HSBC Interview Experience For TSE (On-Campus) 2024

HSBC came to our campus to hire for the role of Trainee Software Engineer. They were hiring female candidates only.

Eligibility: 60% and above in everything. (CSE and IT only)

Note: All rounds (including HR) were elimination rounds.

ROUND 1 – Aptitude and Coding

Aptitude: HSBC conducted their test in the AON CoCubes platform.

• Aptitude questions consisted of numbers, patterns, English comprehension and Programming (C++, Java, HTML, Cloud Computing, Computer Networks, DBMS). All 70 questions were MCQ and were to be solved in 75 minutes.
• Aptitude and Coding were two different sections. If you cracked Aptitude, only then you were allowed to appear for the coding test.

Coding: The coding section consisted of two questions only and you have to solve them in 30 minutes. Both questions were easy. Solving one question is also enough to qualify for the next round.

• Given a string STR and a character K, replace the most frequent character occurring in STR with K.
  Example: If STR is “apple” and K is “z” then the output will be “azzle”.

• Given an array ARR of size N. Your task is to find and print the number of elements of ARR which are: Even numbers and are at the even indices or odd numbers and are at the odd indices.

Out of 150 candidates, only 16 were selected for the next round.

ROUND 2 – Values Assessment test​

I don’t remember the exact number of questions. This round did not have any time constraint and the students had to choose the best option according to the given question/situation.

Out of 16 students, 10 were selected for the next round.

ROUND 3 – Technical Interview​

Interviews were conducted in a different campus and students from all over the state were present for the interviews.

1. Introduce yourself
2. Tell me about projects.
3. Which language do you prefer? Questions based on that programming language.
4. DBMS concepts – SQL Join, primary key and foreign key. Explain all by drawing tables. ACID properties, transactions, etc.
5. One coding question – Given a string containing alphanumeric characters, print the sum of numbers present in the string. Example: STR is “ab3cd67f” then the output is 16.
6. Questions on typecasting, OOPs concept with live examples.
7. OS concepts – semaphore, page faults, etc.

The entire interview lasted for 30-40 minutes. Once the interview was over, I was told to wait outside while the interviewer gave their feedback. I was sent to HR interview immediately.

ROUND 4 – HR Interview​

1. How was your day? Did you have your lunch? Family background?
2. Current location? Willing to relocate? Location preference?
3. How was the technical interview? (Be honest with this question)
4. Hobbies? Most influential person in your life? Why engineering?
5. Where do you see yourself in 20 years?
6. If you could automate one thing in the world through engineering, what would it be?
7. Any questions?

This interview lasted for about 10-15 minutes. We were told to go home after our interview was over.

Verdict: Selected

Suggestions: Be completely thorough with your resume. Have a basic understanding of core concepts and practice coding regularly. If you don’t know the answer, apologize and say no. Maintain eye contact with interviewers and be confident.