Placement Papers - Fidelity

Hi all, I attended the Fidelity Investments Interview. It was my fourth interview. It was a good experience too. Based on the previous records, they initially short-listed about 150 students to attend the recruitment procedure.

They started their presentation on the 21st evening at 4 pm. It almost went one and a half hour. It was not at all good indeed, was very boring. In the presentation, the good thing that we had to appreciate is that they told us about the different profiles and training periods and what actually they trained us in the training period. There were 9 panellists who came. After the presentation, they started the recruitment procedure. It went like this.

There were three main rounds:

1. Aptitude round.
2. Technical Round.
3. HR Round.

All 150 students attended the aptitude round and in that we had a sectional cut-off!

The test paper had three parts:

A. Aptitude.
B. Logical ability.
C. Verbal ability.

(An important thing to be noted is that we had to attend each part within a certain amount of time and we cannot mark any question and attend later. We had to answer each question and then move on to the next question).

There were 25 aptitude questions, the time allotted was 35 minutes. 24 logical questions, the time allotted was 35 minutes. 18 verbal questions, the time allotted was 16 minutes. In each part, we had to attempt at least 70% of the questions. Then, about 50 students were shortlisted for the next round.

We had to go through 3 rounds among which one was technical, one was behavioural. And the other one was hr round. This was not common for all though! the sent somebody out after one round only, some after the second round. And they made four rounds for some guys also! I went through all the three rounds.

In the technical round, it was very easy actually! he asked very basics. He asked me questions on C, C++ and data structures. He asked about my project. He asked me to write code to print.

I tried it but since it is not a regular pyramid, It was difficult for me. Then I asked him if this is not the regular pyramid! For that he said "Don't change the question! Try to do it" Then I tried and told him about the approach I made. Still, I was not able to write the complete code! he said ok and moved on to the next questions.

Then he gave me an array of elements as 1, 3, 4, 5, 9 and asked me print them in the reverse order using any data structure. I told him that we can do it using a linked list with recursive functions and also I explained how it is possible with recursive functions and the role of stack in that. He was satisfied and he didn't ask me to write code for it. Then he asked me to write it in the reverse order using some sorting method.

I said we could do it using many sorting methods like bubble, quick etc. He asked me to write using bubble sort! I don't know what happened to my mind, I wrote code for binary search! Then I said oh sorry sir, and again I wrote code for bubble sort and showed him. Then he said okay. This took almost 25 to 30 minutes.

In the HR round, he was very friendly but asked me so many cross-questions. He asked about my project and all. Tell me about yourself was the common question in all the rounds. I answered all the questions calmly. I had done projects on embedded systems and he asked me like, you have done a lot in embedded systems and it shows me like you are passionate about it. But what we do in Fidelity is entirely different from what you have done. So do you really want to join Fidelity?

This question pushed me into a dilemma. I replied yes sir, in embedded systems also we do a lot of coding and the software profile you have provided is also all about coding. Hence I have chosen it, sir. He was a little bit satisfied. He asked me "Are you sure?" again and again. I said yes yes. !

Other questions were:

- Why Fidelity?
- Do you work for money?
- What is your ambition?
- What you want in life?

And quite common questions. I answered all with confidence. This took almost 40 min.

Then I had a behavioral round which went for just 10 to 15 minutes. Here she asked me about my strengths and weakness, hobbies, interests etc etc. That was the end. They asked us to wait in the auditorium for the results!

Results were announced and unfortunately or fortunately I was not selected! But I had good experience. I think I did some mistakes in the technical round and this made them to reject me. Anyway, this is how we had interviews. It would be easy if you prepared well and attended the interview.

All the best :).