This article is about my experience of getting hired for the role of Senior Product Analyst from IIT BHU Campus.

The usual hiring process involves 4 Steps - 

1. Aptitude/Quant + SQL (Test)

2. Interview 1 (Generic + Technical)

3. Interview 2 (Product)

4. Interview 3 (HR Round)

Let's talk about each step in detail and how it went for me as well!

1. Aptitude/Quant + SQL Test

Companies hiring for Analyst positions, be it in Data, Product, or any other glamorous title, frequently subject candidates to an aptitude test. This assessment typically covers Quantitative skills, occasionally touches on English/Reasoning, and often includes a section on programming or, at the very least, SQL. 

For Media.net, the challenge was a mix of Quant and SQL questions on an online platform, not sure but likely InterviewBit. Around 300-350 candidates, mostly eyeing Data or Product roles, took the test. Out of this pool, a select 25-30 made the cut for interviews. 

How was the test? 

Aptitude/Quant: Regular questions that any other company would ask, little inclined towards CAT kind of questions. If you are among Top 10% of the students among your campus, you will likely make it to the shortlist. Well every student has there way of attempting questions, but I follow (Accuracy > Quantity) rule. As whether declared or not, negative marking should be avoided. 

SQL: I've taken over 10 tests with SQL questions, and Media.net's test was tougher than others. They ask about Advanced Joins and use functions like concat and coalesce. Be ready for that. In my case, I faced six questions, answered two correctly, and passed some test cases for one more. Looking at others on the shortlist, most of them solved around 1-3 questions. So, prepare well to feel confident.

2. Interview 1 (Generic + Technical)

Post Test, the shortlist of 25-30 students came in for the final interviews. I was on 2nd position in the list. Don't know to what extent this is true (But the interviews happens in the order of the shortlist only for media.net).

The Interview 1 is usually to assess the candidate generically and little over on technical efficacy. And my interview was no different. 

It started by my introduction, in which I myself touched my 9 months intern as well as my start-up scaling experience briefly. It's very important to make a connect or put the interviewer in a position that intrigued them to ask the questions in your string zone. Hence, Introduce yourself smartly and make a pathway for interview in which direction you want to take in. 

It was roughly a 45 minute interview, where we discussed about my Intern & start-up only for around 30 minutes, and for technical efficacy I was not asked much. I think for the sake of checkboxes of interview, they asked me 2 questions "How are you with SQL?" and "What is the difference between Natural Join & Inner Join?" 

As per my discussion with other students, the technical questions asked were mostly theoretical SQL/Python and in few cases some queries was asked.  

So be well prepared with theoretical questions of SQL/Python like one crazy question being "When everything can be done with LEFT JOIN then why does RIGHT JOIN exists at all?"

3. Interview 2 (Product)

Out of those 25-30, around 10-12 students were called for Round 2 of interview. Though in my case, Round 1 & Round 2 held back to back. In the same meet, the first interviewer left and other joined. There was only 30 second break between the two rounds. 

This turned out to be a length interview, almost a minute over an hour. The interview started with same introduction, but this time more crisp and interviewer cut me in between and asked to let's begin some product questions. 

Then these questions were followed & discussed: 

a. What's your favourite Product & Why? (I picked Whatsapp, though I never prepared my fav product beforehand and all my answers were intuitive and momental, But I will really advise you to prepare your fav product well in advance)

b. How will you improve your fav product? & What's the most irritating thing about your fav product?

Sooner after this wrapped up, we already had a lot of conversation around messaging apps and whatsapp, then he asked me a guesstimate over it too:

c. Estimate the number of messages exchanged daily on WhatsApp, and also give the breakup of the type of messages like if its an image, vid, GIF, or text only. 

post the discussion of this guesstimate (They were interested in approach only, when after explaining my approach I started working on numbers, they said it's ok and moved to next questions), they asked a RCA, again on Whatsapp.

d. We are observing x% downfall in Daily Active Users on Whatsapp, find out why?

This RCA was quite long, and the sole purpose of it was to judge that what depth & breadth you can think of, so don't get nervous when most of the times you answer a possible reason and interviewer said No. 

After this a quite lengthy question around Product Design was asked - 

I don't exactly remember some questions in between, but we discussed few things around Kindle, Amazon Books, e-Books, audiobooks, etc. 

Then they asked a question like this (this is not the exact question but that's how i remember it): 

Assume your are VP of Product at Netflix, Build a SOFT MVP for Kindle/AudioBook like feature for Netflix, explain its journey from Soft MVP to monetization. 

Yep that's all, the interview end and as a parting question I asked them about the Ad-Tech industry like in what sphere of Ad-Tech, we operate. 

3. Interview 3 (HR)

My round 3 never happened. In our campus scenario, it's noteworthy that the majority of candidates sailed through based on Round 2, with Round 3 barely making an appearance—only 3-4 students faced it. The consensus is clear: Round 2 is the game-changer, so prep for it thoroughly. Confidence, especially in communication, is key.

Speaking of the HR interview, it's not as intimidating as it may seem. Questions like "Why join us?" and "Why Ad-Tech over other industries?" are common. They might probe into your plans for higher education or exams like CAT/UPSC. Expect the usual HR queries about strengths, weaknesses, and instances where you motivated your team mates. Don't let nerves take over; instead, gear up by preparing for the top 20 questions typically asked in HR interviews.

To wrap it up, three of us— (Aishwary, Ashu & me) —received the coveted offers.

I think I covered most of the things in above article. if in case you have any doubts, feel free to reach out to me.