounds of interviews. In JLR there were 2 rounds but I had to do only 1, I think I was fortunate in that part. In most of the interviews there were actually 3 parts. So the first part is where they ask you general process about mechanical engineering and in this part for some companies like ITC and somewhat in Bajaj Auto also that give you an option to choose your preferred subject and in others like JLR and Sony, Japan they come out with their own questionnaire to maintain uniformity across students. But whatever be the case you should always be ready for answering the questions out of you comfort zone also and in your comfort zone you should be able to answer questions which involve critical thinking. Another important thing in this part is most of the questions are actually related to practical applications such as what is the loading pattern? How do you pull that? So I think it is important for anybody who’s interested to prepare for questions on practical applications and critical thinking and this can be thoroughly developed through hands-on experience either via research groups, projects or internships. Next part of the interview is the CV round. In this round they run through your CV for what you’ve done. They try to find out what you have obtained from the work you did and they often ask you how you can replicate that experience in the scenario that they have set up for themselves. So for example I was working at University of Tokyo on Intelligent Vehicle Systems and they asked me that if Jaguar Land Rover wants to launch an intelligent vehicle then what is your role as a mechanical engineer in supporting that. So that I think is the exercise we need to do. So go through the details of the job you’re appearing for and how your past experience is linked to it. And the third and the final round is what people call the HR round and in my case, JLR asked me guesstimate questions, they asked me questions about how I manage teams and how I work with teams and what’s my overview on project management. I believe it isn’t something that can be built in a day but of course you can go through a lot of management books and other books you have interest in and that gives a fair idea of what you need to do. At the end of the day I think being able to find out things from your experience which relates to that question is all that you need to do.

So I was involved in various places and hence I learned a lot from there. But I think uniformly you need to revisit everything you’ve mentioned in your CV and you should know what you’re speaking of. Apart from that, for core I think you should go through a book that details out everything important which is just for the review before the interview to revise all the concepts. For the placement session it is important to give yourself a complete exposure to quantitative reasoning problems. At the back of your mind your analytical reasoning capacity should be good. And also if you’re in touch with those things then it’s easier for you to come up with a solution and also most of the people will also be open for the consulting profile so there are some mathematical models that you can use. Also, it is useful to have concise notes of the subject matter for a revision before the interview. Particularly for JLR, question sets from Gate entrance are a good resource for core mechanical engg. practice. Months before the placement session is it important to have daily practice of coding and reasoning question sets, these are crucial parts of the pre-interview tests. In this regard, having a peer group helps to remain focussed and derive motivation. Please avail test series if possible. Apart from all this some overview on guess-estimates and mathematical models will help.

For every company there is actually a kind of mindset which they come for like when you’re sitting for something like ITC we should be aware they are very much focused on your analytical ability. Which is like they want from you to solve problems that other people in your place cannot solve. However in JLR, when you need to provide them is that you’re an integral part of the team and you can work wherever it’s required and you have a decent exposure to the work. But in places like Sony, Japan what they want from you is that you should have a prior experience in your work area. So for every company you need to know what is it’s type of interview, you need to find out from people what is the kind of preparation that you need to do and you need to change your strategy, of course. You need to have a predefined strategy for each company.

Yeah, so I think a lot of people want to go into core sectors. Also one of the most lucrative options of the core sectors is that you can work on your expertise and that what is more important for you is to know what you want to play out in these parts of your life. So it’s basically like seeing this resource in a broader perspective and being very focused on it. So you need to know what it is that you want to take after being at a company. Do you want to be in that job for 5–10 years? Or you want to be in management so you want to take off a little bit of time to go ahead. So that will give you a very clear idea about what kind of companies and what kind of field you want to go for. That I think is another important thing while choosing the company. So I think in the whole placement process, choosing your company is as much as being there in the interview because what it does is in the interview process it takes away much of your load off as you then have a lot of information which empowers you to go there and deliver almost everything that you know. So then you have a lot less surprises in the interview and you can actually give your best.