The Livspace Interview: What Actually Happens When a Third-Year B.Design Student Gets Called In

Anvi received the call the evening before. She was to be at the venue by ten or eleven the next morning.

She described herself as nervous in the way that only feels possible when something you have been working toward for years is suddenly in front of you. And terrified in the same breath, because the same applies.

“I was a bit anxious also. I was confident in the preparation that I had done, but I was like: I have to stay calm and clear while doing everything.”

The preparation she referred to was not last-minute. It was six semesters of portfolio-building projects at the Faculty of Architecture and Interior Design, Parul Institute of Design.

The inputs behind the preparation were specific.

• The therapy center project across semesters four and five, with Professor Rutu Bhatt as mentor.
• Working drawings coursework, which Anvi described as one of the toughest and most essential subjects of her degree.
• Site visits to Ahmedabad, twice during the program.
• The Natik Panchak workshops and the Alkapuri eleven-thousand-square-foot site study.
• The Training and Placement Cell‘s three-skill framework on formal register, portfolio presentation, and professional positioning.

And a single sentence from Professor Bhatt during the therapy center review that she has carried ever since.

“I know you can do better and you have the potential.”

The first round tested domain knowledge. Not soft skills. Not aspiration questions. Actual interior design vocabulary and the ability to hold a professional conversation about the work.

Modular kitchens are a core Livspace product line. A candidate who cannot discuss cabinet systems, countertop materials, appliance integration, workflow triangles, and lighting logic cannot be useful in a client conversation on day one.

The interviewer asked specific questions about each. Anvi answered because the B.Design curriculum at Parul Institute of Design teaches kitchen design as part of residential interiors coursework and because site visits during the program had put her in real kitchens under construction.

Materials questions were the second filter. A designer who cannot distinguish between MDF and HDF, cannot explain plywood versus particleboard, or cannot identify the appropriate surface treatment for a humid Indian climate is not a designer a platform can deploy to a client.

“The lessons they gave us, the practice they made us do, are still helping me here in this office.”

Deck spaces and outdoor transitions were the third area. Increasingly important for Livspace’s expanding portfolio into larger residential properties. The questions tested weather-resistance of materials, transitional design between indoor and outdoor, privacy, and landscaping coordination.

Read more: Livspace: company background and product categories

The second round moved into personality. Hobbies. Interests. Collaboration. Standard questions, but the weight was being evaluated on articulation, curiosity, and the ability to hold a conversation as an equal adult, not as a nervous candidate.

Then came the design challenge.

“Design a space for a three-year-old. Consider what to include, what to avoid, and how to think about a user who cannot communicate their preferences in words.”

The challenge is elegant because it resists memorisation.

• Scale is different. Furniture must accommodate a body growing two centimetres a month.
• Safety requires thinking beyond a checklist. Hard edges, sharp corners, choking hazards, fall risks.
• Storage has to be at their reach for toys they want, out of reach for items that threaten them.
• Sensory stimulation has to be balanced with calm zones.

Anvi had practised it. The pediatric clinic thesis work by her senior Jhanvi Jagada had been a reference point during her own coursework. The children’s reformation centre designed by Mrudula Satardekar was another. These projects had trained her to think about users who do not speak for themselves.

“By the end of the day it really felt satisfying, not because of the outcome but because I could see that I finally did whatever I was working for.”

Her first call after the offer was to her mother. She told her she might be moving to Surat by the end of the month.

The news produced a moment of surprise, then a warmer reaction. They were happy. She was where she had always been heading.

The placement specifics are documented. Livspace. 3.5 LPA. Sixth-semester student signing a full-time role that begins while she completes her final semester of B.Design. The office in Surat. The ten-in-the-morning start. The mock preparation phase where she works through tasks on the company’s internal platform and shadows senior designers.

Read more: Anvi Chanodia: the complete placement story

A compressed reading of the Livspace interview reveals what B.Design education is structured to produce.

• Round one tested domain fluency from core coursework, site visits, and material labs.
• Round two tested the ability to reason through an unscripted user problem from real project exposure to clinics, therapy centres, reformation spaces, and residential design.
• The personality evaluation tested presentation skills from the Training and Placement Cell’s three-skill framework.

None of these are last-minute preparations. All of them are built into the program architecture from the first year. A student who engages seriously with the curriculum arrives at a design interview already fluent. A student who waits for a placement-season crash course does not.

The offer is not the end of the process. For Anvi, it was the start of a mock preparation phase the company runs before a junior designer is placed on live client projects.

The structure tells you what the company actually values in a fresh hire.

• Internal platform training: Livspace runs a proprietary design tool, and new hires spend their first weeks becoming fluent in it.
• Senior designer shadowing: junior designers accompany senior designers into client meetings, site visits, and design reviews.
• Material library exposure: physical samples of every surface, veneer, laminate, and hardware item the company uses are catalogued for daily reference.
• Modular kitchen simulation: practice briefs with fictional clients allow new hires to build confidence before facing real ones.

The transition works because the college curriculum already introduced the vocabulary. The company training builds fluency on top of existing literacy. A graduate who arrived with no vocabulary would need six months of onboarding before becoming productive. A graduate who arrived with six semesters of working drawings and material coursework can start contributing within weeks.

This is the compounding advantage of pre-graduation placement. Time in the company during the final semester accelerates the first year of professional growth in a way that post-graduation joining cannot replicate.