Cafe Hideout Cafe Manager Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be prepared on your subject matter as they ask deep questions

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: They shortlisted about 30 people from around 700 applications on the basis of CGPA, Internships, Projects. PORs and Extra Curricular Activities weren't much important to them.
Tips: Keep a safe CGPA above 8.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Mostly they grilled me on my Projects and internships. A strategy based warehouse case study was to be solved. Since I was from Industrial Engineering background they asked me on a scheduling problem. And lastly a few puzzles and they kept on increasing the intensity at each question. Later on, he asked me why not go for a MS or PhD and a situation where you have put mind over matter.
Tips: Most of the interviewers were very cool and friendly. DO NOT PANIC.

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: They were simple life oriented questions. He asked me about my previous projects and BTP. Tell me about a situation you failed and why? Tell me a situation where you leaded a project? What experience do you have in industry? Why an e-commerce?
Tips: Confidence is the key.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Regular HR questions. Again a puzzle. Tell me about a situation where the project was going downhill but you took that to another level from that. They told me about the working hours and asked me for a location preference.
Tips: Show your zeal. Dont fumble.

Skills: Data Handling Skills, Logistics, Data Interpretation, Supply Chain Management
College Name: IIT Kharagpur
Motivation: The best E-commerce to work for. And there is no place better ti gain such excellent management skills

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This round was primarily a personal round revolving around the CV. The question broadly covered the various things done at ISB and the extra-
curricular. A lot of expected question were there on the Strengths, weaknesses, successes, Stay at ISB, Comparison with Undergrad education at IIT-B.
The interviewer was insistent that I answer both but I answered the first part and said that there was nothing I could think of for the second part because I just could not relate to such a separation in personal and professional personalities. Of course the answer was detailed and elaborate and ultimately convincing.

The conversation was a very easy one. I think I was able to break ice very early in the discussion and was always conscious for the crispness of my answers. As a result we were able to have a long discussion about a lot of different issues during the 30 minute+ long discussion. I was also trying to build a coherent storyline throughout by citing examples and connecting back to things I had earlier said in the interview.
Tips: Be sure to have a consistent story for all of the above and make sure that you keep corroborating your claims and assertion from time to time. For every aspect I was asked to site an example.
Be very thorough with you CV. Elaborate every point of your CV and prepare answers to the standard expected questions. Make sure you have rehearsed them well enough.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I started by looking at the international retailer (Company) and its Indian partner? Why the venture, what strengths, type of contract, etc. it seems the company had efficient back end operation and the front end expertise was with the Indian partner. They would need 6 months to get out of contractual obligations. The operation is merely breaking even right now. I also looked at the competition and customers buckets and there was not enough information available on this.
After this initial analysis the case question was flipped to find out the drivers of setting up a retail store. Some of the drivers discussed were :
- Geography (decided by regulation, logistics, operations, etc)
- Store format (Departmental, Hypermart, location in city or outside city)
- Product Mix ( What would be item stocked)
- Partnerships (potential allies)
- Competition
- Target Customers (to decide Footfalls X Conversion Rate X Ticket Size)
The next part of the case was that where will I gather information about all these, customers, geographies, etc. I said there could be two ways of collecting information: Primary Research and Secondary Research. Primary we can collected from other stores, scanner data, Pilot study, survey, etc Secondary could be done through industry and analyst reports like Crisil, Datamonitor, ISI Emerging markets, These reports normally give detailed outlook about cities, types of formats, conversion rates, catchment area and other parameters. Given that we had just one monthinformation, Secondary research would be more appropriate.
Tips: Keep your cool

Skills: HR Skills, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Prepare well for every interview. Know your work related area in depth and the basic concepts related to your work.

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Questions must be by the interviewer

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be prepared to answer technical and non-technical interviews

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Always believes that u r the best in the room.u r the most handsome or beautiful in the room. Have a great communications by dat u can win half the battle.Have eye to eye contact.give every questions answer irrespective of wrong or write but try to answer.dont keep quite.keeps on talking.