Hola Techies!
Well its high time 3rd year Engineering lads, you guys must start preparing for the tough campuses heading steadily and the final year people out there it's a crucial time for you. Hope, a lot of you are seriously gearing up for it . Albeit, a few among you are at ease now. This blog is to help you figure out the right way to approach the campus interviews or any interview in general.I have been constantly asked for suggestions, so to save my time and to address a large audience this blog is being catered.
Before we talk of preparations, Lets understand the interview process and the companies that visit our campus. IT, service and sales oriented companies are commonly encountered by us. Most of the companies that visit a private engineering college are service oriented or service based for example TCS, Tech Mahindra, Cognizent.. This MNCs don't have much concern about your forte of engineering because they hire and prepare a student according to the requirements they have mostly for maintaining previously developed products and providing technical and non-technical services.
The product based companies like Johnson Controls, Google, Juspay are a rare or absent show, since
they have high expectations and demands from a student. I still remember the pool campus scheduled by Juspay. Almost 4000 students participated among which 10 were selected. The selection though tough, the pay was high as 10 LPA.Its mahoosive in comparison to the pay of 3-5 LPA in a service based company. Nevertheless, the work on such Product based firms are more akin to what we have studied in four years of engineering, comparatively the labor at service based firm is monotonous and may or may not have any relation with your engineering domain.
You must keep your fingers crossed and head for a product based company because if you fail a service based organisation will cushion you. But the big question mark is... How to prepare?
well, we are very close to discuss that. But lets watch out the interview process first.
Generally every company has three level to screening to sort out the best.
1. Quantitative Aptitude
2. Group Discussion(GD)
3. Personal Interview.
a. Technical
b. Non Technical
4.HR
So, this are the rounds which is generally observed. Now lets delve into the details of this rounds.
QUANTITATIVE APTITUDE
An aptitude test is mostly stacked at the very beginning of the process. It acts as a screening method to sort out those having good logical, computational and reasoning skills. Sometimes it might seemed to be irrelevant. Whatever be the case it could be thought of as an attempt to filter the candidates and get a handful of them who could be personally interviewed.
Preparing for Quants could be tricky coz it comprises of so many subparts and chapters. So lemme suggest a way which I followed to impact well in all the campuses that I appeared.
When it comes to preparing for quants some people refer renound books by authors as such RS Agarwal, Arun Sharma etc. Private tutions from professionals for hefty charges is also recommended. Albeit, what worked out for me was some planning and it's proper execution. I did attain few aptitude classes but they were very few in number. A decent credit behind my preparation goes to an app of NITHRA.
Lemme tell my process of planning.
I jotted down all the chapters in quants and reasoning both verbal and non-verbal on a sheet of paper.. Post that I figured the topics I was familiar with. Next, I straight forward appeared for a test on those topics on the Nithra App. The type of questions which appeared difficult to me were noted and I found videos and explanations of them on net and gripped them as a concept.
I then headed for the topics I didn't had much idea about. Having paid special attention to them I watched videos at YouTube dealing with those concepts to grasp them as well. Post that was a test again on those chapters. I continued the process for the reasoning part as well..
In parallel I was solving questions of the chapters done earlier on regular basis.In a month or two I was able to solve almost every problem given to me.
Some companies include some technical questions as well in their selection process. It might be a separate round or might even be joined with the aptitude round. Get some idea about technical interview test from my blog here
GROUP DISCUSSION
It's again a round for screening. A candidate is assessed on his communication, body language, leadership skills and confidence You can perform immensely well in it once you follow certain tricks and tips as suggested by me underneath. Generally a GD room turns into a fish market with people arguing and quarreling in no time. A best show of leadership is when you can settle the chaos in the group and direct a smooth flow. One can use the phrase " friends could be please calm down, we must discuss not argue unproductively " Or if you find the discussion is deviating from the topic, take a stand and say, "I think we are deviating from the topic" and introduce the theme again.
Initiating the GD is a plus point but initiating without adequate knowledge and confidence is like an act of digging your own grave. :p . There are several ways to start. Begin by greeting and mentioning the topic following your point of view about the so and letting others join.
