HPE Interview Experience | On-Campus 2021

On 11th August, Hewlett Packard Enterprise visited my college campus for recruitment in 2 Job roles. One role was of Aruba Intern Hiring and the other was of R&D Intern Hiring.

The hiring process had 4 parts in it-

Part 1(Online Test – 100 mins): The test was divided into 3 sections-

Section-1: 20 Aptitude questions -> Difficulty level: Medium

Quantitative, Logical Reasoning, Error correction, Time & work, Age problems, and Probability finding questions were there.

Section-2: 30 Technical questions -> Difficulty level: High

• Questions from Networking, OS, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Big data, Computer Architecture were there.
• No questions from Programming languages and OOPs.

Section-3: Coding questions -> Difficulty level: Easy

• This was mentioned as an optional section. Any 2 out of 3 questions were required to be done in 20 mins each. But we had to choose the questions without reading them.
• After this round, only 91 students went ahead for interviews out of the total of 350 students.

Part 2(Technical Interview -1 hour 10 mins):

First Half: Coding questions from my preferred programming language and DSA concepts were asked. The interviewer gave me the link to an online code editor and asked me to share my screen.

1. No introduction. No questions on my projects.
2. I told him that I work in C/C++ so he asked me about what a static variable is. He asked me to declare a local and global static variable and tell the difference between them. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/static-variables-in-c/
3. Next question was on the void pointer. He asked me to declare a void pointer and a variable of void type and whether there will be an error or not. Be very attentive while listening to such questions and take your time to answer them. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/void-pointer-c-cpp/
4. Then he asked me to write the code of Linked List and print the data of the given index. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/print-nodes-of-linked-list-at-given-indexes/
5. Next question was to write the code to find out whether there is a loop in LL or not. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/detect-loop-in-a-linked-list/ (Linked List is one of the favorite topics of HPE so prepare well for it!)
6. Then he gave me different conditions in the if statement and asked whether the if block will run or not. 

Second Half: Practical knowledge-based questions of Operating Systems (OS) and Networking were asked.

1. What is a deadlock? What are the necessary conditions for it? How to prevent it. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/introduction-of-deadlock-in-operating-system/. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/deadlock-prevention/
2. What are semaphore and mutex? How do they work in OS? https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mutex-vs-semaphore/
3. Next he asked me if I know about the OSI model and its layers. Further, he asked me if I have a Router at my home. Then he asked me about how does it find the best route to transfer the data. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/introduction-of-a-router/
4. Next question was on NIC and on which layer does it reside. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/nic-full-form/
5. Next he asked me to tell about some Protocols that are used by layers of the OSI model and how do those protocols work. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/layers-of-osi-model/
6. Some questions were on Switches and on which layer they reside. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/switch-functions-at-layer-2/

Now once I was done with the Technical round, the journey was quite smooth.

Part 3(Managerial Round – 30 mins): As I was shortlisted for the Aruba Role after the test, one thing that was different for this role was that Managerial Round was more like a Technical Interview. 

1. Introduction in brief
2. The interviewer asked me about my interest in Networking subject. I answered that I love to know about what is going on behind the scene when I type www.google.com. So the next question was on DNS and what happens when we type a URL in the browser. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-happens-when-we-type-a-url/
3. For the next 15 mins, there was a discussion on Linux and how much I know about it. (Aruba, HPE works majorly on Linux. So do not say that you don’t know anything about Linux or you have more interest in any other OS)
4. Basic question on whether I have any plans for further studies or not.

Part 4(HR Round – 10 mins):

1. Give your introduction in detail.
2. How much do you know about HPE?
3. Why do you want to join HPE?
4. What is your parents’ occupation?
5. Tell me about one learning that you got from the pandemic?
6. Do you have any plans for further studies?

Then we had a discussion about my role and the day-to-day responsibilities.

After 2 days, the results were announced and I got selected for the Intern + Full-time role. A total of 14 students were selected from my college.