The Placement Journeys
The Placement Journeys — Episode 1
The Inaugural Episode of TPJ with the guy who won SLAC ASE-B twice!
Hello! This is Ramshankar and I am back earlier than I promised with my first episode of TPJ. The first person to be on the other side is Rahul N Kamath who is a 4th year CSE student at ASE-B. He is currently doing his R&D internship at Micro Focus where he would be converted to an R&D engineer during full-time employment(CTC : 11.5 lakhs that includes signing bonus).
It’s highly unlikely that you don’t know Rahul if you are a CSE student at ASE-B because his spontaneous puns and witty one-liners precede the guy himself! Also, Rahul has been the FACE Co-secretary during the 2018–19 term and it was absolutely amazing working with the guy. Also, “Rahul is the only person ever at ASE-B to win SLAC (Stay Late and Code) twice!”
With all that said about the guy, the time has now come for me to get down to business and give you what you have come here for.
Original Audio Recording of the Interview
For those of you who want to hear the entire interview, I am attaching the whole 39 minute audio recording below.
Okay, so that’s an unedited version of our interview. Well, we are apologizing for a few bloopers beforehand 😆
The Interview in a Nutshell
This section is for those of you who are looking for a crisp set of points to take-away from Rahul’s placement experience. And for the same purpose, I am writing them down below.
NOTE : I would any day recommend you to listen to the audio recording as that would give you a much better experience and you will feel closer to the speakers too(almost as if you are there with us; nope…I don’t intend to be creepy 😏). Use this condensed, written version only if you are opening this article for some quick-fire motivation just before entering your placement interview hall.
- Everybody is scared before placement season, so there is nothing wrong if you are too! The idea is to be aware of your fears, because you don’t want them catching you off guard!
- Before placement season, try to accumulate as much knowledge as you have to. Because, learning things at the last moment during placements might not always be as helpful as we all think.
- Most interviewers would try to make you feel comfortable before asking you questions. So, don’t press the panic button as soon as you enter that room!
- Time-bound coding questions are the most important components. So, if you are looking for a job, learn how to code competitively. It’s very important!
- Say hi to Group Fly! — You are divided into groups and each group gets the same question, but a separate mentor. However, you will be competing individually within each group. You are first supposed to think of a solution to your problem, then get it approved by your group mentor(assigned at the start). After this, you should write down your code, explain it and talk about the time complexity involved.
- There are times when out-of-the-box solutions might get you better results than sticking to convention. So, it’s not a bad choice to be a bit brave in your approach to dealing with problems at the interview.
- Sometime things might not work out, don’t look for somebody or something to blame it on. Just get up from your fall and work towards the next company’s opportunity!
- Say hi to Group Discussions(GD) — A group of people where everybody has to discuss on a common topic. This is NOT A DEBATE!
- As Rahul says, its very important to make sense when you talk in a GD. It’s not about the number of times you speak, rather it is about the quality in your arguments. And I totally agree with Rahul too because from the mock GDs we had during the CIR classes at college, I can be sure about one thing that, “Sometimes, the innate human tendency of being an absolutely, misinformed guardian of a pointless argument gets the best out of several students once that GD topic is put up”. So, if you are amongst such people, be prepared to silence lack of reason and if you are one such person, it would be really helpful for everybody if you can respect other participants and their points of views! 😄
- It’s always great to take tips from seniors! Well, I guess you don’t have to take the extra effort because you got TPJ now 😏
- It is important to be honest because you do not want to over promise and under deliver.
- Work on your projects at college well, understand them really well. Pick up an interesting idea and try to gain a good amount of knowledge on the project. Interviewers are more interested in the problems you encounter in your project and how you overcame them.
- People are going to tell you that “What you study in college won’t help in getting jobs”. That’s not a very smart observation and can land you in soup if you try to look at your academic syllabus as not very important. Everything might not be important, but a good part is very, very important. So, set your priorities for each subject well before you start prep.
Important Links
Books
Okay, so that’s it from episode 1 of TPJ. Hope you found it relevant!
Thank you for reading !!!😃
