HowtocracktheCampusInterview v3

NE Professional Institutes Forum
How to crack the Campus Interview

Document History
Version 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 Date 8 August 2006 16 August 23rd Aug 2006 Author Durbadal Tamuli Durbadal Tamuli Partha Gogoi Changes since previous version Draft document creation Updated with some more information Fine tuning, Table of contents etc
Table of Contents
1. Statement of Purpose .................................................................................................1 2. Basic Things before the Interview-..............................................................................2 2.1. Resume .................................................................................................................2 2.2. Information about the Recruiter ...........................................................................2 2.3. Information about the recruitment process...........................................................2 3. Written test...................................................................................................................3 3.1: Aptitude Section ..................................................................................................3 3.2: Technical Section .................................................................................................3 3.3: English Section ....................................................................................................5 4. Group Discussion .......................................................................................................5 5. Technical Interview.....................................................................................................5 6. H.R Interview...............................................................................................................6 7. Last but not the least....................................................................................................8
1. Statement of Purpose
This document is primarily for those eligible candidates for Campus Interviews which is held in their respective colleges. For quite a while, it has been noticed that the students from professional colleges of the North East are not able to perform up to desired levels- this despite the fact that many recruiters are coming to the colleges for recruiting. This could be attributed to the following reasons 1. Lack of Technical Knowledge.
_______________________________________________________________________ _ HowtocrackthecampusInterview0.3.doc NEPIF

2. Lack of Guidance and Preparation. 3. Lack of information about the recruiters 4. Lack of idea about the industry standards.
5. Lack of Interest. This is an attempt to bridge the gap for students in these participating colleges.
2. Basic Things before the Interview2.1. Resume

The resume is representative of the individual. As they say, the first impression is the last impression. It is therefore in the best interests of the individual that enough due diligence is done on preparing the resume. Candidates can talk to professionals or alumni and take their help. The NorthEastIndia(write to northeastindia-owner@yahoogroups.com) mailing network is a pool of such willing professionals who can help. Similarly, students must exploit the wonderful resource called the Internet. Some references to websites 1) http://freshersworld.com 2) http://naukri.com 3) http://timesjobs.com
2.2. Information about the Recruiter

Any candidate who is going to eligible for campus interviews should first gather information about the recruiter and know more about them. Read about the organization, ask people about what they do, what their hiring policies are like, keep track of the companys visit to other college campuses across India. A wonderful source would be to visit their official website. Another source could be business magazines like Business India or Business Standard.
2.3. Information about the recruitment process

It is highly expected that any candidate, who is appearing in the campus interview test, must collect information about the whole recruitment process of that particular recruiter. Serious efforts need to go into this activity - they should do some

homework before giving the actual interview. Please study the following steps in detail.
3. Written test
3.1: Aptitude Section
Most of the companies nowadays mainly give importance to this section. Infact if it is related to IT or some management then surely there will be section for aptitude. Students need to prepare well before they sit for the written. The main thing in any aptitude test is the management of time. For this, students require to practice a lot before the test. Sources
1. The Internet: In todays world best source is Internet. Anyone can

find a companys question paper in the net. Some of the site names where question papers can be collected are http://freshersworld.com http://ittestpapers.com/ Along with this student can join some yahoo groups like chetna, efreshers. In this yahoo groups students from all over India exchanges question papers /queries /interview experience and all. 2. Aptitude Books: The second source for aptitude is books. Aptitude TestBy RS Agarwal 3 books of Puzzles --By Shakuntala Devi Puzzles By George Summers Puzzles By Ravi narula GRE guide Study material for CAT by some standard institute like IMS
3.2: Technical Section

For IT related companies questions may come from the following area 1. C Books--Let us C /Pointers in C/Test your C skills /Let Us C solutions ---By yashwant kanetkar The c programming language by -- Kernighan and Ritchie 2. Data structure TannenBaum 3. C++ -- Balaguruswamy and Schaum Series 4. Unix UNIX shell programming by yashwant kanetkar 5. Java -- A Programmer's Guide to Java Certificationby Khalid A. Mughal 6. Operating system OS by Galvin 7. Microprocessors 8. Networking ---- TannenBaum 9. Software engineering --- Roger Pressman.
Note: -- Here the technical section will be different for different organizations. It may happen that questions will be asked only in 1 or 2 sections. Point to be noted: For core Engineering companies questions may come from the areas on which generally most of the organization are offering services .It will always depend on the organization .Students need to gather information well before the actual test. The main point here is that not everyone is good in each and every field. Each one of us has our fortes and weaknesses too. What companies look for are people who know their area of specialization and are an expert in it. More over for all the branch related technical test students can refer study material of GATE,IES and many other handbooks .
Therefore, it pays to be a master in some fields if not the jack of all. Students need to at least choose two subjects from the entire engineering course preferably, on which most the companies offer their services and prepare well for the interview. Since in campus interviews generally the duration are not that much long for, students should take this advantage and should show his skills with in this time period.

