Cracking the Analyst Interview at India’s Leading Supply Chain Services Company

Getting the Network Analyst Job at Delhivery

The Network Design Analyst Job Interview for Delhivery is the only job interview I gave whilst I was doing my undergraduate degree. I did so because Delhivery was a company I genuinely connected with. The job description was something I knew I could do and would actually enjoy doing.

Since its inception in 2011, Delhivery has become India’s leading supply chain services company. Their vision is to become the operating system for commerce in India, through a combination of world-class infrastructure, logistics operations of the highest quality and cutting-edge engineering and technology capabilities.

My Background

• Undergraduate Degree: B.Sc. (Hons) Mathematics
• College: St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, India
• GPA: I applied with my interim transcript when I had finished my second year, and my CGPA at that time was 9.93/10
• Experience: No relevent work experience or internships, however, I had help a few positions of responsibility, and volunteered at an NGO.

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Interview Process

Aptitude Test

The first round included an Aptitude Test. The test was fairly common, with basic logical reasoning questions. It did, however, contain a lot of mathematical questions.

You had to be well versed with concepts of Probability, Statistics, Basic Math, and Mental Math. It also had a lot of long word problems that will definitely take you a lot of time to solve if you’re out of practice. There were also questions that you could find in most IQ tests.

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Personal Interview

The personal interview was far more technical than I expected, it lasted over an hour for me. I will go over the topics we covered:

• My Background: I was asked about my background and my interests.
• Why Delhivery: I was asked why I wanted to join Delhivery. I had already done a lot of research on Delhivery’s background and what they do. I also had a good idea about their recent projects related to the technical field and I talked about how I was interested in working in the same domain.
• Case Study: We went over a small case study. The case study was a lot more mathematical and technical compared to the usual case studies we may encounter in Consulting interviews. They seemed to be more interested in my approach and knowledge of algorithms rather than the final solution. The case study was also a more advanced version of a typical Linear Programming problem.
• Mathematics: I was asked about various topics in math (mostly Probability, Statistics and Linear programming) and the conversation slowly shifted to handling data. I was asked about the various imputation techniques that are used to handle missing data.
• Projects: We went through any projects that I had recently done, the technology and algorithms used.
• Technical: I had told my interviewer that I was quite interested in data science and had been studying data science for a long time. So when he started asking me technical questions, they were from the data science domain. I was asked about various ML algorithms, and the mathematics behind them. For example, we spent almost 15–20 minutes discussing the K-Means Clustering algorithm and how it works.

The interview was definitely challenging, however, before any question, I was asked if I knew a certain topic and if I did, only then the interviewer asked questions related to it. Whatever I told them that I knew, I was questioned on it in detail.

The overall experience was quite positive and the interviewer kept motivating me to answer the questions.

Final Interview

The final interview was a meeting with the person who would directly manage me, or would be the lead of my team. It was not a technical interview, but more of a discussion about my goals and interests when it comes to working with Delhivery. I was told about the kind of work I would be doing, and the kind of growth I can expect to have while working in this role.

I used this round to ask any questions about the work, the company, or my role. I even talked about why I was interested in this role and what made me apply.

This interview was again very positive, motivating and welcoming. I genuinely enjoyed talking to the interviewer and it made me look forward to working with them in the future in case I did take up the role. I was most impressed with the support I got when I told about my plans to pursue a Master’s degree instead of going for a job directly after my undergrad. The interviewer even told me about the kind of growth I could expect if I took the job offer, or if I went for a Master’s instead, and even told me about the various roles in the Data Science domain at Delhivery that I could apply for if I was proficient in Data Science.

Final Thoughts

I think I was made the final offer because of the following reasons:-

1. Thorough understanding of the technical and non technical topics that are needed for the role (Math, Linear Programming, basic Python coding, working with data)
2. Good academic record in the past, and a few good projects that I could explain during the interview
3. Strong background in mathematics — particularly, Linear programming and Operational Research
4. I had done a lot of research on the company and had a good idea about their work. I talked about the similarities in their work and my interests during the interview.

After my experience of going through the entire recruitment process at Delhivery, I can assure that they really value their employees. At each step, I was supported and given guidance as to how to proceed further. It made the whole recruitment procedure quite smooth. From the interview itself, I knew that joining Delhivery would surely help me in improving my skills and gaining valuable work experience.

Did I Take Up the Offer?

Unfortunately, No. I declined the offer because I had been offered a place at my dream college — The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) for a Master’s degree in Data Science!

So I wouldn’t be joining Delhivery this year, but I hope this article helps out anyone who is planning to apply or interview for the Analyst role at this amazing company anytime soon!

Best of luck! :)