Pre-Placement Preparations, Resume, HR, Group Discussions, Hitachi, Placement Experience

Resume at a Glance:

Pre-Placement Preparation:

I wanted to pursue an MBA so my target was if I get IIMA I would go for it unless I get some very exceptional opportunity at a well reputed company. This very serious preparation for CAT enhanced my aptitude skills a lot. There were ‘Pariksha’ Tests for apti-practice conducted by PT cell, and in most on them I use to land up in top 10. I never went below 20th rank in any of the tests, so my aptitude test preparation for placements went really well.

Companies that require coding:

• Practice coding from these sites:
  o Geeksforgeeks (good questions)
  o Hackerrank (Insti coding tests and many company tests will be on this platform)
  o Interviewbit (good questions)
• Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) is a must if companies require programming. Read the JAF well, you can make out whether they are expecting you to know this or not. Nevertheless, study this well. (I studied mainly from geeksforgeeks, and few stuff from other sources)
• Practice puzzles. There are standard puzzles that are asked. Try solving on your own to train yourself and whether you improve or not at least remember the tricks in the ones you have gone through earlier.

Finance Companies:

• Quant questions should be solved at really good speed. Most of them are too easy and so the only deciding factor is the time you take. PRACTICE!
• Puzzles and probability questions are a must.
• Solve Logical reasoning and data interpretation sets. Logical reasoning sets are the ones where you have extract the correct information from the given statements which are obviously not direct but twisted. DI sets as the name suggests involves playing with data presented in form of a graph (bar, pie. etc ) and for that you should be really fast with numbers and calculations which comes with practice only.
• Programming if required will be mentioned in the jaff, nevertheless practice.
  For Optiver and Flow Traders (Trading) Companies– Practice Speed Math. Visit previous year blog posts, they had posted sites and types of questions.

Communicate with your friends in English as much as you can. Even the most fluent ones have issues during the tests or interview due to pressure, forgetting basic grammatical rules .etc. If you are someone who already has issues, I would strongly recommend you to give a major emphasis on this. Even if you are technically sound, not knowing English won’t fetch you a job and also grammatically wrong English as in some very serious blunders can create a negative impression.

Group Discussions

For GD, you require some decent knowledge level, hence read newspapers, articles .etc. I made it a point to read newspaper/ articles every morning after breakfast for my CAT preparation but it helped me in placements as well.
Also learn to speak up, don’t just sit there waiting as no one is going to ask you to speak. Also don’t keep on speaking too much and cutting/interrupting someone while they are speaking, it doesn’t go in your favor.
If you are to counter someone wait for the person to finish then do it, also do it in a sophisticated way using your counter-point, don’t be rude or insulting to anyone and even if someone does, never lose your calm.
If possible try to begin or summarize, try to establish a basic context as in what area specifically is the group going to discuss. If it appears that you are making come crucial contribution in establishing the premises and prior clarifications with the group that goes in your favor.
Also if you have made a good point, don’t stop there, wait for some time and speak up again. You don’t want the person reviewing to forget you, they should remember you for making good points and participating actively.

Resume

DO NOT WAIT FOR THE PLACEMENT ORIENTATION (Aug 1st week), START WORKING ON YOUR RESUMES EARLY ON.
Whatever the deadline is, 2 weeks prior to that keep your resumes ready. I made a mistake as I had finished my resume very late (5 days before deadline).
After resumes are ready you have to send your resumes to your seniors to get them verified. Select good seniors, not only based on their company but based on whether they actually had to work on their resume or not and whether they will correct your minute details.
Although many people would advise you to send it to as much seniors as you can, I would suggest to send it to few trusted people (5-6) as sometimes too many conflicting opinions can be a problem as well.
Hence finish your resumes two weeks earlier as you will most probably make lot of changes after inputs from other people and also seniors may not be available for few days which happened with me as I had finished 5 days earlier.
After verifying and making changes and submitting the resume I realized I had a minor typo in one of the resumes along with incorrect selection of some words.
Luckily we were allowed to edit such typos at the time of resume verification. But still that was pretty careless on my part. Hence get it done early and proof read all your versions as many times as you can.

HR

Write down basic points somewhere and practice it (if possible look in a mirror and smile while talking, look happy 🙂 )

1. Tell me about yourself.
   1 – 2 min max. Don’t tell your entire life story, be as crisp and relevant as you can. Say your name, where you are from, your dept., your interests, key internships and projects (try keeping it relevant to the company requirements), some major achievements, hobbies. They might stop you in between which is completely fine, as long as you haven’t gone beyond 4-5 mins.
2. Why this company/ What do you know about the company
   Do thorough company research and their projects. For Hitachi Japan, I had spent 2 hours specifically for preparing this question.
3. Long term and Short term Goals/ Where do you see yourself after five years
4. 5 strengths and weaknesses
   Strengths- Everyone answers this well. But again, don’t brag too much.
   Weakness- Don’t speak you heart out. Even if the interviewer talks very friendly, don’t! (for eg. Don’t like waking up at morning, have anger issues, poor English, can’t work for long hours .etc.) Try saying something which looks decent. One I had prepared was, I am too critical about myself, even if I achieve something. I feel I could have done better and assess what I did wrong or how it could have been improved. While this keeps me hungry for more, it’s also important to take a moment for yourself and enjoy that. Also mention how you are working on that weakness. In my case I mentioned a good previous achievement and said the above stuff.
5. If it’s a Japanese company, why Japan?
   Praise culture, people, technologically advanced country, safe, beautiful place.

