There are many do’s and don’ts when it comes to placements. Advice is like confetti, people always have something to say about what you should be doing. After all those life changing talks, you are confused not knowing what do when! No one knows you like yourself. Listen well, and take in what you need. So, do you want to stand on your own feet? Head’s up! Confetti shower!
After talking to a few freshly placed personnel who can proudly say, “Been there, done that!” we have first hand information that is worth a review. For starters, big fishes like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, etc aren’t the only companies that are up for grabs. Other companies, whose name might not be familiar to you, are also part of the ball game. Just because you don’t know it doesn’t make these companies trivial.
For the Tech-savvy:
If coding is your turf or if you are a maestro in training, listen closely! Generally, there about 5-6 rounds of filtering. Firstly the aptitude, that is about an hour and a half long. Shriram (placed at Amazon) says, ”Aptitude was easy for me as I was preparing for GRE. The Quants section of GRE was similar to that”.
Srravya (hired by Ebay Inc) says” The internet is all you need, I didn’t opt for books. Solve as many question as you can.”
Next up is the coding round. Brush up on the language of your choice - Java, C, C++ etc. Arvind (a FlipKart recruit) says, ”I prefer Java because of the inbuilt classes, but people opt for C and C++ too”. After all it is your thought process that is scrutinized.
The coding round is followed by one or more tech rounds depending upon the company. The reason why this round terrorizes people is because of its gruelling nature. Srravya says, ”1st tech round was 45 minutes of programming concepts and 2nd was 90 minutes of questions based on projects and my areas of interest that I had mentioned in my CV.”
Shriram says, ”I went prepared for questions from the coding domain after the preliminary tests, but I was tested on my interpersonal skills”. All we can do is prepare for the best and expect the worst!
Now get ready for the HR rounds! You can’t run, you can’t hide, what you are will come out in this round. Best is to refine the truth. Arvind says, ”The interviewer wants to know about who you are and your genuine interests. He didn’t look at my CV once. I was truthful when I was asked about my successes and failures in life.”
Not-so-Tech-Savvy-companies:
Companies like Mu Sigma (started by CEG’s alumni) use the standard aptitude round to sieve. Then they test the logical reasoning ability and here comes the twist. Along with this they might have a video synthesis followed by a group discussion. Arvind Palanisamy ( recruited by Mu Sigma) says, ”The video synthesis is basically to check if you have an eye for detail”. This is followed by either a coding round or HR round depending on your engineering background. You are posed with hypothetical situations in HR round. Arvind Palanisamy says, ”I was asked to put myself in Mu Sigma’s shoes and give business solutions to two different companies. There was a lot of waiting involved. Every time we heard someone was selected it was like there goes another spot!”.
Enough said, the bottom line is that you equip along the lines of aptitude and logical reasoning. Don’t miss out on any opportunity in college for developing your skill set!
