Persistent Systems Pool Campusing Interview Experience-2019

I recently was interviewed by Persistent Systems Limited and got placed. It was a pooled campusing programme conducted by Techno India.

There were three package categories of package and they were 4.41 lpa, 6.41 lpa, 8.41 lpa. There were interview rounds following one online test round. The overall question level in the online test was easy as only basic theoretical concepts are checked mostly. Most of us who appeared for the test were qualified for next round which was Coding+Interviews or just Interview depending on your performance in online test. People sitting for coding had an opportunity of getting the higher packages which were 6.41 lpa and 8.41 lpa and others were sitting in the interviews for the standard one which was 4.41 lpa.  I was selected for the latter case which was the direct interview.

Online Test: It was a 60 minutes test consisting of 60 questions. The topics covered in the questions are:-

1) OS: Basic concepts of  OS, disk scheduling, memory management etc.

2)Computer Networks: Basic concepts of UDP, TCP protocols. There was a question whether Telnet is TCP or UDP. There were questions related to DNS, private & public IP etc.

3)Software Engineering: Yes, lots of questions were from Software Engineering. There were questions on Concepts of Stubs and Drivers, Glass box testing is another name of  White box or Black box testing? some questions on Boundary Value Analysis(BVA), types of testing etc.

4)Programming: There were lots of questions on OOP with C++ and some questions on basic concepts of switch-case, continue etc. in C. There was a question from OOP with C++ that if virtual constructors are possible or not in C++ and the answer is no. One question was what if continue statement is used without any loop and the answer is compile time error as continue is only possible inside loop.

5)Aptitude: There were some questions on Probability, Sets, Percentage and Simple Interest. The questions were more or less easy.

Interview:

There was a powerpoint presentation first in which they showed their vision, mission, the technologies they were working on, their work culture etc.

Round 1 (Technical): At first 6 of us were asked to come inside and to sit in circular manner in front of the interviewer. He then asked to give him our CVs. He then began to ask everyone to get to his place and collect questions from him. Everyone was given 2 types of questions.

1) He gave a simple program to solve in 2 or 3 different ways. He wanted us to use various data structures and algorithms.He gave me a string “India is My Country” and asked to reverse the sentence. So the desired output was “Country My is India”.I solved the question in 2 approaches first but he wanted me to think about some data structures and implement them.So I implemented stack and then he asked to use pointers and I did it and he was satisfied.

2)He gave one pattern which consisted of numbers having some logical relationship. And our challenge was to find one unknown number there using the hidden logic. Everyone found it really tough and it was really hard to judge the relationship. I came up with a logic and explained to him. But he was not satisfied with that.

He checked my CV and there was written interests in Data Science. So he asked about my approach for this. I explained about some courses I was doing online from Andrew Ng and he was impressed by this. He asked about my projects in Machine Learning. I didn’t have good projects at that time. I showed him one project I recently made on Movie Prediction using Python and MySQL and linear regression algorithms. He was fine with that.

Most of us were qualified and were called for the next round after waiting for a while.

Round 2 (Techno-Managerial):  It was one to one interview. I was called inside where the interviewer was sitting with my CV. He asked me to take the sit and asked to tell about myself. I explained about myself, my career, my family background etc.  Then he began to check my CV very thoroughly. It was the round where most of the questions were asked from CV. In my CV there was a project on PHP website.He asked a lot about web related questions, the 3 tier concept, and asked to write how I will connect my PHP application to database, how I will connect front end with back end, how the data from html is sent to PHP and then are stored inside MySQL database. I explained each of these things so vividly as they were very easy for me. Then he asked about my Machine Learning project on Movie Recommendation System written on my CV. I explained it. And then he asked me some conceptual questions on Java, Python and also Ajax as it was written on my CV. I explained them. Then he asked why I used Python for Machine Learning as other languages are also there.I explained about some libraries and APIs used in Python are greatly helpful for developers and also Python is so easy to write.He was satisfied with my answers. The overall interview was very nice and I answered all his questions and he was fully satisfied with me. Then he asked about any question for him and I asked about the technologies they were working on and he explained about them. Then he asked me to wait outside for the next round.

Round 3(HR round): This was the last challenge and  what you require most in this round is the confidence and eye contact with a little but continuous smile on your face. I was asked to come inside and I greeted him.Then he asked to tell about myself. I explained and then he asked what is the last movie you watched? I said it is MS Dhoni-The Untold Story as it motivates and inspires me every time.MS Dhoni is my inspiration and he is cool in difficult times. Then he asked 2 things you implement in your life from MS Dhoni.I explained the calmness of mind and all that. Then he asked about my passion and my weakness. He also offered me some coffee as it was the end of the day and I said yes. So I completed my HR round with the coffee and coffee was very nice. Lastly he asked for some questions for him and I asked about job locations and he asked about my preference. I said Hyderabad. Then he said I am putting your preferences and asked will you work in some other location like Nagpur. I said yes, it will be a new place for me and I will explore new things over there. He said it is very good. Then he shook hands with me with a good smile and said seeing you after 1 year in our office. I said surely sir and thanked him and left the room.

We were asked to wait in the lounge of the college for a while to know the results. Then they called out some names including my name and asked to come on next day at 3 p.m. and it was a suspense made by them. I was not feeling good assuming there will be an another round. We came to the place again on next day at the above mentioned time. All of us who were asked to come were called with names and then they announced that we are selected for Persistent Systems Limited and congratulated us. We clapped and joy was there in everyone’s face.Then we were asked to fill up the forms of Persistent to provide our personal information and job location preferences etc. and then we were free to leave the place.

Tips:  Be confident throughout the process.CV is important.Write on CV only the things you know and you are confident with. Make some good projects and brush up the basic Data structures and Algorithms, OOP, DBMS, OS and also Software Engineering. So make your basics very clear and be confident.Best of Luck.