Nielsen Interview Experience for FTE Internship | 2020 On-Campus

Nielsen visited our college at the start of August. The hiring process consisted of 1 coding test and 2 interview rounds. 

Round 1 (Coding Round): The coding round consisted of 3 coding questions. The coding questions were based on data structures and algorithms. The question which I got were 

1. Topological sort Directed Acyclic Graph.
2. Find the shortest distance between nodes of a graph. (It can be solved using Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm)
3. I exactly don’t remember the question but it was similar to detecting the cycle in a directed cyclic graph.

After this round, out of 800 people, 55 people were selected and I was one among them. Due to the current situation of coronavirus, all the interviews were conducted online. 

Round 2 (Technical Round): This particular round was divided into 4 segments.

1. Introduction and Behaviour assessment: I was asked to introduce myself and then there were few behavior questions to test your compatibility. This particular segment was too interesting.
2. Live coding: Since the whole process went virtually, there was live coding. I was given 2 questions to solve. the questions were based on linked lists and arrays. I was also asked to sort the given array using any traditional method. Since I had plenty of time I gave the solution of both bubble sort and quicksort. After solving the questions I was asked to optimize the solutions.
3. Technical stack assessment: In this segment, I was asked about the core CSE topics – DBMS, OS. Later I was asked about OOPS concepts and Java Basics (Exceptional handling). Then I was given two SQL queries and asked to solve them. They were based on joins.
4. Puzzle-solving:The interviewer asked 2 puzzles.
   • How can a cake be cut into 8 equal pieces by making only 3 cuts? This was an easy question.
   • You will be given 5 jars of candies and a weighing machine. Each jar has candies, which weigh 10 grams each, except one jar(that contains candies weighing 9 grams each). Your task is to find the contaminated jar of candies by just weighing the candies only once.

My whole round 2 lasted for 1 and a half hours, and after 4 hours I was called for the next round. 

Round 3 (Technical + HR): In this round, the interviewer asked questions mostly from the resume. Later I was asked to tell about my projects and the improvision if I had any. The interviewer also asked questions related to my family and many situational questions just to check my adaptivity and compatibility. This round went for an hour.

After an hour or two, the results were declared and out of 55 people were selected, and I was one among them.

Tips: 

• I would suggest doing the company based interview questions from GeeksforGeeks as they contain all the types of questions. The archive interview questions in GeeksforGeeks are very helpful as it contains all types of problems with varying difficulty. Be through with data structures and algorithms and the efficient ways to solve a problem.
• I would also suggest revising the concepts of DBMS, OOPs, OS.
• Make sure you are through with your resume, because your interview depends on your resume.
• Be confident and be what you are.
• Believe in your preparation.
• Wait for your day!!!