Preparatory Questions:

1. Tell me about yourself.

My name is Vikramjit Singh. I am from Jalandhar,Punjab. I completed my undergrad in Comp
Science from NIT Jalandhar and I graduated in 2015. I worked with Infoedge India in their
99Acres division for three years. I was a Software Engineer and was responsible for the Android
App at 99acres. I’ve been fairly active all through my student life. I am the Junior Coordinator at
the Entrepreneurship Club and the Technology club here at IIM Bangalore. I was also the
Placecom member in NIT Jalandhar. We were a team of 20, responsible for the placements of
over 600 students.
2. What are your long and short-term goals? How are your preparing to achieve them?
My short term goals are to join a company which will provide challenging but meaningful work
requirements which help me make considerable impact to the company’s growth and business. I
would like to compliment the knowledge received by me at IIM Bangalore with practical
applications. Joining such a company will require me to be academically strong and have strong
understanding of the concepts I am being taught at IIM. For this I am working hard on my
academics.
My long term goal is to start my own company in the future. I would like to leverage best practices
I learn from the industry to solve important problems. I am already part of the entrepreneurship
club here at IIM which is helping me understand the startup industry.
3. What kind of work motivates you?
The sort of work that motivates me is the one that is challenging, makes an impact, either for the
company or for its employees. I am motivated to do work that helps me learn new skills on the go,
leverage my present knowledge and pushes me to think on my feet and most importantly, interact
with people. Such a work will help me gain maximum knowledge, grow myself and at the same
time make a lasting impact.
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
My major strength is my motivation to take up responsibility and deliver on expectations that
come with the responsibility. I am able to prioritize work which helps me handle multiple fronts at
the same time. I’ve been part of several initiatives at Undergrad, postgrad and during work at
Infoedge. I am part of the Entrepreneurship and Technology clubs here at IIM and at the same
time have been able to deliver well on my acads. Even during my work at Infoedge, I worked
across multiple teams and also found time to volunteer at different foundations.
5. What failures have you experienced? What have you learned from your mistakes?
I was part of the sponsorship team of my cultural fest during undergrad at NIT Jalandhar. As part
of the sponsorship team, we were responsible for bringing the money for a 6000 footfall fest. In
my first year as part of the team, I could not bring substantial amounts from the sponsors despite
putting in a lot of efforts for the same. The experience made me understand better human
 thinking. It helped me learn better negotiation skills and the ability to understand what a person in
front of me requires. The experience also made me realize that putting maximum efforts does not
necessarily result in best results. Sometimes the environment around you has a bigger role to
play.
6. Assuming that you could do anything you wanted, what would you really like to do in life?
I would like to open a company which would be aimed at solving huge problems at scale using
the most cutting edge technology. This will help me fulfill my goal of making maximum impact to
the people around me. This will also help me leverage my own skills of people handling and
problem solving. My previous experience in technology will help me consider solutions that
require the latest technology ideas. This will also help me communicate better with my engineers
and clients.
7. How do you determine or evaluate success?
An ability to make a meaningful impact in whatever work is assigned to you is a perfect example
of how to evaluate success. A person could be part of a team that made huge revenue growth or
efficiency impact for the company, but if the person’s contribution to the same was minimal and
most of the work was done by others, I am not sure if I could call the person successful for this
project.
8. What two or three things are important to you in your job?
Knowledge is one of the most important things in my life. I like to learn new things every day.
Knowledge is an excellent tool to possess in almost all situations of life. It helps you solve
complex problems, because you know about solutions that others have already implemented, it
makes a great conversation point in situations where you are looking to impress people and
finally it brings credibility to whatever you say.
Family and friends are also very important in my life.
9. Tell me about any leadership responsibilities you've had.
I’ve been fairly active all through my student life. At IIM Bangalore, I am part of the
Entrepreneurship Club and the Technology Club. We are a team of about 16 people in
Entrepreneurship Club and about 10 in tech club. I was also the member of Placement
Committee in my undergrad. We were a team of 20 responsible for the placements of 600 people.
During my work at Infoedge, I led a team of 3 resources to deliver on User Personalization
products for the Android App.
10. What two accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction?
One of my projects at Infoedge involved rewriting the network architecture of the app to improve
app experience for users who were active in low network areas and offline network areas. This
project involved a lot of pre-work at my end for user analysis to provide a feasibility study to the
product team to justify this project. I worked in a team of two to deliver the project on schedule
and with min defects. This resulted in a drop in server API calls to almost 50% of previous levels.
 This is one achievement I really proud of.
My CAT 2017 attempt was the first attempt at the exam. I made the attempt in a year in which my
work at Infoedge was extremely taxing. I am proud of what I achieved by prioritizing work at both
levels.
11. What makes you better than the other people I'm seeing today?
My ability to take responsibility is something that makes me stand apart. Also, I am someone who
is good at keeping a light environment and make good relations with people around me. My
experience as the placement committee member taught me relationship handling techniques. The
ability to prioritize the work provided to me helps me make the best of the different responsibilities
that I always seek to take. This is underlined by my previous experience in different clubs and
societies at both undergrad and post grad levels.
12. Give me an example of how you exercised leadership in a recent situation.
As member of the Entrepreneurship club, I am a Junior Coordinator at Eximius, the
entrepreneurship summit of IIM Bangalore. As member of the spons team, I was asked to lead
the Media coverage vertical for the event. Even though I was given the responsibility only 4 days
before the event, I was successful in converting 2 media partners which provided complimentary
coverage for Eximius worth over Rs. 1 Lac. Such an achievement was possible only because I
could coordinate with the 10 volunteers assigned to me and efficient division of work.
13. Tell me about a time when you were criticized. What was the issue involved, who made the
criticism, and how did you handle it?
During my 3 year stint at Infoedge, I was responsible for delivering tech and product pipeline for
the Android App of 99Acres. During this time, I was enthusiastic about developing a new photo
upload experience for the premium users of the app. Having lobbied for the same to my manager,
I was criticized for not bringing enough data to justify such a project. This made me realize that
even as a Software Engineer, all projects that I undertake should have sufficient data to back
feasibility. I handled the same by doing extensive research and brought the results to manager
who later approved the project.
14. Tell me about a decision you made recently and how you reached it.
The decision to leave the comforts of a software engineering job and join IIM Bangalore was a
very important decision that I recently made in life. Apprehensive initially about leaving a well
paying job with an important set of responsibilities, I talked to my father before reaching the
decision. I discussed my long term life plans with him and my aspirations for the future. The
discussion help me clear my mind and I finally decided to take the decision.
15. Describe a contribution you made to your college or in your last job.
One of the important projects that I delivered in my 3 years at Infoedge was developing a
personalized homepage for 99acres users. This homepage was a replacement for a static
homepage that users were displayed whenever they opened the app. This did not make any
contribution to the user’s journey. A plan was created to develop a homepage that showed a feed
of properties to the user which resonated with his past usage. After due analytics, a team was
formed to deliver the new homepage and I was tasked to lead the same. This project ended up
being a major success for the company, resulting in over 20% increase in conversions.