Hello geeks,
I am sharing here my first-ever job Interview experience I went through during my Final year of college.
We all know we have to start preparing for the Interviews and study as much as possible during the final year of our degree course. I still remember my first-ever Interview process and I still find GFG a very good platform to prepare for it. It was 23rd December 2020 when I got an email stating that “an interview is scheduled” for me for the coding round.
At first, I was very nervous and stressed as this was going to be my first interview and I had heard everywhere “first impression is the last impression”. The interview was just the next day and I was completely nervous about how I would clear it.
I started looking for videos, articles and other resources that could help me in any way to lower my nervousness and give me some confidence. I practised all the things that I had learned during my classes, online courses and other sessions including theories, coding, concepts and other stuff. I tried solving multiple coding problems like searching, sortings, arrays, strings, linked lists and other possible parts. Apart from coding practice, It was also important to practice answers for the primary questions like Tell me about yourself, why this company and all? Everything was going well and I got a little confidence after doing all the revisions and practising every possible concept.
It was the interview day now and I was ready with all confidence I had to face the interview.
The process was going to be online so, the interviewer asked me to check the connections and everything at my end before starting the process.
I rechecked all the connections and settings before starting the interview and replied with the confirmation to the interviewer.
As usual, the process started with Greetings and asking how we were doing.
After 3-4 minutes, the interviewer says, “ok, let’s start the interview process”.
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“Tell me something about yourself that you have not mentioned on the resume”.
This was the question that doesn’t appear usually but I had prepared for it. For this type of question, one should start with very basic details which you have not mentioned or if you are not getting the answer for this question, you can simply mention something which you have already mentioned on the resume but in a different way.
Let’s say, you have mentioned, “Scored the first rank in the class”. You can stretch this like, “As I was the first rank holder in the class, I had to be involved in multiple groups and activities to represent my achievements and <mention the group/activity name>.
one can also start with some social work activities if done. Some extracurricular activities like sports and other categories. -
“Why this company and role”?
For this question, you have to study the company you are interviewing for and of course the role’s responsibility. And my answer was something like this:
“I heard about <company name> a few months ago and since then I have studying about the projects and work your company does. This attracted me to apply for the role <role name> which plays a vital role in providing solutions and gives the products and projects a very approaching contribution. I also understand that a company like yours is always ready to nurture talent and acknowledge the skills and provides better ways to enhance those skills under great team members which are going to help in improving my technical and professional skills.”
After the above two questions, it was time for the coding round. I was given 3 coding questions and I had to solve them in under 30 minutes.
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The first coding problem was about the “Fibonacci search” and I must mention here that GFG was a great helper at that time.
I should say here that these basic concepts are very important for a fresher.
The first question took around 4-5 minutes to get solved. - The second question was “Selection sort”. this took almost 9-10 minutes as I got confused between selection sort and insertion sort.
- The third question was for a start pattern which was of mid-level difficulty and got solved in 7 minutes.
Overall, all the three questions were solved in 20-25 minutes.
After all the coding problems, I was asked to dry-run the code. This took almost 10 minutes overall.
After the coding round, I was given a 5-minute break and I was searching all over the internet about whether what I did was either right or wrong.
5 minutes passed and we re-joined the call. I was asked 3 more questions related to DS and Eclipse.
After the actual process ended, I was asked if I had any questions for the interviewer.
Note: Do not say “No” to this question. Always start with a Yes. Say, Yes, I would like to know about the responsibilities of this role or any specific concepts one should know or read to work in this role. , May I please know if I get selected, how soon I can join the team and start working with you all? Something like this would be a great attention-seeking answer.
As a fresher, no salary-related question is asked (usually) but if asked, do not say something like “I expect 10 lacs or anything”
Say something like, I know a company like yours would always acknowledge the work an individual does and would compensate them well. I guess GFG has these questions also. Please refer.
After a few minutes of normal discussion, the call was over. It took almost 2 hours to finish the interview process. With my answers, I was confident and a little nervous as well. After a few days, they sent me the confirmation mail with the attached letter. I can not describe in words here how It felt reading that mail.
But, keep in mind, always keep learning even if you clear your interview.
This was a short story of mine.
Keep learning Geeks!