How I became Capgemini’s E.L.I.T.E Management Trainee? By Koustubh Haridas, XLRI Jamshedpur

E.L.I.T.E General Management Program is one of its kind launch-pad for future leaders, packed with challenging roles to kick-start their general management journeys with broad exposure to international functions and markets. Their aim is to hire the best talent from top business schools with 0-3 years of experience and provide them with a structured and accelerated roadmap to evolve their career. Here is an account of my journey of becoming an E.L.I.T.E. intern.

The Perfect Internship

I completed my engineering from NIT Nagpur and after that worked with VE Commercial Vehicles Ltd. (A Volvo Group, Sweden & Eicher Motors, India joint venture) in International Business function. Then I got into XLRI Jamshedpur. Internships have immense importance in MBA and I was always keen on going in for Capgemini's E.L.I.T.E internship. According to me it was a perfect internship as you get an opportunity to work on structural thinking, business expertise and in consulting as well.

Prepped up well in advance

My preparation started even before joining XLRI. I had already researched about what roles I would like to take up during the internship and started preparing since I joined XLRI. Before the process, I had worked towards making my CV better and took help from my seniors on what else I can do. My seniors were very helpful in assisting me with their experience and suggestions. I am really thankful to my friends who used to have round-the-clock zoom calls with me to keep me motivated throughout the process.

The Selection Process-Round 1

The Round 1 of the selection process was more focused on case-solving & guesstimate solving. I had spent a good amount of time understanding the process to solve guesstimate and I applied all the skills gathered through this in the case-based GD rounds. The round was related to a finance case and the candidates were expected to give structure to the understanding of the problem.

Using my skills, I tried to give structure to the problem by laying down key elements necessary to go to the root cause of the problem. Once that was done, I focused on the key changes that the organization given in the case study should incorporate so that it can overcome the problem and can get the best results by minimal investments in the short term. For the long term, I suggested additional changes along with a strategy through which such changes could be incorporated. My approach worked well and I qualified for the next round i.e. the personal interview.

The Interview Process for Capgemini E.L.I.T.E program

My interview process went really smoothly. It went on for an hour and was taken by the top leadership of the E.L.I.T.E. program including the directors, VPs and past recruits from the E.L.I.T.E. program. I was asked to explain my guesstimate approach and was asked some behavioral questions as well. I was also asked about my work at VECV & how I plan on bringing the on-ground learnings from sales in use during the internship. I had prepared myself with basic understanding of finance & operations and relied on my work-experience knowledge to deal with most of the questions.

Well planned strategy made the difference

I always wanted to join a GenMan program because of the huge career progression potential. I believe I managed to get into my dream internship through my hard work and well-planned preparation. During the internship, my primary project was in the operations domain, while I took up side-projects (called cookie projects) in the marketing, HR & finance domain. The team coordinates with all this and pushes you to explore newer domains & business units during your stint there. In short, my experience during the internship was amazing.

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