FORESIGHT 2021 | Vatsal Kapadia working at JLR

Student Welfare Group, IIT Kharagpur Follow

Listen Share I’m Vatsal Kapadia, an IIT Kharagpur Graduate of 2021. I was a student of the Mechanical Engineering Department, enrolled in its B-Tech Course. The major Extra-curricular activity I was involved in during my college life was TeamKART, IIT Kharagpur. I became a part of it right in my first year and continued till my final year. How did you get into JLR? What was the selection procedure? I got placed in JLR, during the Campus Placement Season of December 2020. The selection procedure was quite basic, A Written Test (Aptitude + Coding +Mechanical Core (only for the core profile)) SOP Submission and Personal Interview The test features regular GATE level questions for mechanical core. The test pattern in Aptitude and mechanical core were adaptive. Questions are of three difficulty levels and when you answer a question correctly you get a question of increased difficulty and when you answer a question wrong, the difficulty level drops in the next question. How to prepare for them? Mechanical Core Test: Practice gate level questions for all the domains of mechanical engineering taught across the 4 years. Keep your concepts clear rather than remembering the formulas. Companies tend to ask conceptual questions more than calculation based. Expect some calculative question though Aptitude Questions: Practice different types of aptitude questions (Quantitative and Logical). Coding: Coding questions are not very advanced level, basic questions that are found online for practice will do for the preparations. Interview: KNOW YOU CV INSIDE OUT. Prepare for core questions which are related to the projects you have written in your CV. Prepare a fluent introduction of yourself and your CV in advance. Also Prepare HR questions in advance like Strengths, weaknesses and Where do you see yourself in 5 years, etc. Finally, MOCK INTERVIEWS ARE A MUST. You will get to know the level of our confidence properly only after giving some mock interviews. How would you describe the work culture in your company? How is the work-life balance? The Work Culture at JLR India is all you can ask for. Being a part of JLR India doesn’t mean you are confined to working with the India team, new graduates like us also work directly with the core UK team. Everyone is very approachable and open to discuss new ideas. Research is also pursued with great enthusiasm. We never feel like we are just Graduate Engineers, everyone’s opinions are valued. In terms of Work-Life Balance, we are always encouraged never to work outside of working hours. The UK team is also very understandable in managing the Time-zone gap and we generally don’t have to work late. So in all the balance is pretty good. How was your experience working from home? What difficulties did you face? Working from home is a very debatable subject. Some people feel comfortable working from home while some prefer the office work environment. Personally I don’t enjoy working from home, because I had to do my internship online due to a pandemic and then the rest of the College activities happened online so I always wanted to start working in an office environment. Also collaboration is very difficult. We have to set up calls and meetings for very small discussions which can easily be done personally without wasting a lot of time in office space. Plus, it is difficult to generate interest when you have to stare at your screen for 8 hours, when you are working from home. According to you, who should ideally apply for this job? The Automotive Industry is moving towards a more Software oriented philosophy with the advent of Electric vehicles and satisfying customer needs. So only people with mechanical interest can apply for this job is now a myth. Anyone who has interest in product engineering, system engineering, even AI and coding can apply for the job. A lot of interesting and cutting edge technologies are being worked on in the industry, which previously were far from the needs of the automotive industry. But not anymore.