BirlaSoft Interview Experience

Position: Trainee Engineer

There was a pre-placement talk session, followed by four rounds in the interviewing process. The difficulty level of the entire experience ranged from easy to medium.

Round 1: English Assessment (15-30 minutes)

We were tested on our grasp of English listening, speaking, and understanding skills. We were given 
pre-recorded tests. We had to answer the questions vocally. Some exercises included: answering questions from a read-out passage, re-arranging jumbled sentences, and correcting sentences.

Tip: You can look up communications tests on YouTube for guidance, and make sure you’re in a quiet place for the test. Listen to the instructions, and questions carefully. Speak clearly without rushing through the words. Some practice of speaking English aloud beforehand might help.

Round 2: MCQs and Programming (1 hour and 40 minutes)

This round consisted of around 120 MCQs and two programming questions. The MCQs were a mix of aptitude and basics from CS subjects such as DBMS, OS, Data Structures, C/C++ programming, Computer Architecture, Software Testing, and Networking.

Tip: Practice from IndiaBix for aptitude, and if you’ve prepared for and given AMCAT, then the questions (both aptitude and subject related) will be familiar. Browsing through GeeksforGeeks archives will prepare you well for this round.

Programming Questions: 

• Remove all vowels from a string
• Remove duplicates and sort an array

Tip: Prepare strings and their methods, and data structures well. Also, check out this resourceful GeeksforGeeks article to crack most programming questions.

Difficulty level: Easy

Round 3: Technical Interview (30 minutes)

• Q: Questions from the project/work experience section of your resume
  • A: I had a few projects on Android, so we discussed them in length.
• Q: Demonstrate inner join with an example?
  • A: SQL Joins article.
• Q: Properties of DBMS?
• A: ACID Properties of DBMS.

Tip: Make sure to pair your answers with a short example.

• Q: Emerging computer science horizons?
  • A: Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, IoT, AI and ML, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain.

Tip: Keep yourself updated on emerging trends and fields through blogs, podcasts, news, etc.

Difficulty level: Easy

Round 4: HR/Managerial Final round

The round started off with polite greetings, followed by the below questions:

• Q: Tell me about your family, and your background?
  • A: I talked about my parents’ occupations, my motivation to enroll for a BTech CSE degree, and previous internship and training experiences.

Tip: Keep your answer brief, concise, and relevant to the position you’re interviewing for. Don’t focus too much on your family, or schooling. Though, very briefly talking about any significant achievement(s) which correlates to your field of study or interest is fine.

• Q: What are your plans for the next two years?
  • A: I told them that I plan on working in corporate to learn, and grow as a professional. Still, the interviewer insisted on knowing if I planned to move for higher studies to which I replied in negation.

Tip: They’re looking to see if you would opt for higher education and leave the internship midway or not take up the offer in lieu of studying further. Answer honestly, and if you haven’t got any plans to study further, make your point very clear.

• Q: Why do you want to work for us?
  • A: I had researched about them prior to this interview, and highlighted some points about their company which I liked. I also recalled from their pre-placement talk, on what stood out positively to me about their culture, and the learning opportunities they have for me.

Tip: Always read up about any company on their website, and make note of their products, services, and community contributions. Pay close attention to pre-placement talk sessions, if conducted.

• Q: Any previous interview experience? Can you expand on what were your weaknesses in it?
  • A: Since I had given only one interview prior to this, I shared my (mostly positive) experience with the interviewer, and talked about what improvements I’ve made since.

Tip: Even if you had an interview where you were rejected, share some thoughtful lessons from that experience, and how it helped you grow as a person, and professionally.

• Q: Do you have any questions for us?
  • A: I asked them more about the role, what responsibilities it entailed, and what the interviewer loved about their job.

Tip: ALWAYS ask questions, it shows you’re a thoughtful person who is interested in the role. In many cases, it makes the interviewer reconsider you for the role even if they were not planning to move forward!

Difficulty level: Easy to medium

End result:

They made an internship offer a few months later.