Caterpillar Interview Experience | On-Campus 2021

Recently Caterpillar India visited my college for the Software Developer Role for the 2022 batch. 

The interview process consisted of 4 rounds

1. Aptitude Round
2. Coding Round
3. Group Discussion
4. Technical and HR Interview

Platform: SHL – AMCAT

Round 1: Aptitude round

• This round had quantitative, verbal, and technical MCQs
• Quantitative: 12 questions in 15 minutes
• Verbal: 12 questions in 15 minutes
• Technical MCQs: 30 questions in 45 minutes – HTML, CSS, JS, Data Structures, OS, DBMS

Since it was in AMCAT, answers cannot be changed once selected. And cannot navigate between questions.

Round 2: Online Coding

Time: 45 minutes

• There were 2 array-based questions.
• I solved them in 7 minutes, which turned out to be an advantage.
• Out of 403 students, 171 students were shortlisted for the group discussion.

Round 3: Group Discussion 

Time: 30 minutes

Our panel consisted of 6 members and 2 members from Caterpillar Inc.

• The topic given was Demonetization – A success or failure
• They gave 2 minutes for brainstorming and also said that every member will be given 30 seconds in the end to conclude.
• Just remember this is a group discussion and not a debate. It is very necessary to highlight your point besides agreeing with your fellow member.
• GD is all about how confident you are, while you are conveying your opinion, and also how well you showcase yourself in that opportunity. I had my own method to present my points in the GD. What the topic is, the positives and negatives as an overview, and make sure to stick on to one side completely.
• Key: If you do not have any idea about the topic, just observe everyone and note what they are saying and just conclude it your own way, it shows your listening skill.

Round 4: Technical cum HR Interview

The interviewer was calm and asked me to introduce myself. They focused mainly on my project. They asked me if it was a team project and to explain the part I worked in.

• They asked me the workflow of my project and asked me to draw the system flow diagram.
• They asked me the function definitions and parameters passed, and how functions would work behind them and asked me to explain it my own way using any data structure, with code. The interviewer was pretty satisfied with my explanation.

OOPS, Data Structures, OS, DBMS topics were also discussed like:

• What is Inheritance and say a real-time scenario to understand it?
• What is a data structure, why do we use data structure and real-time use cases of all the data structures?
• What is a heap? Where it is used? Heap in comparison with BST.
• Various joins in MySQL, why they are used?
• Memory allocations of various data types, how they are allocated in the main memory?
• Then, the HR asked me questions like,
• What is my greatest strength?
• Where do I see myself in 5 years?
• What do I know about Caterpillar and why did I choose Caterpillar?
• Why do they want to hire me?
• What are my hobbies?
• Other Real-time questions.

I was pretty happy and satisfied with the interview process.

The Interview was over by 12.30 pm and the HR called me again by 3.20 pm to know my acceptance and discuss the different roles in Caterpillar and to know my preference.