I was shortlisted for the following interviews:
Qualcomm , TI, Intel, Hitachi Japan(2 Jaffs), Mercedes, Jaguar Land Rover, Hyundai, Societe Generale, Citrix, KLA-Tencor, Morgan Stanley(WL), ICICI(WL), HSBC Global, ISRO .etc.

Placement Experience

Day 1 Slot 1

Qualcomm

This was my first interview of the season and it didn’t start at all the way I wanted to be. The interviewers went too deep, literally asked to solve problems on paper which we did in the third year EE328 exams. I had a very hard time recollecting all those things, as such deep questions were completely unexpected by all of us. From my JAF only one person was selected. That interview was just really bad and my confidence just went down to zero.

Texas Instruments

Same slot, next I was interviewed by Texas Instruments. This interview wasn’t as bad as Qualcomm but my confidence was affected by my previous one. That was perhaps my mistake. Hence as I said before forget all your bad experiences in that room itself. Correct your mistakes but don’t think about the previous one.
That was all for the day, I came to my room and slept till night. Again that was my mistake. Just because couple interviews go bad and that too on first day doesn’t mean it’s bad. I had many shortlists for interviews and plus getting a job on day 1 is not at all easy. I backed myself up and started preparing for Intel and Hitachi the next day.

Day 2 Slot 1:

Intel

This interview was really good. It was good till this extent that the interviewer asked me whether you are targeting some other similar companies and if we select will you join and things like that which gave very positive signs. But this company has a very weird way of conducting interviews. They had shortlisted over 100 people for interviews and very few panels (4-5) were there. People waited from 8 in the morning until 4 in the evening just for that one interview. The arrangement made by the company was pretty much random. It was kind of unexpected that I didn’t get selected for this profile and that too after hearing such positive feedbacks. I didn’t knew the results until 9pm but I was happy that at least the interview went well, and my confidence was back for the next slot.

Slot 2: I was scheduled for Hitachi and Mercedes, but I went for Hitachi first as this was my target company and also I was shortlisted in 2 JAFs for Hitachi. Try to go as early as possible, if you are late, i.e if you are interviewed at the end after everyone, it can affect your chances.

Hitachi Limited

After my Intel interview I had prepared really hard for this one. I studied every small thing, right from the company’s founder, revenue, CEO, no. of employees, profits, to their services, products. etc. For any Japanese interview, always prepare this very standard question ‘Why Japan?’. I focused on very minute details like you are supposed to knock exactly thrice on the door and say nothing. They ask you to come in. I greeted them with a bow. There are specific angles with which you should bow, I had practiced that as well. They look really happy and impressed after I did that.
Sit very straight with your hands on your knees. Also remember they can’t speak/understand English well, hence listen to them calmly and answer them slowly pronouncing each word very clearly. Also while leaving I bowed, they did as well. I feel most Japanese companies decide based on resume which student to recruit prior to the interview, as my interview lasted for only 10-12 mins, after that they asked me to go the HR guy who was in other room. Also Japanese companies generally tell beforehand if they are recruiting either directly or indirectly and also discuss salary details, place of posting as well. Entire thing was over in 20 mins, we clicked a picture (HR guy was just too chill), and well I was the happiest person in the building at that moment.
Everything just got over in a flash and trust me guys you will really feel that lowering of burden once your name appears in the selections list on the blog. I remembered all the worse conditions where I was managing my DDP final presentation, CAT exam due 2 weeks, and continuous tests everyday (from 6:30 AM till 2-3 AM) and next day again the same in sleep deprived and starved condition, every single thing just payed off. It always does sooner or later, no matter what happens, never stop believing in yourself.

In case of any doubts, you can always contact me, I would be happy to help. All the best!!
Sarvesh Hire
hiresarvesh@gmail.com

Why Placements and not Masters? , Coding Tests, SOP for Japan, Placement Experience, General Fundae

Profile at a Glance

• 1 Research paper in Medical Image Processing
• 2nd year Intern – Johns Hopkins University
• 3rd year Intern – Qualcomm, Hyderabad
• 1 other major project

I got shortlisted for Microsoft, Tower Research, Sony Japan, Honda, Samsung Bangalore, Softbank and Hitachi Limited.

Why Placements and not Masters?