3.3: English Section
This is one of the key focus areas of every organization looking to recruit competent resources. Employees with good written and verbal communication skills are highly sought after. The pattern of this section will vary for company to company. But the basic things will be always there in the written test. Student can refer to the question papers and should do some homework. Sources--Books Mainly any Vocabulary Book. GRE guide Study material for the management course
4. Group Discussion
Generally companies conduct group discussion after the written test so as to check on your interactive skills and how good the student are at communicating with other people. The GD is to check how the candidate behave, participate and contribute in a group, how much importance do one give to the group objective as well as with his own, how well do one listen to viewpoints of others and how open-minded are one in accepting views contrary to your own. The aspects that make up a GD are verbal communication, non-verbal behavior, and conformation to norms, decisionmaking ability and cooperation. For preparation of GD - Students in every institute can organize mock GD among themselves. Can gather tips for GD from different sources like the Internet, books. They can go through the courses for GD basically provided for the institute which is meant for management exams. Students need to be aware of current affairs.
5. Technical Interview
Technical Interview will vary from companies to companies. It is obvious that those questions which are generally asked for IT sector will not be asked for the other sector. So again everything will depend on the recruiters. Students

need to gather sufficient information about the company for which they are going to give the interview. Some points
Prepare the resume well. Students should analyze the possible questions that interviewer can
ask while going through the resume and should prepare for those question. For instance if mentioned leadership skills in the resume, student should be able to tell the interviewer what are the projects or the programs student have done or organized as a leader. Students need to remember one thing that they have worked on the project for whole 6 months and they are the person who knows most about their project more than any one else. It is easy for non-CSE students to clear the technical interview in IT sector. This is because if the interviewer asks them questions on advanced topics, they have an excuse to say that they did not study them in their curriculum. Non-CSE candidates will be asked questions mostly in C language. So they should be proficient in C language. Another important thing in Technical interview is the project. Some of the interviewers ask 60% of the questions in project only. So students need to be very much clear and in depth knowledge on the area on which they hade done the project. For example if anyone from E&T or EE branch have done his project on Microprocessor and then the probability of question will be more in that area. Interviewer may ask for the student favorite subject. Every interviewer expects that student should be able to answer most of the questions in at least his favorite subject. Student should be thorough with your favorite subject.
6. H.R Interview
A candidate generally faces this round after having cleared the above said stages (with the exception of certain companies where you face it before the technical round). The candidate must be fully prepared for this stage. The general questions asked in this round are Tell us about yourself. What do you know about our company?

Why do you want to join our company? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in the next five years? Why should we hire you?
Adding here another point ,since in the campus interviews most of the IT companies recruit from Non IT branch also .So in the HR interview the recruiter will ask for the specific reason for changing their career path to IT from other core branch. Again will it be said that everything depends upon the recruiters. These may seem easy to answer but one must be well prepared with answers with proper script beforehand. Here are a few preparation tips that can help a candidate 1) Candidate should outline their education in the reverse chronological order (ie latest first.) reflecting upon their achievements. 2) Candidate should regularly check upon their strengths and weaknesses. Jot down the technical and non-technical skills and should be prepared for citing examples of their skills for effectiveness. At the end of the interview, most interviewers generally ask if the candidate has any questions. Therefore, one should be prepared beforehand with 2-3 technical and 2-3 non-technical questions and commit them to your memory before the interview. Here we are giving few sample questions that one can ask at the time of their interview. Sample Questions Could you tell the growth plans and goals of the company? What skills are important to be successful in this position? What are the criteria your company uses for performance appraisal? Therefore before going for an interview, one should find out as much information on the company as possible. The best sources are the public library, the Internet (you can check out the company's site), and one can even call the company and get the required information. The information gives the candidate a one-up in the interview besides proving his/her content for the company or position.
NE Professional Institutes Forum 7. Last but not the least

The most important thing for the student is to be confident, have a positive frame of mind and be flexible about your work and location.

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