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Hi folks......I am Jayati. I am B.Tech in Computer Science 2011 batch student. Since my college had very poor placement record I was solely dependent on off campus drives. I had applied to near about all the IT biggies and submitted my resume in their databases. It had been around 5 months I was sitting at home doing nothing except waiting for any call from MNC. One of them was Cognizant. At the end of Dec I got the hall ticket for the off campus recruitment drive at Pune.
The written test was scheduled on 7th Jan 2012. I reached there before time and found that one batch is already taking the written test and likewise there were separated batches at every hour or two.
When I entered the hall they gave us a sample OMR sheet and a real omr sheet. The sample omr was given just to be used as an example to fill the real OMR sheet. The particulars which were supposed to be filled were name, college name, percentage in 10th, 12th, grad. They also asked whether we have any current backlogs or not. There was also a descriptive question asking what are the qualities that should be present in a software engineer and why do u think that u can become a good s/w engineer.
Wriiten test
Next came the question booklet. There were 55 questions in total and the time allotted was 60 mins.
Analytical-30 ques in 30 min
Verbal- 25 ques in 30 min
The analytical part was tough. There were questions related to syllogisms, image analysis, analogy, statement and conclusion. There were also questions on reflections on co-ordinate axes which were tough according to me or I didnt know how to solve them. A section on DI was also present. The worst part was the 30 mins time which was very less and the best part was that there was no negative marking. When 5 mins were left to complete the analytical section I realized that I had attempted only 20 out of 30. I was running against the clock but still managed to attempt 3 more with my conscious efforts. I made a hypothesis on rest seven without even reading the question as there was no negative marking.:-)
The next section was of verbal ability. It consisted of two comprehension which were quite easy. Some questions were based on paragraph jumbles and sentence correction. All together Cognizant had maintained a good standard of written test.
The results were declared after 2 days through mail. Thank God I had cleared the test. Now came the real part. The technical interview which was held on 14th Jan. Thankfully they gave me 2-3 days time b4 the interview to prepare all the core subjects like DBMS, Data structures, C++, Java.
Technical interview
Finally the D-day came. There were about 25 panels taking interviews simultaneously. They were randomly calling the names of candidates. I was made to wait for 3 hours when they called my name.
Int: Hi !!!
me: Hello sir
int: take ur seat...
me: thanks
int: so had your lunch ???
me: not yet sir. i ll have it once I am selected in cognizant...
int: so does that mean that if you dont get selected you wont touch food for life ??? ( a bit surprised )
me: not exaclty but yes i wont be having my lunch fr 2day....(we both laughed )
int: so jayati will u please give me ur profile please ??? Let me have a look ..
me: sure sir. ( gave him my resume )
int: tell me something about your projects. u've mentioned 2 projects in your resume.
me: told about both of them.
int: favorite subject ??
me: dbms
int: ok i am drawing a table u have to retrieve data from it....(he drew a table and asked me to write some queries)
me: answered
int: gud....do u know a tree named binary search tree??
me: yes
int: (he wrote some nos and asked me to draw the best)
me: drawn.....
int: (he drew his own tree out of those nos nd told dat dis is the correct bst...urs is wrong )
me: no sir, i once again repeated the definition of bst and expalined how i hv drawn that tree
int: (didnt seem satisfied....he was quite obstinate abt his own tree)
me: to the best of knowledge wat i hv drawn is correct.....
int: (he laughed)
int: ok tell me something abt inheritance
me: told
int: give me a real life example of inheritance
me: family
int: cant u guys think beyond having a family ??? (a smile on his face )
me: (i kept racking my brain for a while trying to think abt sum other example but i couldn't)
sorry sir i am not getting it right now
int: see when u wil come to cognizant u wil acquire its properties....so that wil be inheritance
me: yes sir ( feeling happy as dis was a polite way of saying dat i m through this technical stuff)
int: ok if i hv got 500mb ram nd i wanna play a movie of 1.5gb....can i??
me: yes sir ( told him abt virtual memory )
int : gud.....y do we do programming.....wat is the need ???
me: told sumthing irrelevant ( had a pretty long discussion on it)
int: write a prgrm to reverse a no
me: wrote
int: ok i m done with u....do u hv any ques ??
me: asked him abt the training
int: told sumthing to which i was only nodding my head without letting those things enter my head....
me: thanks
Ah !!!! This was my first interview and it lasted for 45 min....results came within 2 minutes.....
I was called for the HR round......
HR interview
My HR interview lasted for mere 15 mins. I was asked general questions abt my family background, my extra curricular activities. She took a look at all my marksheets and kept mumbling sumthing to herself. Then she asked me whethet I am ready to relocate to Chennai...I said yes....place is not a prblm fr me ( but actually it was...:-p)
Dat was it.....she shook hands and welcomed me to Cognizant !!!
So friends, just be confident. They will test ur confidence level frm tym to tym. Maintain an eye contact with them even if u r nt sure of ur answer. Good luck to all of you......