Truly speaking, I spent the whole time from semester start (mid July) to midsems ( mid September) in figuring out whether or not to apply for masters. Nevertheless, I started preparing for GRE and TOEFL (took 1 month to prepare). My reason to opt for placements was that I felt I need a break for academia at least for an year or so after my B.Tech. I started feeling too much fatigued from continuous hard work and projects. Apart from this another major reason to choose for placements was that I felt having an industry exposure would help me a lot to decide what actually I want to do in my masters/PhD in future. Having an industrial exposure surely helps one to gauge where the market and technology sector is heading towards in future and hence will help you in proper planning of your graduate studies. Many people may disagree with me on this, but in the end it is you who has to decide. Remember, graduate studies need a lot of devotion and you have a lot of responsibilities also thereafter. Hence you need to be sure of your commitment before opting for masters.

PLEASE JUST DON’T GO FOR HIGHER STUDIES BECAUSE YOUR FRIEND IS ALSO GOING OR PEER PRESSURE.

Coding Test Preparation

I was good in basic coding concepts and knew syntax in C++ and python since I had completed my CS minor and had taken 2-3 CS courses every semester. Being from electrical department also aided. But you need to prepare for Competitive Coding for placement tests.
Mostly the test comprise of 3 algorithms/data structure based questions which you need to solve in 1 to 1.5 hours on coding platforms like hackerrank or hackerearth.
I referred mainly to Geeks for Geeks SudoPlacements course and InterviewBit for coding
preparation. These 2 website would serve more than enough. Also, you will get numerous blogs on web which will guide you properly for coding test preparation.

SOP for Japanese Companies

IIT Bombay is fortunate enough ( and probably the only IIT ) to host 6-7 japanese firms in the
placement season. Companies like Honda, Sony, NEC Japan, Hitachi, Murata, Softbank, etc
visit IIT-B and offer various exciting roles with decent pay. All japanese firm require the student
to submit an SOP for the recruitment process. Japanese people are quite conservative about
their culture and there country, and hence want to know mainly following things about you : –
1) How much do you know about Japan?
2) Will you be able to adjust to cultural change and mainly the Language Change? Have
you had any such past experiences and how you have tackled the same.
3) How do you plan to contribute to the firm and why do you want to work in Japan.
Be sure to cover these points in your SOP. Try to give a story where you faced such challenges,
maybe one you faced when you went to another country during 3rd year intern, or if you are a
North-Indian and went to Bengaluru/Hyderabad for intern, that too can be counted as one. Remember India is a huge country and you can always build an impressive story. You can also mention the cultural change you faced when you joined your college and met people from diverse backgrounds and languages from all over the India.

Placement Experience

Sony takes one single interview which is basically fragmented into 2 parts – Technical and HR.
The HR starts a time of 45 minutes at the start. The first 5 minutes, HR starts the conversation
and breaks the ice.
Technical:
Next 30 minutes technical team members will take over and ask you about your projects and
your interest. I had applied for Graphics RnD profile and had done 2 projects related to graphics. I explained both the projects to them and was simply cross questioned on those. The Sony graphics team lead was one of the interviewer and he asked me about possible future
work in my project and ideas which I had to overcome the current issues in my implementation. Apart from this, at max he asked 1 or 2 simple questions related to the profile.
HR:
For the last 10 minutes, the HR takes over again. He asked me to describe myself, why I want to join Sony and why Japan. After this he asks some odd questions like are you Vegetarian or Non Vegetarian? Is your family comfortable with you moving to Japan? The interview gets over with HR asking you if you want to ask any questions. I would suggest you guys, always be prepared (:P) to ask at least one question. Maybe some clarification of profile or if you don’t get any, simply ask – What is a normal day at the firm like. At the end of the day, I was notified about my selection at Sony, Japan. One important thing to remember during placements is to
KEEP YOUR CALM. DON’T GET PANICKED. BE CHILL AND CONFIDENT DURING THE INTERVIEW AND TRY TO BE YOURSELF AND NOT PRETEND.

General Fundae:

1) It is a good practice to bend and wish arigato at the start and end of the interview. Watch a youtube video on how to wish arigato (Hello) .
2) Practice speaking in very slow English. Use extremely simple English words in the interview. Listen to what they are saying very carefully, it will be sometimes hard to grasp as Japanese are not well verse in speaking English. Plus there are ascent problems.
3) Never ever point fingers towards interviewers. Keep hand movement limited during the
interview.
4) Ensure to knock the door before entering the room surely.
5) Dress well for the interview.
6) Make them believe that you plan to stay long time at there firm. Japanese people don’t switch firms that frequently. Also try to magnify the company by applauding 1 or 2 of there products which amaze you.
7) Try talk to your friends who have been to Japan on an intern maybe.
Feel free to contact me if you have any further doubts.
Mobile : 7045800371

ではごきげんよう (ALL THE BEST!)