Sample Answer
I’d start by taking five minutes to quickly size each one by urgency and impact. The potentially major problem comes first, because unresolved risk can snowball fast. I’d block 30–45 minutes to understand scope: what’s actually at risk, who’s affected, and what the immediate containment steps are. At the same time, I’d acknowledge the management request within a few minutes, give a realistic ETA (for example, “I’ll send a summary in 45–60 minutes”), and ask if there’s a hard deadline. For the high-volume routine queries, I’d triage: what can be handled via templates, self-service, or delegated. If I can’t delegate, I’d batch them into 2–3 time blocks later in the day. Once the critical issue is contained or stabilized, I’d produce a concise management update with 3 bullets: what happened, current status, and next steps. Then I’d work through the routine queries in batches, watching for any new signals that might force another reprioritization.
Keywords
On your resume you mention working on a cross-functional project (e.g., involving multiple teams or stakeholders). Describe a situation from that project where priorities conflicted—how did you navigate the trade-offs and what was the final outcome?
Walk me through a recent multi-channel digital marketing campaign you managed end-to-end. How did you set objectives, choose channels, allocate budget, and measure success?
In your resume you note improving or optimizing [a process, KPI, or metric]. What specific baseline metrics did you start from, what steps did you personally take, and how did you verify that the improvement was due to your changes rather than external factors?
Based on your hydrology and irrigation engineering background, explain how you would estimate the irrigation water requirement for a kharif crop in a semi-arid region of Gujarat. Walk me through each step: from reference evapotranspiration estimation, crop coefficient selection, effective rainfall calculation, to arriving at canal discharge for a given command area.
In your civil engineering studies, what specific design coursework or project work did you complete related to irrigation channels or canals (e.g., design of lined/unlined canals, distributaries, minors)? Describe one such design in detail, including how you determined discharge, permissible velocity, section dimensions, and lining choice for Gujarat-type soil and climate conditions.