My Interview Experience with Shell

I am back with another blog for you to share my interview experience with Shell and it is for everyone preparing for their placements and especially for the people sitting for Shell.

Without any further ado, let’s get started!

So, the company visited my campus in the last week of August. I registered for this company on 21st August 2021. And then, I received the assessment mail from the company on 27th August. Let me break down all the rounds for you -

Online Assessment

My assessment got scheduled at 3:00 PM on 28th August 2021 on the Mettl platform.

The assessment was divided into 4 sections — SQL, Aptitude, Technical, and Coding.

1. SQL section had 1 SQL query with a concept of JOIN statements and was pretty easy.
2. The aptitude section had questions of logical, quantitative, and verbal reasoning. The questions were of all the levels and the time was less but I finished all of them on time.
3. The next section was comprised of technical questions mostly related to DBMS, data structures, algorithms, and other fundamental concepts. It was also time taking for me and I got left with 4 questions unsolved.
4. The last section had 2 coding questions. One was the Street Light Problem and the other one was the Planting Trees problem. I solved both the problems but some of the test cases failed in both the solutions.

The total duration of the assessment was of 2 hours and 10 minutes but I finished it before time.

After 2 days, on 30th August 2021, I received a mail from Shell that I have been shortlisted for the final interview. (Happy moment!)

Before the final interview, they scheduled a pre-placement talk for all the shortlisted students.

Pre-Placement Talk

The talk was scheduled at 12 PM on 31st August 2021. Learned a lot more about the company during that session and it was quite promising. They also solved the company and interview-related queries of the students.

After the session, I received a mail of meeting link for the final interview that was scheduled for 1st September 2021 from 2:10 PM to 3:10 PM.

I got nervous for the interview and a lot of questions started popping into my mind. So, I started learning more about the company and the type of questions they generally ask in the interviews but didn’t get many details. I somehow got to know from one interview experience article on the internet that they ask more managerial questions and about the past working experience and projects. I could only revise the DBMS concepts before the interview.

Final Interview

30 minutes before the interview, I got a call from the company as a reminder for the interview. I logged into the MS Teams at 2:00 PM and was not feeling nervous at all. I was feeling confident and prepared. My interview started at exact 2:10 PM. There were two senior managers who took my interview.

They started the interview by telling me the rules and process of the interview. After that, they gave me their introductions and asked me to introduce myself. I talked about my academics, work, and extracurricular experience, and what I learned in the introduction.

Then I was asked to explain one of my best projects so I explained that and after that there were follow-up questions related to that project.

Then they moved on to the technical part and asked questions on CS fundamentals where I talked about my skills and projects where I applied those skills.

After that, they gave me different situations related to team collaboration, team management, and team conflict where they asked me how I have dealt or will deal in such situations. I gave examples from my previous experiences.

Then they asked me if I have faced any challenges in any of my projects, if yes then how I solved that and achieved the results. I talked about one of my hackathons' experiences and then they asked me some follow-up questions.

After that, they asked about how good I am at dealing with people around me and gave me situations related to that. I talked about my past experiences here and explained to them how I deal with people in different situations.

Lastly, they gave me a chance to ask any questions from them. I was curious to know about their stories and experience with Shell. They then shared their experiences with Shell and told me about the work culture of Shell.

I really enjoyed the interview and talking to the people who took my interview. They were giving me feedback and insights in between the interview which was so good.

It was the best interview experience I have had till now!

Result

After the interview, I got a positive feeling that I might get selected because my interview went really well but the competition was really tough so I was not sure if I’d be able to crack it or not. The positive feeling was that strong that I almost started planning what I’ll do if I get selected because I knew that once I get selected in this company, I’ll get a great start to my career and will get a lot of free time to explore new opportunities and learn new stuff. But again there was another side as well that said I might not get selected.

After 2 days of waiting (almost felt like 2 weeks), on 3rd September 2021, the results got announced and I GOT SELECTED IN SHELL.

I was the happiest on that day. I can’t even express how good I felt that day. I couldn’t believe that it happened. My family and friends were so happy that we couldn’t stop talking about it. A lot of things got changed on that day for me!

I have been at so much peace from that day and now I have got a lot of free time that I’m utilizing to explore more!

Some tips from my experience -

1. Revise the basic concepts of CS fundamentals, DBMS, OOPs, Data Structures, Algorithms, and any programming language of your choice.
2. Keep practicing some aptitude questions in between your preparation.
3. Don’t give up while giving exams. Keep trying till the end.
4. Attend the pre-placement talk if you can. It will help you to clear your doubts regarding the company.
5. Stay confident and keep smiling during the interviews. It creates a positive impact.
6. Give examples while explaining anything. It will help you to explain things clearly.
7. Listen properly before answering any questions during the interviews.
8. Talk while you think. Let them know your thought process to solve the problems.

That’s it for this blog!

If you’re going to sit in the placements — prepare well, stay confident, and take care of your well-being!

Sending you a lot of good vibes :)

Let’s connect and I would love to hear your side of the story and experiences on Twitter/ LinkedIn/ Instagram :)