IBM ISL Interview Experience

IBM ISL On Campus Interview Experience.

Round 1: IPAT Online Aptitude Test

This online test is timed, with each question allocated its own time limit of 2.15 minutes. About 18 number series questions and 18 numerical reasoning questions were asked.

[ Number series questions were tricky. Numerical reasoning was simple ]

Round 2: Written Technical

30 Questions to be answered in 40 minutes.

Questions mainly included
– Predict C program output (about 15 questions )
– Few questions from C++
– Few question from Operation systems, networking
– One question on design pattern.
[ Prepare predict-C-code output questions. Check out OS and networking GATE questions ]

Round 3: Technical face-to-face interview

This round lasted about One hour.

– I was asked to explain my favorite project.
– He asked if I know compilers – and asked basic question on lex and yacc.

Question from operation systems:
– Inter-process Communications
– Threads
– Critical sections
– Semaphores, Mutex (Asked to explain in detail with code)
– Reader-Writer problem
– DeadLock

Asked to write code to insert a node in its correct location, given a sorted linked list.

Asked to find least common ancestor given two nodes and the root; given a BST.

At the end he asked a puzzle:
– Given scene has some X no: of chairs and Y no: of persons in a room.
– If each person sit on one chair, exactly one person is left with a chair.
– If two people sit on one chair, the we have one empty chair
Find X and Y.

[ My other classmates were asked a lot on system calls, linker & loaders, multi-threading; basically OS concepts in depth ]

Round 4: HR Round

– Tell me something about yourself.
– What all programming languages you know?
– Why do you choose to join our company ?
– How long will you work in our company ?
– What are the latest developments in the industry ?
– Strengths and weakness ?
– What is cutting edge technology emerging in IT industry ?
– What parameter do you look to take up the job; if you had offer from two company for the same profile?
– Did you attend Pre-placement talk?
– What is one thing you liked about the pre-placement talk?

[If you are lucky; you end up filling laborious employment forms]