For example if the topics is Is GST Good or Bad. I would initiate like this, "Good morning to all from my side. Today we have got steaming topic for discussion which is GST good or bad. According to me it's a boon for the lower strata of the societies and small scale business owners who were burdened with stashes of indirect taxes earlier. Under it products and services are categorized and taxes are levied on them respectively. Hence putting the basic commodities of life at low tax incurred category the government has bestowed a boon upon the people specially to the poor class". So, that was how I would start.
Phew, the tough job is done. Now suppose you want to speak but I being a strong speaker is continuing with facts, figures and contents..
Then??
Let's take an ingenious approach.
Just act as if you want to support me by adding to my point, say, "Yes I strongly agree with him, I would like to add that......" And you are set in my dear friend :D
Jeez, I will obviously try to take back the control. I mean it happens sometimes that before you finish someone try to speak hence interrupting you. Well people often raise there voice and be louder at that moment but you should not do that at all. In fact just say In a bit strong voice "could I just finish my point". Bingo! you are allowed to continue. It works most of the time.
Try to come up with real facts and figures about the topic for more appreciation. If someone introduces a wrong fact or Information don't miss the chance to point it out like this - "I am afraid you are wrong..." . Then introduce the rectified information. At times it happens you get a topic you don't have any idea about. Well don't be worried. In a GD of Intel similar thing happened to me. However, I ended clearing the GD.
How??
For the first 3 minutes I remained numbed and did a decent job of listening and anlysing. I collected points which I could use and then contributed by introducing the same facts but in a different way with a bit of my own points. I kept collecting the points and even did the job of concluding. Hence, increasing my chances of selection.. So, if you know less about the topic listen and then add up. If possible try concluding.
PERSONAL INTERVIEW
Wokay, it's time to gear up for personal interviews aka PI now.
Personal interviews are intended to get an insight into candidates nature. In a non-technical interview one is asked about some basic info namely introduction, strength, weakness, hobbies. A technical interview is a bit stressful since the interviewer can hurl on you all sorts of questions related to the job profile. Generally basic questions are being asked like I was once asked, what is Android?. However, it could not be guaranteed. In the technical interview of Johnson controls I was asked a result tough question. I was asked to write the algorithm to control the traffic of a seven way lane with each lane having a traffic light controlling the traffic. The lights are supposed to turn on in a alternative manner. i.e 1,3,5,7,2,4 6,1,3 and so on. Well I solved it but after I was asked to leave. :p .. I was allotted 30 sec to do it and I failed. Sometimes the technical and non-technical interviews are Clubbed into a single one as I witnessed in Tech Mahindra.
You can refer to my earlier blog to get some detailed idea about the interview questions.
Sometimes you may even need to face a HR round. A HR interview is all about questions that scales your mind set up and compatibility to work with the organization. The most common question asked is can you relocate? Why did you take the course you are currently perusing.?. In an interview at ACCENZA I was asked, "what would I do if my superiors repeatedly skips the office and burdens me with work ". I would suggest you to be confident while answering. Apply your brains and never utter any thing that stands negative. For example in Intel while telling about myself I mentioned about me being the only son of my parents and the only companion to my mother. This was taken as an indication by HR that I cannot relocate. Jeez, even after excellent performance I was out. So, this was my suggestion for you to prepare for the best jobs out there..
For all the CSE people reading this post I have an extra piece of information to share with you. As much I have seen and inferenced, best preparation would be done if you put stress on the chapters mentioned in GATE syllabus.
Since, it will prepare you for IT giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook etc. I was unaware of this fact and hence failed to prepare myself accordingly. Some other platforms that I referred for preparing myself are INDIA BIX, YouTube videos of Sunil Nair, video preparations of LIFEE and last but not the least my sweet heart Sweety's Quantitative Aptitude book by RS Agarwal.
Its time to bid adieu. All the best for your journey ahead.
If you liked my blog do comment under.
If you want me to write on some specific topics mail me @ surajskfgi@gmail.com
Share this blog with your friends and let's help each other Prosper.. You may also go through my interview experience at Cognizant here
Thank you,
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