Placement Guide for freshers

This is a short guide I have prepared for all the people appearing in placements, it’s strictly based on my own experience and what I have heard and seen during placement procedure. I don’t claim it’s 100% correct but I am just sharing my experience and perspective and I hope it would help many.

First of all, we have to analyse any placement procedure from the company’s point of view. They need to hire people. Either they would recruit a lot or recruit very less, either they would recruit according to capabilities of candidates or they will have a fixed number in their mind and accordingly they would recruit. All in all, there are lots of factors involved and you have to balance your performance somehow so that you can clear the process. I would try to draw a general picture here and then point out specific difference between mass recruiters who hire in bulk and normal recruiters who hire less people.

   1)  Written Test

The first phase in most of the campus recruitments is a written test and it’s a very crucial phase because many capable people fail to clear it. It may be entirely an aptitude test or may be a mixture of aptitude and technical. Some test are adaptive and some of them have sectional cut off. Let us look at all the general sections:

 a)   Quant: It comprises the basis mathematics that we all learn till 10^th class. Typical topics are linear equation, time and distance, speed, geometry, permutation and combination, statistics, functions etc. It’s better to revise all the formulas though by instinct you can attempt most of the questions as they are easy and do not require much calculation. Still, practice will give you confidence to attempt most questions in case there is negative marking. Try to attempt as much as you can and hunt for easy questions which are direct formula based. It’s a scoring section as everyone has at least 12 years of exposure to basic mathematics and all are comfortable in it. It’s not much tricky like other sections and mostly direct questions are asked.

 b)   VA: Verbal ability is not only vocab. It covers the entire English section. So let us not call it VA, let us call it English ability section. You might be asked vocabulary based question like synonym, antonym, and pattern based questions. There might be para jumbles, or RCs. The important point here is, you can’t mug English and can’t prepare for it in 10 days. You have to learn to develop an instinct for it and have faith on your instinct. One should try learning English in the most unorthodox ways and the best way is to get exposed to it as much as you can. Watch SITCOMS, MOVIES with subtitle on and watch them closely, listen to commentaries and news, read novels and newspaper, read as much English as you can and you would not require any dedicated preparation. Still, for the sake of gaining confidence, you might learn some basic grammar rules and their exceptions, mug up a few general words and practice some question to get a feel of how to attempt the section.

  c)   LR: LR has  most interesting questions and some people are naturally good at reasoning so they won’t require any special preparation for it. All you need is to focus on the problem as you don’t need to learn any formulae for it. It just requires brain, but as we say again, practice would make you comfortable while attempting this section so better try a few before the actual test.

  d)   DI: There might be a separate section for DI or not, it’s an easy section. You need to study a chart or table or some other structure and answer accordingly. If your calculation speed is fast, then you can collect lots of marks in this section and it’s a fairly easy one.

  e)  Technical: Technical section may contains variety of question like output of C/C++/JAVA program, or finding errors in a program, or theoretical question. It might have question from algorithms or subjects like network/OS/Software engineering. The point is, you can’t learn whole 4 years of your engineering in a week so better you take a gist of all the subjects instead of deeply studying everything. It’s better to master one or two subjects and be thorough with the basics of other subjects so that it might help you in interviews too. Even if you do not know a language or a topic, still same rules and concepts are applicable in technical and by careful analysis and some presence of mind you can eliminate few choices and make a very good calculated guess.

General rule for clearing any written test would be proper time management. As there are many other rounds afterwards, so mostly major chunk of people are able to clear the written and they are designed in the same way at least for mass recruiters. So the important thing would be to attempt wisely all the section, attempt at least few questions from everyone for a balanced performance, don’t take anything on ego and be confident. It’s always better to have a little practice beforehand and speed and accuracy should be balanced properly.

    2) Group Discussions: There may or may not be a GD. It varies from company to company. Still, there is no such thing like only those who are brilliant speakers can clear this round, they certainly have an edge, but there are various other factors. So one should never be under confident about this round.  In a GD, listening is as important as speaking. If you have no clue about the topic given, you can just listen to what others are saying, form some perspective and valid points and then speak in the end. If you are not able to speak a single line in a GD, still some co-coordinators give such person chance to speak and in that case if you listened carefully you can give an impressive performance. It’s always better to be short and concise and more importantly say only relevant things, don’t say anything for the sake of speaking else it would do more harm than benefit. It’s always better to know the current affairs and some sensitive topics that are raised more and often and are always debatable still you should be prepared to speak on anything that you are not even aware of.  You can practice in groups for it or practice alone at home to get more comfortable.

    3) Case Studies/ Video Analysis/Others:  Generally mass recruiters do not have this round. Only a few companies have such round. They will give you a case study and ask certain questions from it or they would show you a video. They are interested in the way you can ‘infer’ from things. It’s a game of presence of mind and how well you can present your thoughts and ideas you have just formed. It’s better to go on your instinct and trust on your capabilities for such round instead of giving too much thoughts and getting confused and under confident.

   4)  Interviews: Interviews are the most feared, misunderstood, overestimated rounds. As they are usually the last phase so they are very crucial and it always involved lots of uncertainties, an environment which can make you uncomfortable and nervous, a single mistake and a heavy fine for it. There is no abc for cracking interviews, as it has lots of variables in the equations, still what matters is giving your best performance and having the mental satisfaction that you did the best you could. Let us first have a brief discussion on resume first,

a)   RESUME: Resume is another thing people stresses a lot, thinks a lot, consults a lot and are always confused whether they had the best one or not. In short, resume is like a menu card and instead of setting a general menu card, it’s beneficial to know beforehand what the customer wants to eat and only present those contents. Resumes should vary according to different companies and so should your mindset when you appear in an interview. Let us look at all the section that must be included:

General Information: The upper side of resume contains your general information like your name, contact number, email etc.

