This may seem like an easy position to land, but in reality, it's hard, so I consider myself really lucky to have gotten it. The following describes how I was hired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in India.
Let's first discuss what the company does and what it offers before going into the specifics of the hiring procedure. Anytime you are preparing for a placement or an interview, this is a fantastic technique to put into action. It is really difficult to crack the hiring process if you do not read through their profile.
About JPMorgan Chase & Co.
J.P. Morgan is a global leader in financial services, offering solutions to the world's most important corporations, governments, and institutions in more than 100 countries. They also lead volunteer service activities for employees in local communities by utilizing our many resources, including those that stem from access to capital, economies of scale, global reach, and expertise.
You can go to the company's website, to which I've supplied a link below, to learn more about it. Do sign up for their Student Talent Network; you won't regret it.
Company Website: https://www.jpmorganchase.com/
Placement Procedure
The exciting part has finally arrived, unless you were one of the people who skipped everything and wanted to know what questions I was asked. Do not worry, I did the same thing when I was preparing for my campus placement and it won't cause any issues if you do that.
Before I start, I am a final-year student at the Vivekanand Education Society's Institute of Technology (VESIT), and during my third year, I had received a job offer through campus recruitment. Please be aware that the hiring procedure will alter if you sit for off-campus. Mine involved three sections comprising of:
- Coding Round
- Interview Round
- Code-For-Good Hackathon
Before the coding round started, there was a Zoom rebroadcast of a recorded conversation among various JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees from across India as they discussed what they did, what they planned to work on, the various opportunities they were offered at the company, the work culture, etc.
Coding Round
I received an email from from HackerRank platform on behalf of JPMorgan Chase & Co. that contained a link to the exam. Upon first viewing the mail, my heart skipped a beat, but I forced myself to calm down and finish off my last-minute coding round preparations. Before you give the coding round, I'd want to make a few recommendations.
Practice the entire set of String and Array problem sets as these questions have almost been asked everytime, and are typically all from LeetCode. So, I would advise you all to use LeetCode because it will be very beneficial.
Make sure you correctly complete a question by clearing all the code's test cases. It is not always the case that if you correctly answer both questions, you will advance to the following round. There is a potential that you will be chosen for the interview even if you completely answer one question but fail the following one or a few test cases.
There will be 2 coding questions given (one easy and one easy/medium) which you all need to complete it in under 75 minutes. I passed all the test cases of both the questions I had got which were:
- Identical Distribution
Link: Morgan Stanley Assessment Question - Maximum Units on a Truck
Link: LeetCode Question
Interview Round
After few weeks, I got an email from HireVue platform on behalf of JPMorgan Chase & Co. stating that the video interview was the next step of the recruitment process. It was internally notified that I was shortlisted from the coding round and only those candidates received the link can give the interview.
Over here you have two minutes to respond to each of the two questions that will be displayed on the screen during this online interview round. I'd advise practising interview questions beforehand because you'll get to know the questions from your friends or classmates who have already taken the interview.
Yes, all of the questions are the same, therefore you should plan your response and make it unique from everyone else's. When responding, be sure to explain your views as clearly as you can. At the absolute least, make your comments sound natural. Try to be sincere and honest. I had kept my answers short and simple and didn't make it complex unnecessarily.
The two questions I had got were:
- Tell us about an experience you have had, that you would describe as a learning experience. Tell us about the problem and the outcome.
Here you can pick up any projects you have worked on or any competitions or hackathons you have participated in and had a learning experience. I had chose the later. - Tell us about the specific career goals that you have set for yourself.
Here you don't need to make your answer hi-fi. You can keep it realistic and don't need to bluff about anything.
A list of the people who had been shortlisted arrived after a long and nervous wait. When I spotted my name on the list, my jaw dropped. In anticipation of the last and final Hackathon round incoming, I was unable to contain my excitement. After the two rounds indicated above, everyone finds it extremely difficult to get selected, so now that I have overcome the toughest portion, all I wanted to do was end it in style.
