Interview Experiences

Hello everyone. I am in the penultimate semester of my under graduation and been going through the job search phase. In this post, I want to share some knowledge about interview patterns out of me and my coding mates interview experiences. I am from Tier-3 college and this post is going to be from that perspective, aiming for software developer role in good learning cultured companies.

The pattern is as below:

Step 0: Aptitude Test (few companies I attended had this test)

The pattern I observed is, if you have an Aptitude test and Coding test, then the Coding test is going to be easy. Because they are testing the thinking process with an Aptitude test and basic code writing skill with a Coding test. The highest priority is for the aptitude tests in most cases based on coding test complexity.

Companies like Valuelabs, DarwinBox, etc.. follow this pattern.

Step 1: Coding Challenge

Most of the coding tests have 5-20 MCQs on OOPS, DBMS, SQL queries, OS, Networks, domain-specific, and other computer science core concepts.

2-6 Problem-solving questions, overall difficulty level from medium to hard.

15-30 mins for each question.

Mostly we have seen questions on arrays, linked lists, strings, recursion, dynamic programming, trees and sometimes graphs.

Most of the times, language is restricted to OOP supported languages like JAVA, C++ depends on the role. But most companies we came across have openings for JAVA developers or some OOP supported language developers.

Almost all companies we attended have the coding test. TCS Codevita, IBI, Goldman Sachs,  American Express, Comvault, Opentext,  Accolite, NCR, etc..

Some companies have hackathons instead of the above rounds which lasts for 6-48 hours. Companies like JP Morgan Chase(Code for good), Report Garden, DBS, etc.. are conducting hackathons where the participants are expected to build an application in the given time.
Some companies have only MCQ tests, like Toggl, DBS, etc..
Some have domain-specific coding puzzles round instead of problem-solving coding rounds.

We wrote most of the above tests from home, few from college, few from their offices.

Step 2: Resume screening

Based on the performance in the above rounds and your resume, shortlisting takes place. 

More the projects or domain-specific work experience, the more chances of getting shortlisted.

Step 3: Technical Rounds

There can be 1-5 technical rounds. Some may be skype, telephonic or face to face. This will be the evaluation of your practical understanding of knowledge. You can expect in-depth questions from the different concepts of OOPS, DBMS, OS, DS, algorithms, Design Patterns, Networks, Compilers, etc.. In-depth discussion and questions from your project, they may ask you to improve it or add a new feature to it. Some out of the box thinking puzzles. System design questions based on your projects or computer science core subject concepts. Discussion on each and every part of your resume.

You can ask for hints if you don't know how to solve a question asked.

Step 4: Managerial Round and HR

General HR questions to know about the particular candidate, tell me about yourself, why did you choose this company, etc.. Discussion on your resume. You can find more standard HR questions if you google.

"Be yourself" to crack this round, this round is to make sure that you are a fit for company culture. if you pretend here, you may end up in the wrong place.

So that's the process we are going through.

How to build value for your resume?

Showcase your passion in the form of work you did in past in the resume, remember why you started learning to code, what bought you into this, what excited you. Learn basics, start developing stuff that interests you or participate in hackathons or participate in coding challenges or start opensource contributions or do some internships or do research, keep blogging/vlogging your findings. Keep learning things form doing them consistently and automatically you attain valuable skills and your value gets increased as well as your resume. Lots of sources available on the web to start, it's one search away. Try to host things you developed, push your code to GitHub and put repo link, write some blog posts or anything which shows your work online 24/7 through a link. Try to have at least 4-5 good projects to get recognized or top-notch problem-solving skills with achievements.

Links helpful in resume making:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYUy1yvjHxE
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-make-good-resume-shivang-bansal

How to prepare for an interview?

Though we code daily, we can't attend the interview directly. It needs some background work because they have aligned with their criteria and pattern which suits their recruitment needs, to select from a large number of applicants. It's a hard and resource-consuming process for a company to meet each applicant, have round like HR and know about each and every applicant and then select.

To withstand the process and to be a successful developer, you need to be sound in core subjects:

Data Structures

Algorithms

Object-Oriented Programming

Operating Systems

Database management system

Compilers 

SQL querying

Design Patterns

Computer Architecture

Networks

Basic maths

Domain-specific stuff and skills you mentioned in the resume

We should be able to convert an idea to code using at least one Object-Oriented Language. Because companies are looking for someone who can develop new ideas, not just who can write lines of code. Knowing procedural language is fine but OOPs provide more flexibility, reusability, security, and scope for beautiful design. 

Basic understanding of how computers work altogether. One should be comfortable playing with data structures and algorithms.

You can practice problem-solving in Leetecode, SPOJ, Codechef. For company-specific questions and interview experiences, you can go through Geeks for Geeks. Lots of interview experiences are out there, you can go through them and prepare more specifically.

Don't panic by seeing the above list or if you don't understand any terms. Eventually, you will get it. Start with basic stuff. It's not the JNTU exam to remember the whole textbook and put it on paper, just understand it by visualizing in your brain and leave it. If you can explain that concept clearly with the help of an example, it's fine in most cases. Once you are good with basic things if you get time go for complex ones, but don't get blank out with basics.

How to apply for jobs off-campus?

Coding Challenges or Hackathons:

There will be online hiring challenges held by different companies for freshers, on different websites. Some websites I remember are Hackerearth, Mettl etc..

Referrals:

The referral is another feasible way to apply for a role. You can ask for referrals from employees who are currently working in that particular company. If you don't know anyone from that company you can find on Linkedin. Having a large number of connections helps a lot, it's not just about referrals but it provides lots of awesome sources for motivation and knowledge. Socializing more on LinkedIn is helpful for one's career.

Apply on page:

One can find openings in a company on their careers page of their website. You can even turn on notification so that if any role matching your search has opened, you will get notified. You can apply there if you find the role of your interests.

You can find job postings on employment websites like LinkedIn, AngelList, StackOverflow, etc.. You can even turn on notifications there and get updates daily and apply if you find one suits you.

Companies that usually get a large number of applications use application tracking software to filter or sort resumes.

You can check reviews about companies on websites like glassdoor or ping someone who is working there about culture.

Don't spend more time searching for openings than learning.

I want to write this post because, Two years back I thought, writing some code daily or developing stuff you like will be enough to prove you are a passionate programmer and gets you hired, but when the actual process has started it's bit different. So thought of writing a post which gives an abstract idea of the interview processes we went through.

Being in tier-3 college it's very hard to know even what real programmer does (it's totally different from programming lab process), what actually your aim requires, how to start, whom to ask for guidance. I personally took help from my seniors and Mission RnD to come all this way. If you are willing to learn and seeking mentoring, you can join the opened course in Interviewcoder, it's being developed and maintained by my seniors, mentors from Mission RnD, me and my peers to reach out to many, without taking a penny, we only charge cloud costs for running the platform on cloud. You will find sources to quick start as a pure beginner, mentoring and placement guidance. It's irrespective of college and respective of self-motivation. You cannot expect spoon-feeding here.

Thank you for reading the post patiently till here, hope this article will be helpful. Let's be patient and acheive our dreams.

Thank you

Madhurima Paruchuri