Hi folks,
Zee visited our campus for hiring Associate Software Development Engineer as a Full-Time Offer. In this article, I would be sharing my Interview Experience and selection process for the same.
Selection Criteria: CGPA>7 & Branch: CSE
Round 1(Online Coding Round): This round is comprised of 10 Technical MCQ questions(moderate level) and 2 Coding Questions held on HackerEarth Platform. Test Duration was 1hour 15 min.
- Area of the largest rectangle possible from given coordinates (Easy) 2 Pointer & Sorting Technique
- Energy Exchange (https://codeforces.com/problemset/problem/68/B) (Medium) Binary Search
Cut-Off Criteria for Round 1: Both Coding Questions with all the test cases should have passed along with >50% accuracy in MCQs. I was able to solve both the coding questions and MCQs with maximum accuracy.
After 2 weeks the final shortlist after Round-1 was announced. Out of 300 students, 49 were shortlisted for Round-2.
Round 2(Technical Interview): The interview updates came a few hours before it started so very little to no time was there for preparation.
The Interview lasted for different duration for different students depending on the interviewer. In my case, it lasted for 1hour 15 min.
- Introduce Yourself.
- Explain your Work Experience and the related work. (Since I had done 2 minor internships in a startup during the second year of my college).
- Explain any 1 Project you like the most & Why. (I always try to explain my project for 10 mins covering every dimension of it).
- The interviewer asked me to explain a project of his preference from my resume which I hadn’t explained before. (So in total I had to explain 2 Projects from my Resume).
- A couple of follow-up questions based on my projects and work experience.
- Since my projects were based on Machine Learning, the Interviewer deep-dived and asked me questions related to Machine Learning.
- Difference b/w Covariance & Correlation.
- Difference between RCNN and YOLO.
- Assumptions of Linear Regression. (I started explaining the myths rather than the assumptions, so he advised me to go through it once later).
- What is Confusion Matrix?
- Difference between Decision Tree & Random Forest.
- Random Forest is Bagging or Boosting?
- What is Bagging & Boosting?
- What is Feature Selection?
- How you will perform Feature Selection on a Dataset.
- Different evaluation metrics used in ML
- What is Bias Variance Trade-Off
- What is the difference between Precision & Recall
- Then he gave me a scenario of Binary Classification of Cancerous & Non- Cancerous tumors and asked me which metrics would be the best to choose from the available ones? (I answered it as Precision but according to him the answer should be Recall, which I understood later when he explained the reason for the same ).
- Again a scenario-based question, in which I was given 2 variables that were positively correlated. Is it always true that if one variable is dependent on the Target Variable then the other variable should also be dependent on the target variable? Explain with a real-world example.
- Different types of Correlation Measures. (I could recall only one of them that was Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient but when he gave me the hint of Spearman’s Correlation, I was able to recall that as well and explain it).
- What is PCA?
- 2 DBMS queries(Easy Level based on Join Operation).
- Difference between Inner Join and Right Outer Join(Explain with example).
- Explain the approach to Rotation of Array and discuss its Time Complexity.
- Explain the Question & Approach and Analyse its Time Complexity of Area of Largest Rectangle possible from the Given Coordinates
- 1 MCQ question based on Mirror of BST Tree (Easy).
- Finally, Do you have any Questions? (I asked regarding the work culture of the company).
I was able to answer all the questions related to ML except a couple of them. For all the above questions you can refer to articles at your convenience.
After a hectic & challenging round, I was a bit nervous about whether I would qualify or not being one of my toughest interviews purely based on ML. Fortunately, I qualified for the Technical Round and within 15 min I got a scheduled HR Round. Out of 49 Students, 29 were selected for the third round.
Round 3(HR Round): This round lasted for 20 minutes. The interviewer gave a brief introduction about herself.
- Introduce yourself.
- Why do you want to work for Zee?
- Explain any one of your projects.
- Challenges Faced during the project lead role & how you handled them.
- Any Questions? (I asked, How is the daily schedule for an Associate Software Development Engineer at ZEE & What all are their expectations out of me in the first 30 days after the onboarding process starts in case I am selected).
The Final Results were announced in the evening on the next day on the prestigious occasion of Diwali! Due to God’s grace and constant hard work I was able to clear all the 3 Rounds of Interviews.
VERDICT: SELECTED [BEST DIWALI GIFT!]
Now I would like to highlight some of my preparation tips that helped me crack this interview:
- The very important parameter according to me for selection is your communication skills. It all boils down to the fact of how you express your thought process and ideas. Even if you know a lot of stuff, but aren’t able to communicate dynamically, it may lead to rejection.
- Be very clear about your Projects and Work Experience(If any).
- In case you have Work-Ex, then 3 Projects would be sufficient & in case you don’t have any Work-Ex, 5 Projects would be sufficient.
- Thorough understanding of the fundamentals related to the project Domain(In my case it was ML & Data Science), Tech stack. Focus more on relating the theoretical concepts with real-life examples.
- Don’t miss out on anything you have mentioned on your resume!
- Don’t neglect the Core Subjects(DBMS, OOPS, CN, OS) on the cost of Coding. (Core Subjects plays a very vital role in the clearance of the Technical Rounds). Also, do practice SQL Query Writing on the HackerRank Platform.
- For Core Subjects, you can completely rely on GfG and Youtube Videos. Focus more on Important Topics first.
- Focus more on Important DSA rather than Complex & Tough DSA. Once you are confident about Important ones, you can switch to Tough Ones.
- Practice more Easy & Medium Level Questions, rather than focusing only on hard ones.
- Don’t miss out on practicing MCQ questions. (For this also you can rely completely on GfG). One should be very clear with his/her fundamentals to have maximum accuracy in this section.
- Strike a balance between Core Subjects, Projects, Coding. (VERY IMP).
- Make your own notes and revise them multiple times. The only mantra to crack any Interview is doing revision multiple times. (I revised the core subjects minimum of 8-10 times so that I can answer them fluently during interviews.) Having conceptual clarity is more important than the number of topics.
- Don’t panic if you are not able to answer any questions, just stay calm and try your level best to answer.
On a positive note, I would like to conclude by saying that Nothing is Impossible, you just need to have Patience and keep working hard regardless of the outcomes, wait for the right time and everything will fall in place!! Rejections are a part of your success story, I got rejected by 45+ Companies before I finally made it! So don’t lose Hopes.
All the best to the readers out there! In case you like my experience and the tips, please do give it a LIKE!!❤
Thank You GfG for helping me crack my dream job!!✌