How to get placed in Campus Placements in Amrita or another college

tldr; Placements(Jobs) and Life is very tough and harsh so be prepared for it!

I have recently attended the placements at my university, here in Amrita all the companies come to the main campus (Ettimadai, Coimbatore) and every students from all the campus come to Ettimadai and attend placements (This way it would be fair for all the campus students and the companies can choose the best of all the three campus).

I was lucky enough to get a job offer from one of the good companies and with a good CTC of 7.5 lakh (If you guys know me in person you can ask me and find out the company name! ). Here I would like to share few things which will help you get a better job!

Also there will be a lot of software companies when compared to the other branches, so if you are in mech/ece/eee it is very difficult to get a core company, but there is always a IT field which you can choose. ECE people are allowed for few software companies but it’s very tough for them the level of programming they ask in interview. May be they can try after the M.Tech.

Procedure for campus placements are almost same which kind of sucks, but companies who want to hire real talent can change it in a way what ever they want! First round is a online test in which they ask aptitude and English people who pass the round will go through the next round which might have a Group Discussion or not one or two technical interviews and one HR interview.

Standing Arrears

Most of the companies don’t take students with standing arrears(ie subjects which you didn’t pass even after the supply and redo now even the supplies are being removed), even CIR (corporate and industry relations department) don’t allow people who are having standing arrears to appear for the placements, so by fate you are having a subject pending then you are screwed up!(so only option you are left with is to apply next year or try from off-campus) Only very few companies will not take students who are having a arrear history (but I think this is a very bad policy who ever created it as people who never had failed will not be ready to fail or innovate) and some companies will allow upto 2 standing arrears but generally not more than that! I have seen zoho saying that they no criteria except passion for coding but later the CIR managed to change to 6 cgpa and no standing arrears.

CGPA  and Maths

I know this part is very difficult! (even I have a cgpa of 7.5/10) You might have heard from many people saying that good companies won’t look into cgpa and all, that’s not true at all except for few companies and it depends on lot of other factors. I would suggest to be 100% safe you have 9.5+ cgpa! and you can attend 90% of the companies if you 9+ cgpa and 70% if you have a 8+ cgpa and around 50% for 7+ cpga and if you have 6 you can attend all the mass companies and if you have less than 6 then most probably you can’t attend placements!

Also the criteria which they tell you is just for name sake and it differs from the original so that’s why I am saying to aim high! for example in EY first round exam two of my friends kept the same options (they copied!) one has a cgpa of 7.98 and another had a cgpa of 8+ one with 8+ cgpa got selected and all those people who got selected where having a cgpa of 8+! So lesson learned is that it’s better to have a higher cgpa! so the company hr/in-charge did screw up as he didn’t get the right persons for the security profile he came for! the company was left with a bunch of people who are not interested in the company or cyber security but they were trying to get their first job offer! And the team(me, Sairam and Rakesh) who won the InCTF finals didn’t have the 8 cgpa didn’t get through the first round (which was a bunch of math questions and english meanings which can be done easily done with tools and none of them know the 101 of security)  and the companies technical people had no other choice than to ask them non-security questions! Rakesh who was very much interested in the offer who was also selected as speaker at a top security conference felt very bad about the same!  So the loss is for the company(EY) as they didn’t get the right people and I am sure Rakesh and others will get another job!

So just to make sure that you pass these stupid rounds learn to do quick maths and have good command over English! Not all companies were same for example the company which I got selected was having first round as coding round so I got through easily and later rounds were also the coding rounds without any tech interviews and final hr+tech interview which was okay, so I managed to get the job offer! (I coded in C so no object oriented)

Programming & Tech Interview

This is the most important part of the interview which decides whether you get a job or not! Coming to Programming you need to be perfect in either of the object oriented programming C++ or Java. If you are a python guy like me then you would be dis-appointed! so better learn one of the above languages perfectly! (by perfectly I mean able to program everything without googling or looking at the documentation!). Also be perfect in Algorithms, Object Oriented Programming, Operating Systems, Data Bases and what ever you write in the resume and just be aware of the latest technologies! You can’t expect what level of question they might ask you in the in this round and you should be prepared for it. Do interviewbit.com, www.geeksforgeeks.org, also the reviews and experiences in http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/ and glassdoor helps. This round will be very tough so be prepared!

HR Interview

If you are qualified for the HR interview after going through the tech interview process there is a high chances for you to get the job the only condition is that you don’t screw up the interview process! HR interview question will be like tell me about your self or tell me about your parents etc.. it is a interview to test your communication skills and try to be honest as much as possible! There will be one mock HR interview in the Amrita but it might not be enough for the original interview, so be prepared for it.

Resume and LinkedIn and online presence

Resume is also one of the important factor for getting placed so try to make it as good as possible, also make a good LinkedIn profile(the trick is to describe/write more in your profile) which will be useful for off-campus placements. Also social media tells us the truth about what kind of a person you are and be careful with it! I suggest that you maintain decent profile there and don’t contradict what you say in the interview and what you share in the FB (for example saying you are energetic in you resume and sharing posts that are you are lazy in facebook is a very bad idea!)

Luck Factor

Many people say that people get placements out of luck! I agree to some extent but most of the good companies don’t take people who are not enough skilled, so your luck is not just sufficient you need to good in either theory or programming, also remember luck favours the brave so don’t think that you will not job and not attend. For example I was in my second intensive coding round and I was not able to implement the chat feature that they have requested, in the middle of the second round I felt that I will not be able to implement and had the idea of leaving but I was brave enough to fail and continued the round, then we were given the freedom to search things in the internet so I continued and implemented almost half of the feature (if not for the dam string bug I could have implemented more!)  Looks like most of the people there couldn’t implement the feature and may be they liked the way I coded or some-other reason they took me to the final round and gave me a job offer!

For the final words use your brain where ever you felt something went wrong and be confident. All the best for your placements!