Placements Through the DSC Lens
Part one of a three-part series.
Placements! One word that brings to the minds and hearts of engineers, all kinds of intrigue, anxiety, and confusion. We see a guy in a shirt and tie and jump at the opportunity of striking a conversation with him, we tiptoe around the question that everyone is dying to know the answer to — their package! Juniors, especially, over-enthusiastically bug seniors with their doubts about placements, only to be shot down with the typical reply “You’ve got loads of time left, don’t worry right now!”. Donning the messiah whites, this blog is here to help you with just that!
DSC VIT is a group of enigmatic, talented and devoted students, so it was no surprise when our current seniors bagged the highest packages on campus all within the first month of their 4th year.
I sat down and broke bread with the seniors and got them to spill all their secrets! Scroll down to find out.
Raina Garg: WTM Lead at DSC VIT
Q. Where are you placed and what is your profile?
I landed a job at Cisco Systems and the package is 30 Lakh per annum CTC.
Q. What did your interview entail?
There were 2 parts to the actual assessment process. First was the online round consisting of 15 MCQ’s and 2 coding questions of medium to high difficulty level. Shortlisted students were categorized into 3 categories — Business Analyst, Customer Support and Engineering Profile. I was shortlisted for the engineering profile which consisted of 2 technical rounds and a final interview with the HR manager.
Q. When did you start preparing?
My inclination towards competitive coding began when I was in 11th standard and I learned about this competition ICPC, (International Collegiate Programming Contest). Since then I have been mentored by a teacher and I credit my skills and motivation to him. There was no intensive preparation focusing on placements but I did go through all the companies’ previous year or most asked questions.
Q. How did you prepare for all the rounds?
Like I said, I had been coding for a while so the technical rounds were covered in that. For HR, some background research about the company and basic soft skills are enough.
Q. What made you gain an edge over other applicants?
I was confident about my coding skills and a good resume. Besides, I could communicate well and answer most questions truthfully and correctly. I credit my confidence to all the practice I had been doing over the years. If you practice well, know your concepts, there is nothing that you can’t figure out the answer to.
Q. How much coding knowledge should you have and in which language?
This is a very subjective question. There is no set syllabus for how much should you know to ace placements. The more, the better. Besides, getting placed in a company is also subject to what their package and profile are. Being well versed in Data Structure concepts (practice Dynamic Programming questions thoroughly) and good knowledge of concepts of DBMS, OS, and networks is good enough. Language is usually not a barrier, though some companies prefer C, C++, and Java more than others.
Q. How important is your CGPA?
CGPA has a very critical role to play in getting shortlisted for good companies. If you’re a 9 pointer it is only then that you get to sit for “all” companies. Due to the high strength of batches in VIT, CGPA is the first criterion to get shortlisted, so clearly it is very crucial. Maintain a good CGPA!
Q. How daunting is the whole interview experience?
It is, of course, a nerve-wracking and nail-biting experience but if you’re confident of your preparation then you should be good. One good advice would be to stay calm during the whole process because interviews start early morning and often go on until the wee hours of the day. Stay calm and confident!
Q. How did you deal with last-minute nervousness?
Just take a breath and affirm yourself that would do great!
Q. How did you decide between higher studies and placements?
I think I was pretty clear about this because I wanted to try pageantry and that demanded my staying back in India. Besides, I would go for higher studies after getting some industry experience for a year or two.
Dhiraj Kumar Jain: Tech Advisor at DSC VIT
Q. Where are you placed, what is your profile and what is your package?
I got placed in amazon Amazon, as SDE-I, with a package of 29 Lakh per annum.
Q. What did your interview entail?
The first round was an online round in which around 4000 students gave the test, there was no shortlisting done on the CGPA basis for the online round and almost everyone without having any current arrear was allowed to sit for the online round.
The online round consisted of two coding questions and 28 MCQs, the coding questions were mostly based on basic data structures and algorithms, one of them was very easy and the other one was of medium level. The MCQs were based on DSA only.
After the online round, 70 students were called for the next round of interviews. There was a group fly round in which 2 questions were given, one was on graphs and the other was on BST, we had to code on pen and paper and after this round, some 25 students were shortlisted for the next round. After this F2F (face to face) tech rounds began, my tech round went on for almost 2.5 hours in which I was asked multiple questions which were mostly based on data structures.