Objective: Don’t copy your objective from someone and don’t try to make it too much fancy and complicated, just look at the role you are applying for and accordingly write a simple statement that you can justify keeping in mind your capabilities. Objective should be written with the perspective what companies want in you rather than what you want in your life.

Academic Qualification: Just write that in tabular form in a presentable manner.

Skills: Usually comprises technical skills or depend on the company you are applying for, prioritize according to that order and only write those skills in which you are really skilled instead of the casual flamboyancy we usual do, because really deep questions might be ask from the skills section.

Training: You can write about any professional training you have attended and have a certificate of proof for it.

Projects: Write the name of the project first, then explain it in details if it is for a technical company or in short if for other company and write all the relevant technologies use. Try to write a content that tells the working of project in a neat way. This is a major point in most interviews so be very careful about this.

Seminars Attended: If you have certificates, you can write it also, rarely any questions are asked from it and you are expected to know the gist of the seminar you attended and relevant questions from it.

Achievements: Usually we write achievements after 9^th class and usually those for which we have certificates, they may include both the academic and extracurricular ones.

Extra Curricular: If you are getting short in technical stuff, extracurricular might save you, if you have a diversified profile then you can turn up a bad interview into a good one by explaining all the extracurricular activities you participated and your experience/ learning from them.

Hobbies/Strength: They are optional and if you have space you may put it. They are asked sometimes and you may be able to give some very impressive answers during cross questioning.

NOTE:  Take the printout of the resume on bond papers and always keep at least 3 or 4 extra copies of it because your interviewers might ask you for extra copy.

b)   FOLDER: Your folder is the complete package for you. It should contain your resume, all the mark sheets, certificates and various proofs. It should be well organized, neat and clean and all the things must be in proper order. Generally, you do not put your folder on table, you keep it in your hand and hand it over to the interviewers only if you are asked to do so.

Interviews are an assessment of a person from various different angles. You can google it out on internet the general question asked but do not go by the answers given in it. Interviewers are not fool and you can’t make them, don’t give the usual answers like disguising your strengths as weakness or the usual stuff that coaching classes make you mug up. Be genuine and yourself, that’s the best policy as you will never feel guilty or regret about it later but don’t be stupid. If you are genuinely stupid then also try to act sane for a while. Firstly, appear in the proper dress code, always keep a pen, look neat and clean, and be confident, your body language must advocate for you. Don’t be nervous or anxious. Just be calm but don’t be casual. Don’t answer too much but balance your answers accordingly. Wait for a while, think what you are going to say and then only say it. If you are not able to reply for few questions or replied incorrectly, don’t panic and mess up the rest part. It’s natural; they don’t expect all correct replies from you. In fact, they might not even be concerned about the quality of your reply and may be assessing only your body language and communication skills. Don’t have any prejudice about interviews, as there are no definite steps to crack it up, it’s always uncertain because the person who is interviewing you is also a human. He has his own perceptions, prejudices and mindset and it’s not always the case that you would be able to please it. It will remain uncertain and unpredictable and that’s the beauty of it. You don’t require any preparation for it, just knock the door, walk in there and give your best performance because the only thing require there is to present yourself in the best possible way.

Let’s go through some general tactics for mass recruiters and normal recruiters:

a)  MASS RECRUITERS: These are the companies who recruit in bulk i.e. they took a major portion; hence they focus on certain skills rather than giving stress on specific technical skills.

1)  Communication skills: Yes, if you are good at speaking then 70% of your work is done because it is often given a large emphasis. If you are good at convincing and able to talk properly even if not fluently then you would easily make the cut. However, in no way it means that those who do not have good communication skills won’t make it, it’s just one of the factor still try to focus on it most because those with nil technical knowledge also gets in because of good soft skills.

2) Aptitude: Aptitude would certainly helps you as there are many companies who do not include technical section in the test and there will only be the aptitude test.

3) Basic Technical Knowledge: There would always be some technical questions and mostly they involve basic knowledge so you must be through with the basic concepts, they may ask you real time application of this basic concepts or something that would relate them with real life so at least brush up them once.

4) Project Work: Your project work will remain key to your entry, if had worked on good projects and you are able to explain them, it would work as a huge plus point.

5) Knowledge about company profile: Just go through the company’s profile once, or google it out and read it, mug all the people who are in key positions and some brief highlights from the history. They could act as bonus questions.

b) NORMAL RECRUITERS: They do not recruit much people, mostly in single digit and are interested in specific people who satisfy their criteria.

1) Knowledge about the role and how you fit in: Whatever role the company is providing you should be thorough with that role, and how you fit in that role. You have to sell yourself for that role and prove that you are the best candidate.

2)  Deep knowledge: If it’s a technical company, you must have deep technical knowledge about all the important subjects and also practical knowledge. They can ask questions from anywhere like databases used in Facebook/picasa, or how much memory a word document takes or all the network layers and their uses so you have to do hard work for it.

Lastly I don’t want to dishearten, frighten or scare anyone or say something negative but it’s a fact. Interview processes are not only unpredictable and uncertain but often unfair sometimes. You may be perfect candidate for a role, far better than any other person and then also you might get rejected and a person far below your caliber may get selected just because it was his day and not yours. Never get disappointed and sad because of few failures. Those who are capable will sooner or later find their way and achieve much larger success. So don’t pile up all of your expectations on a single process and get so much attached to it that you would stake your entire self-confidence on it. Be hopeful and positive and expect the best, you would end up learning no matter what the final result is and that will surely help you in later life.

PS : Those who have any specific placement related question might ask me in the comment box and I would try to reply as soon as I can and others with the same query would also get benefited by it. I would share my personal experience of seating in multiple companies in the upcoming post so that it would further help the candidates.