Cognizant Engineer Trainee Off Campus Interview

First of all I cleared the aptitude round which consisted of  Quants, Logical, English and Coding(Debugging) through Amcat portal.

I had to take the test from our college, but I’ll suggest you all to take it from home. Anyways, it’s your call.

The test was of moderate difficulty only the Logical part was a bit time consuming for me.

After few weeks I got the interview call along with many of my friends, later we came to know that it was a pan-bengal drive!

Date: 04/04/2019, Place: RCCIIT, Kolkata

Round 1: Just A Minute (JAM), where we were told to speak on a random topic for a minute, or two. Here I would suggest, if you are give a chance to choose your own topic, dont go for stereotypical topics (demonetisation, black money, GST, My India is great, India is a poor country, poor GDP and abusing Modiji!) and try to stay apolitical and try not to hurt anyone’s sentiment by dragging caste, creed, jai shree ram, mandir and feminism!

Choose a topic which can draw everyone’s attention. Try to be fluent and grammatically correct.

This was an elimination round and almost 6 out 30 (average) people cleared it and moved to the next round.

Round 2: Voice test,  simple 1:1 interview round only to check your communication skills. Try to be fluent and grammatically correct. This was an elimination round. Those who cleared this round were told to report the next day for technical and HR round.

Date: 05/04/2019, Place: RCCIIT, Kolkata

 Round 3: Technical Interview,  before that drive I sat for 18 interviews, but that was the most difficult/ jocular (whatever you call it!)

Interviewer: How are you?
Me: Fine sir.
Interviewer: So tell me, what are your favourite subjects? From there only I’ll ask you questions.
(Inner Me: yeh toh devmanus nikla!)
Me: Computer Networks and Data Structure (I had stronghold over these 2)
Interviewer: Okay, then tell me, how many tuples are there in a turing machine?
(Inner Me: are you serious?)
Me: Sorry sir, as per the job profile I have practised  Data Structure and Computer Networks, but still I will try to give answer (tbh, i was not so good in TOC and compiler design, moreover i last studied it in my 4th semester,, and nobody asks question from these two that too for IT industry).
Interviewer: Explain kleene star closure property.
Me: (I gave random partial answer which was around 70% wrong)
Interviewer: (he kept on asking me questions from TOC and compiler, perhaps he was obsessed with these 2)
Me: (crying internally, was waiting for the moment when he will say YOU MAY LEAVE, as the humiliation crossed the threshold. I was feeling useless with thousands of thoughts in my mind while giving wrong and random answers with a fake smile on my face and vaguely trying to explain that i was being asked questions from subjects idk)
Interviewer: Tell me your favourite programming languages.
Me: (confidently) PYTHON AND C.
Interviewer: Is it possible to call one constructor from another in Java?
Me: (he tried to be bad, but fortunately I knew java as well!) Explained with an example!
Interviewer: How to run a java program? (now he’s trying to humiliate me with easy questions)
Me: Answered properly.
Interviewer: What is a repeater?
Me: (overwhelmed with happiness, finally a question from networks) Answered, with a broad smile, he was also smiling sheepishly.
Interviewer: 7 layers of OSI model.
Me: answered
Interviewer: Whats the network topology in this lab? (yes, my interview was going in a computer lab)
Me: Mesh topology (explained well with a diagram)
Interviewer: ok you may leave
(i was just about to leave the hall, suddenly)
Interviewer: Excuse me, Are you okay with nightshifts?
Me: Yes sir, no issues.

I cleared this round! Now these are my observations:
1. This is what we call a stress interview.
2. We must calm down our nerves, try not to freak out and maintain a smile (in some cases, fake smile if we start to hate the interviewer for such inappropriate questions!)
3. They test your patience and how you handle situations. One of my friends also faced the same.
4. Interviewer will judge you hard from the very beginning of the placement drive. Behave accordingly!

Round 4: HR round: Very basic questions. Only 1 question was noteworthy: How will you handle problems you will face jumping into professional  world from your student life?
I explained it for 10 minutes!
He was impressed. Before leaving the hall he told me to undersign some documents regarding the conditions and policies.

I successfully cleared all the rounds. Only 51 people were selected out of 2100. Competition was tough.
During summer drives, stay healthy..stay hydrated
All the best everyone!