Cognizant GenC Interview Experience | On-Campus 2022

Cognizant is an American multinational technology company that provides business consulting, information technology, and outsourcing services.

Hello everyone! Recently, Cognizant visited our campus and I appeared for GenC Next profile assessment, and for some reason, I was not shortlisted for the GenC Next profile. That’s a different story but again I appeared for GenC profile which was totally allowed. And luckily my name was shortlisted in that. Here is my entire experience with campus recruitment, please have a look!  

Hiring Workflow:

• Screening
• Online Test
• Technical Interview
• HR Interview

1. Screening: Screening is a process where the company studies your entire profile and goes through your resume and if they found you suitable for the role which they are offering then you will be shortlisted for further rounds. And when it comes to building your resume, you should be honest, and you should be yourself. Every single word you mentioned in your resume matters a lot for the company. Over 50% of the people lie on their resume, if the recruiting team finds you that you’re faking something you will be straight away rejected.

Some of the basic and important things your resume should contain are as follows:

• Your name, your phone number, your email ID
• A brief one- or two-lines introduction about yourself
• Personal objectives
• Educational qualification
• Achievement’s hobbies and interests  
• About internships (if any)
• Projects
• Technical strengths

Some personal details like

• Date of birth
• Parents name  
• Your mother tongue

2. Online Test

1. Aptitude
2. Verbal Ability
3. Logical Reasoning

Well once your profile is shortlisted there will be an assessment, this year due to covid-19 it was in online mode. 

• For the GenC profile, they ask questions on the above-mentioned topics. as this was the online test the software which they used to conduct exams will be very strict and you will be proctored live, so do not indulge yourself in malpractices. And more about how proctoring works you can Google it. 
• The format will be multiple choice questions and if you have applied for some other profiles like GenC Next and GenC Elevate There will be coding questions as well where you need to write the program in whichever language you want and execute it. the software will run various test cases on your program and if your program passes all the test cases then full marks will be allotted for the coding questions.

3. Technical Interview: After the online assessment if you have scored the minimum marks that the company has set for the particular profile You will be called for an online technical interview.

Some important things you need to remember during the interview:

• Almost 90% of the interviewers will ask you questions based on the profile they are offering and the things you mentioned in your resume, so once again be careful while writing your resume, and it’s better to take advice from your seniors who are already placed.
• The first and most important question and the guaranteed question you can say tell me about yourself:  
• And to be frank most people ignore this question and they won’t prepare for this question. Remember that by giving a good introduction about yourself you can lead the interview because after the things you mentioned in your resume the interviewer will pick the words from your introduction which you just gave to him and this is how you can lead the interview.
• So first of all get prepared for this question which is an obvious and 100% guaranteed question in almost all the interviews irrespective of the domain or a particular field etc.

Write a small introduction up to 5 to 10 lines about yourself and stand in front of a mirror and narrate the same thing, and this is how I prepared my introduction.

• Be calm and have eye contact with the interviewer.
• Have a gentle smile on your face throughout the interview.
• Do not look here and there.
• And have a positive attitude towards the interviewer. And don’t be too harsh or use abusive language.
• During the interview if you know the answer tell it or just tell that you don’t know, and avoid using fillers like (Aaaa… Mummm… You know… etc) while talking to an interviewer.
• And if you don’t know the answer, tell the interviewer that “you don’t know the answer and tell him that I will surely get back to you with the answer after the interview”.

Below are the technical questions which the cognizant interviewer asked me:

• What is the difference between array and linked list?
• Do you know about garbage collection or what is garbage collection?
• List the oops features and briefly explain them.
• what is the minor project or major project you have worked on?
• I was Asked in-depth about my project.
• I was asked to share the screen and show our project.
• I was asked to show the database and source code as well.
• At last, he gave me the code editor and told to write some JavaScript code as I mentioned JavaScript in my resume.
• And he asked some basics of JavaScript.
• At last, he asked me to show my Aadhar card and Pan card.

After that he asked me that “do you have any questions for me” And I asked him two questions as follows:

1. what skills should an individual have in order to grow in the company?
2. what do you love about the company?

And I got very beautiful answers to these two questions.

4. HR Interview: Having done with the technical interview and if you are shortlisted then you are in the final round of the recruiting process, and which is the very most important round. Because if the HR wants to reject you no one can stop him/her.

• HR might ask some general questions or technical questions it is totally on him; he might ask you the questions like what is your strength? and what is your weakness? Etc. And HR will verify your documents.
• But in my case, there was only document verification. At last, as usual, HR asked me that “do you have any questions for me”. And I repeated the same two questions which I asked the interviewer in the technical round.
• Once you have done with the HR interview there are 90% to 95% chances that you will be selected. Congratulations!

All the best for your career