Futures First-Market Analyst Trainee Interview
Name:Vishesh Sajgotra
1.Which company has you been placed in and what’s the job description?
>> I have been placed in Futures First Info Services with a six-month internship and FTE offer, and my designation is Market analyst trainee at the same.
2.Tell us something about your college life and experiences. Were you part of any clubs or societies throughout your college life and how did they help you?
>> I had an amazing college life experience, and around 80% of the time, it revolved around my friends. It made me find out the other person’s story, life experiences, and struggles, and take something good from every person I’ve met, and then grasp that habit and experiences. I was a part of IETE, Team Srijan, and Literary society. I got into team Srijan in the 1st sem. There I was an intern for 6 months in team Srijan and then I became a member of the electrical subteam. I majorly worked with sensors and electrical parts and components of the car. I’ve done work in PCB designing, harness wiring, electrical CAD design. I got into IETE in the 1st sem. I was the general secretary at that time, and currently, I am the vice president for the same. Both the clubs were related to the core side, and the literary society was a sort of leisure type club, where you can meet people, share thoughts, read books, etc., so that you can relax. Being in Srijan helped me finding the right approach to a problem, taught leadership skills, and most importantly, resourcefulness. In IETE, I learned that always keep your branch with yourself and interact with those people. In LITSoc, we dealt with non-technical problems and problems in social life, and it helped me a lot in the transition from being an introvert to an extrovert. It happens by being a part of clubs or societies, and in the future also, this helps in the interview for a company.
3. What message would you give to the first and second-year undergraduates on effectively using their time and maintaining their academic and social life?
>> College life is all about interacting with people and trying to get to know the best in them. For the first years, you should mostly enjoy it and try to find and explore your interests. Also, find new interests, go to the clubs’ workshops, seminars, etc., in the second year. Try to get more and more technical knowledge about those interests. Don’t go for the internships as you reach the second year. First, have command over your subject and try to find out the work-related knowledge required in the industries. So choose the direction and just go with the flow.
4.How do you discover that “this particular sector” is suitable for me or I have an interest in this? How do you carry forward in this?
>> I was more interested in the core industries initially as I was in team Srijan and IETE, which were core-specific. I was initially motivated towards the core industries as I have done many projects on the core side. I also had an internship during summer, but it got canceled, and later I found this notification about Futures First that they were doing something virtual kind of internship for two months and after that, there is also a chance of getting a PPO if I performed well. After seeing that I tried to look up something, like financial markets, trading. I started learning and prepared well, and I thought regarding the current scenarios about core, and I found this a great opportunity and gave it a try. Luckily I got selected in that, and after the virtual internships my performance was good enough to meet the needs of the company and co-workers, and I got the PPO. The first month was confusing. After that, I found out that it was a very interesting and thrilling field and a lot of money was involved in this field that gave me an additional push. The interest in the field developed throughout the way, and it is continuing till today.
5.What are the technical skills that are important for EEE graduates?
>> Being in EEE, you should have basic electrical and electronics knowledge. Whatever things interest you, you should go for that, not especially core-related because in EEE you get to know about many things like MATLAB, data analysis, AI, ML, deep learning, VLSI, Verilog, power electronics, electrical machinery, etc. Whatever interest suits you, you should pursue it further, and continue with the semester subjects, as EEE is a very diverse branch, so you have many opportunities.
6. How early should one start preparation for internships, and how important is an internship? Where did you pursue your internship?
>> One should start preparing for the internship in the 3rd year, as the 1st and 2nd year is just to explore and build up the technical skills. By the time you get to the 3rd year you are motivated enough towards the sector that you want to pursue, so proceed accordingly. Once you get to know your sector in the first two years, explore the companies visiting the college which are related to your sector and start preparing for them. But it is not that important in the 3rd year. If you don’t get an internship in the third year, don’t get disheartened and continue to work upon your skills. It can later get you a direct job offer in the future. I pursued my internship from home. It was a virtual internship of two months from May to the end of June in the Futures First. Later I got a PPO in Futures First itself.