Q. When did you start preparing?
After 6th semester during my summer vacation
Q. How did you prepare for all the rounds?
Built strong fundamentals and practiced a lot of questions on online platforms like Hackerrank, GeeksForGeeks and LeetCode(which I think is the best). Gave a number of mock interviews on Pramp.com(Both technical and behavioral).
Q. What made you gain an edge over other applicants?
My good soft skills, crystal clear computer science concepts, and my resume which was like the icing on the cake. It speaks about my achievements and all the hard work I have put in my four years of engineering.
Q. How much coding knowledge should you have and in which language?
Language is not a bar, you should have in-depth knowledge in at least one of the object-oriented programming languages, you should know the programming language inside out. I did my coding in C++. I would suggest everyone to know at least one of C++ or Java.
Q. How important is your CGPA to the whole selection process?
CGPA is just required for getting shortlisted for the online screening round. So yeah it is very important. Some companies do have high CGPA cutoffs. But something >=8.5 will be pretty safe considering campus placements in VIT.
Q. How daunting is the whole interview experience?
It is a bit daunting if it is an interview for a company you really want to join, but slowly as the interview progresses everything seems easy.
Q. How did you deal with last-minute nervousness before the interview?
As I had given a lot of mock interviews I was not that nervous before the interview process, whenever I used to feel a bit nervous I used to think about my previous achievements that used to boost me up with confidence and eliminate my nervousness.
Q. How did you decide between higher studies and sitting for placements?
I always wanted to develop applications be it backend, frontend, decentralized or mobile applications. Anything that was built for the next billion, I am always in for it. I felt that gaining an industry experience will prove more useful to me rather than going for higher studies if I wanted to succeed in this field in the long run. I had my goals very clear right from the first year of my engineering so I did not face a lot of difficulty in choosing between higher studies and placements.
Paritosh Mahajan — Machine Learning Developer at DSC VIT
Q. Where are you placed, what is your profile and what is your package?
I got placed at AppDynamics as a Software Engineer with a CTC of 39 Lakh per annum.
Q. What did your interview entail?
My interviews focussed on two main areas.
i) DSA and problem solving: In total, I was given around 5 coding problems which I was supposed to solve.
ii) Resume and Projects: In almost all my interviews, there were long discussions about my projects, experiences, my interests, and aspirations and they were impressed by the projects I had done in DSC.
Q. When did you start preparing?
From the second year itself, I started building my portfolio by doing projects, participating in hackathons, doing courses etc which helped me in creating a good resume. However for interview preparation, I started in 5th sem by refreshing the DSA concepts and from the 6th sem, I started preparing seriously.
Q. How did you prepare for all the rounds?
For the coding round, I prepared from various sources like Coding Ninjas, GeeksforGeeks and Hackerrank Interview Kit. For the coding interviews, I read and practiced ‘Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Mcdowell’ book, which I would highly recommend. Along with that, I gave many mock interviews on Pramp.com which helped me hone my interviewing skills.
Besides, I used to analyze myself from time to time to understand my weaker points and then strategically worked on them.
Q. What made you gain an edge over other applicants?
I had worked a lot on my ‘interviewing’ skills which I feel most people don’t focus much on. All the 20+ mock interviews and 5+ real interviews I had given helped me become comfortable with interviews. Besides, I had interviewed over 20 people on Pramp, which helped me get a perspective of the interviewer as well. Also, I used to do a lot of retrospection of myself and my preparations and continuously worked on my weaker areas.
In my technical profile, I see my versatile experiences as my greatest strength. I had some unique and challenging work experiences in areas like Deep Learning and Distributed Systems along with a rich history of hackathon participation and winnings. My work and experiences at DSC are definitely a big highlight of my resume which also particularly impressed one of the interviewers from AppDynamics.
Q. How did you deal with last-minute nervousness before the interview?
Just before the interviews, if possible, I do some ‘power poses’ which actually helps me in raising my confidence. Also, I try to think of anything which can raise my confidence then.
More often than not, the defining line between being successful and failing is the attitude that one brings to the table. I hope this blog brought some clarity to you and motivates you to chase your dreams!
Stay tuned for upcoming blogs in this three-part series that will bring more foresight and experience to the fore.
Get a chance to personally interact with these brilliant minds at DevJams 2019. Register now at devjams.dscvit.com!