Well, the ending didn't go that well as I had planned 😥
Code-For-Good Hackathon
This hackathon will last for 24 hours, so be sure you're fully prepared and don't sleep all day since it will be worthwhile and you'll always remember it. It should be noted that implementing any tech stack is not restricted; instead, your solution will be evaluated based on how it stands out from the competition. The problem statements will be given by Social Good Organizations which generally require web-based solutions. Hence, you should ideally learn a few frameworks that you might use in the hackathon.
Mentor-Team Huddle
Before the hackathon gets started, I got the list of my teammates. After looking up their contacts in the primary Slack channel which was our mode of communication, I first made a Slack channel and added them to it. Wherever you can, always take on the duty of organizing groups and serving as the team's leader since it will leave an effect on both the members of your team and the mentor who will been assigned to you.
The next day, I requested that my team meet up on Google Meet to introduce themselves. Then I asked about their preferred tech stack so that we can come up with one in the end. After discussing, we decided to work with MERN Stack since it was the most convenient framework for everyone to use. Always keep in mind that you won't find teammates that share your preferences for tech stacks, as I have worked with teammates who were limited to understanding simple HTML, CSS, and JS.
Problem Statement Allocations
On the first day of the hackathon, each team received their specific problem statements. I once more asked my team to have a Google Meet to discuss our problem statements as it benefits to allows us to generate new ideas for each and ultimately decide which one we should focus on. This will bring a good impression on the mentor. The problem statements should be prioritized since there will be a session for teams to clear up any uncertainties, and there won't be time to change the problem statements' order at that point.
Coding Time
We had a meet with our mentor to discuss what we needed to accomplish and all we needed to cover in order to provide a solution to our problem statement assigned to us. We opted to work on the corresponding roles after deliberating for a time. Give your thoughts whenever you get the chance to do so as your mentor constantly keeps track of what you are up to.
Now comes the part where everything goes downhill for me. Later when working on our project, there was disagreement among the teammates who were working on the Front-end part, thus things didn't proceed as planned. After a while, nobody was working together and everyone was working independently. This should never happen therefore I made sure that no one forgets that we were a team and we need to find a solution since there wasn't enough time to address every issue. This highlights how good is your skills when it comes into action. In the end we somehow finished everything on time even though some of the requirements were not met.
One-on-one Session with Mentor
I used this opportunity to demonstrate my abilities and past accomplishments. During the session, almost all the teams were given only technical questions, but fortunately, I had been asked simple Technical+HR questions. I thus responded to each of them immediately and did not keep them waiting. The questions asked to me were:
- Which college am I from? Where do I live?
- What is my current position in college?
- Were there any projects which you had faced any difficulty while working on it?
- How do I make sure everything goes smoothly while working in a team environment?
- Do you have any project which you had worked on before and you are proud of?
- How did you implement the payment gateway? (Related to the above question)
- Do you know anything about Web 3.0?
Final Submission
Do submit everything on time; there isn't much else to say. Always take the responsibility for doing the same since it will give you brownie points from your mentor. Given that the hackathon lasted for 24 hours, everyone will get exhausted by the time it comes to an end, but don't be anxious if you didn't perform very well or you couldn't bring the best out of it.
Don't give up if you don't advance past the technical judgement stage because even my team didn't pass through. It's not always the case that if you make it through the technical evaluation and final round, the firm will hire you. It is decided based on each person's performance and how well they work in a situation like that. There have been instances where people who made it to the final judgement phase and even took first place in the hackathon were passed over.
The End
Now that everything has been completed and the hackathon came to an end, I am at the point where I was waiting for the chosen list to arrive in my mailbox. I was eagerly awaiting it, and over a month later, I was finally relieved to see my name on the list of people who had got the job offer from JPMorgan Chase & Co. I was so happy to see that I was unable to restrain my joy. I am incredibly appreciative of all of my classmates and friends who encouraged me and supported me throughout the process. All of those leadership qualities and the tasks I had taken on were useful and will always be advantageous to me.
Thank you for reading, please do react to the article and if you have any questions regarding the procedure, you can ask it below in the comments. I will definitely reply as soon as I can.
If you want each section to be covered in detail, you can check out Sreekesh Iyer's (one of my good friends) experience to which I am providing the link below.
In the end I just want to say
"Take part, take responsibility and speak wherever you can get a chance to do it"
All the very best to everyone who are part of the campus placement !! ✨