7. What are the projects you have done in 4 years and how did they help in your placement and internship?
>>The biggest project that I have done in these 4 years was the Formula Car that I’ve built in team Srijan. This is the biggest project that I’ve ever worked on because I consider that working on a formula car is not an opportunity that is available for every person in the college. I was handling all the electrical aspects of that car and that involved PCB designing, wiring harness designing, electrical CAD, physical wiring aspects, and learning some basic mechanical things also. One of the other projects was Home automation that was based on IoT in my second year. I designed a Home Automation System with the help of Arduino and an Android app called Blynk (it is an android app available to configure IoT with android). So I used that app, applied it to Arduino, connected 2–3 relays, and those relays were connected to the Home Automation System. The control of that system was on my mobile phone so with the help of my mobile phone, I was able to control the home appliances such as lights, fans, etc. The biggest advantage of that system was that it was based on IoT so it was rangeless as far as the system was running and I had an internet connection on my mobile so the system would work even if it is placed in another country. And the third project was I designed a fully controlled rectifier in the power electronics lab. It is a project that every EEE student has to do whenever he comes into the power electronics lab. And the last project I created was with the Illinois Institute of technology which was done from home. That project was to study the electrical aspects of two cars and compare them. The company had two-hybrid cars — one was a 2004 model and another was a 2010 model. In Chicago, the Oak Ridge lab had already analyzed the motor of these cars and compared it. I had to do the same thing following their research paper and I had to get the results myself and compare them with those of the lab. That was the most interesting project I did in my four years, and yes these projects will help you in your internship and placement. But the main idea of the projects is how to solve a problem. So the problem-solving ability that comes along with doing these projects is the main factor that helps you in your placement and internship.
8. What was the selection procedure of your company? Can you repeat some of the important questions from each round of your interview?
>>The selection procedure of my company was a three-round process. First was the aptitude test, the second was a technical interview, and the third was the HR interview. So in the aptitude test, it involved around 60 questions that were needed to be done in 1 hour, it was 1 question per min. It contained aptitude related questions such as general reasoning, quantitative analysis, data handling, basic mathematics, etc. Then the second round was the technical interview taken by a branch manager from Gurgaon. That was a sort of 70% non-technical and 30% technical interview.They asked, “How did you build interest in this field, and what are the things that attracted you towards this field?” I replied, “I just read it about 3–4 days ago, and it just caught my eye, so I am giving it a try.” and based on my different answers, they decided that I’ll be able to cope up with them. Then they asked me that the attrition rate in this field is very high which means most people leave this job and don’t pursue it further. The answer to this is that it depends upon the person’s behavior. Like I had a behavior that, I know that if I’m doing justice with my work and I’m doing hard work for it, then I believe that I’ll get proper rewards for that. So that was the main behavior that helped me qualify for that interview, and I believed in hard work. The technical questions were, “What do you know about the financial market?”, “What is equity?”, “What is debt?”, etc. These are some small questions related to technical aspects; others were non-technical. And they’ll try to give you some situations in which you will get confused, but it is all about being calm and giving those answers accordingly. And the last round was the HR round. In the HR round, the main thing is to get to know about the company as much as you can and what you can provide to the company, and how beneficial contributions you can make to the company. After these three rounds, I was shortlisted and eventually selected for the internship.
9. How to choose and apply for internships, so that we can make our way to the right company that we want to join?
>>Basically what I will advise is that there are several internships of different types like some are unpaid, some are research internships and some are different things so the distinctive process of these internships depends on the interest, like what kind of interest you have. If you are related to core, then I’ll suggest going for a research internship, and get to know about the subject better so that it will help you in industrial interviews as well. If you are related to coding or data analysis, then try to go for a company that also has PPO to give you because that’ll be beneficial for you and give you long term benefits. Try to diversify the opportunities that are available for you.
10. Please, tell us something about the Training and Placement Portal of our college.
>>The portal has all the information regarding any company that you want to know. You will get to know about all the interview processes and rounds of any company so that you will be able to prepare yourself according to the interview process. As far as the resumes are concerned, you’ll have the choice to make resumes for different types of profiles. You’ll be able to upload 4 to 5 resumes in the TnP portal so according to that, you can diversify your needs. If you want to go for core you can have a resume that is particularly motivated towards that, and if you want to go for coding, you can have a different resume for that. Having 2–3 kinds of resumes is really helpful. This will help you to be a little flexible so that you can explore different opportunities. And try to focus on profiles that companies are offering and try to compare it with other portals too.
11. What are your plans? Would you like to go for higher studies?
>>I’m not sure about going for higher studies. I’m currently in Futures First so my initial plans are to do the job for at least 2 years. As far as the future is concerned, I’m thinking of preparing for the CAT after 2 years. But it depends on the future and what are my aspects of the company after 2 years. If I find myself comfortable and satisfied with the job I’m doing, then I’ll continue working in the same company. But if I’m not satisfied, then I’ll try for a different type of exam like CAT and try to get a better opportunity than this job.
12. What is your advice to the juniors who want to get placed in the field you’ve chosen?
>>The advice that I want to give is to try to get yourself familiar with the daily markets like (the stock market) and try to look for relatable things regarding this sector and related to trading. Then you’ll get the basic idea about the terms that are related to this field like “What is trading?”, “What is going short?”, “What is going long?”, “What is betting?”, etc. These are the terms that are related to this field. In the technical aspect, I would like to advise you to work on data analysis. Try to build some skills in MS Excel, machine learning, data prediction.Sharpen your analytical skills, keep yourself active, read the news, check out everything that is going around the world.That’s It.