ZS Associates placement paper and  personal experience

Akshay L. Marathe 

Date: 8th September 2008

Recently I attended  selection process of ZS associates, PUNE. It is a very new company in  India. 3 years ago it was started here. Surrently 25th year

Home page is www.zsassociates.com

FIRST ROUND:   Written- 1 hour.............
 There were four questions......
1. What are your qualities which help to work in ZS culture
2.Given a situation( Mistake in a project-- near Diwali-- team mates willing to go for holiday--- Customer may not notice the mistake...), how do you handle it?
3. Given some tables and some data, how do you do data checking?
4. Write an algorithm to match an input pattern with a given string containing wild characters.

SECOND ROUND:   Group discussion........25 minutes....
 The topic given was "ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING IS A DRAIN TO INDIAN ECONOMY" 

It went for 25 minutes..... Everyone was asked to summarize at the end for 1 minute

THIRD ROUND: Case Study------------ 45 minutes
There was a company selling CHOCOLATES.. Some shops were doing well and some were not.Some data was given in tabular form.
1. Come up with a formula for improving sales
2.What are data checks you would do.
3.How do you set goals?
4. What are various considerations behind these goals? (PARAMETERS)
5.Generate a report? How it may look like?
6. Prepare a flow chart or a DFD for your suggestion........

   I told parameters to be Month of year, Season, Natural Calamities, Political Issues like subsidy, Competition from fellow shops, Price reduction etc.Some tables I wrote.One graph I draw containing month VS estimated Sales. I draw one flow chart also, taking above said different factors.

FOURTH ROUND: Behavioral Interview....30 minutes
 I was given some situations. How can i handle them....
1.Team members are working very hard but still project is not successful
2.Team members are not willing to accept you...
3.Your team lead is inefficient and has no responsibilities.....
4.Your team leader is busy and has no time to listen to you. You have committed a mistake and need to correct it
5.How will you overcome your weaknesses?
6.How will make sure that final outcome from you is worth, be it a project or writing anything like it?
7.An arithmetic expression was given and I was asked to check for its validity
8.A paper is 1mm thick. It was cut into two pieces and piled.... Again repeated till it became 10 KM high.. How3 many cuts you need to do it? ( I calculated using  GP formula...It came as 24... When i told, he asked Do you believe it?)
9.Do you have any questions?

FIFTH ROUND: Final HR...30 minutes.....
1.Why you want ZS?
2.Will you work in PUNE?
3.What are your goals?
4.What are your strengths?
5.Estimate how many kgs of coffee/tea powder is needed for a day in Bangalore across different colleges....
6.Do you have any questions.....