Placement Mantra : From Failure To Success - By Anmol Binani

It is well said that people who have lived all the experiences can give you a better advice. We too have one senior from M.Tech. (Software Engineering) who have seen failure and lived upon the struggle of searching jobs in Hitech city like Bangalore. He never lost hope and ended up getting 6 months intern and full-time opportunity in one of the best product based company SAP Labs. So here is some experience and guidance from our senior Anmol Binani.

Hi, I am Anmol Binani and I am currently pursuing M.Tech in Software Engineering from MNNIT Allahabad (NIT Allahabad). I am one of the TPRs of MNNIT Allahabad batch of 2020. I am placed in SAP Labs. In this post, I will try to share my experience with you and try to guide you so that you don't have to go through the tough times or rather unsuccessful phase that I experienced and you can probably learn from my mistakes and decide what's good for you.

Companies in which I got to an interview round:

1. Qualcomm (eliminated in 2nd round of interview)
2. Cisco (eliminated in 1st round of interview)
3. Adobe (eliminated in 2nd round of interview)
4. Amazon (eliminated in 3rd round of interview)
5. SAP (cleared all 4 rounds of interview)

I learned from every question that I couldn't answer and tried not to make the same mistake in the next interview.

From a tier 3 college to an NIT and then to be able to clear the tests and sit for the interview in the above 5 companies is a dream come true and my hard work paid off. My struggle in search of a decent job ended. 

My Journey

Before getting into the Do's and Don'ts let me tell you about my background. I completed my B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, a tier 3 college with a decent CGPA (8.30) in the year 2017. Unfortunately, I was not placed. 

Reasons for not being placed:

1. Not too many opportunities (Only one-two product-based companies and few service-based companies. I guess a total of 8-10 companies entirely in college visited during that session and highest pay was 6 LPA).
2. I was very particular about getting into a product based company only. Not in a service-based company.

Among the two reasons, the 2nd reason is because of which I didn’t have a job offer. To let you know, I was among the top 5 coders in my batch. But in reality, my highest rating ever on HackerRank was between 1800-1850. I could hardly solve medium level questions. But it was good, compared to the level of students in my college. But then, because of this 2nd reason, I was jobless despite being capable enough to get a job in a service-based company. I even had an offer of a direct interview from TCS, thanks to CodeVita, but I didn't sit for the interview thanks to my reason number 2.

Since I didn’t have a job offer, I only had two options:

1. Clear the GATE exam, get into a good college (IIT, NIT or IIIT) and again wait for the placement session and prepare hard this time to get a decent job. I had to take a drop and then I was able to clear the exam with a decent mark and got into MNNIT Allahabad. So overall summary, I cleared my B.Tech in 2017 and got a job in 2019 during my M.Tech.
2. Start Job hunting. After the GATE exams were over, I was not sure if I would get into the top 5 NITs or not. So I went to Bangalore in search of Job and stayed for 3 months there. Trust me, you don’t ever want to get in that situation after you pass out from a good college like MNNIT Allahabad which provides you enough opportunities to be able to grab a job during placement sessions.

I will tell you what to do so that you don’t have to go choose the above-mentioned options.

Tips for students:

1. Don't be very particular when it comes to package (CTC), a company is offering or the company itself. You might regret it if nothing happens as you planned or wanted for yourself.
   
   Do aim high but do a reality check of yourself frequently. It is very important to know your potential and aim accordingly, but one step at a time. If you are aiming for certain companies then it doesn't mean that you have to be placed in any of those companies through campus placement in college itself. You can always switch to your dream company once you are capable and experienced enough. The foremost thing is to get a decent job.
   
2. Don’t follow someone else’s routine. You are unique and you should know how you must prepare. Everyone has a different ability, strengths, and power to grasp new concepts and master it.
   
   Do know your strengths and weaknesses. This will keep you grounded and help you prepare in a better way. Fear is good sometimes. Even the best coders of your batch has a fear of getting rejected during an interview. So it’s normal to have that fear of failure in you. That should be your driving force to work hard. Remember, “There is no substitute for Hard Work”.
   I knew my weaknesses and had planned to conquer them. I knew which topics were clear to me and which I needed to focus and planned accordingly whether it was coding concepts or technical subject concepts. This is what helped me get a job at SAP.
   
3. Don’t hesitate in asking for help if you don’t know a topic and want help from your friends or anyone else.
   
   Do ask for help. You won’t lose anything. You will only gain from their knowledge. Keep aside your ego of not knowing things and pretending to know everything. “Incomplete knowledge will do you more harm than good”.
   During my placement sessions, I used to ask help from students who were a part of the Training and Placement Office, irrespective of his course (B.Tech, M.Tech or MCA). If I thought I should learn something from him/her I used to ask for help. I used to ask them to sit with me and take my mock interviews, and ask me anything that they knew to grill me (in a positive way). I didn’t feel bad about not knowing the answers being a senior to them, but I got to learn the concepts and that is what helped me in my interviews.
   
4. Don’t lie to yourself and give yourself false hope.
   
   Do be honest with yourself and own your mistakes. Learn from them and try to improve them. “Be consistent, dedicated, motivated and determined”.  It takes a lot of willpower to follow these words in a disciplinary routine.
   I really mean it when I say to be honest, consistent, dedicated, motivated and determined. Being a TPR it takes a lot of effort to work for others and then come back to your room and study for yourself. I used to hardly get time for my studies but the little time that I got for myself I tried to make use of it to the fullest. Had I not been honest with myself, I couldn’t have done any good either to myself or for my batch.
   
   Now comes the most important aspect of cracking an interview.
   
5. Don’t forget to work on your personality (communication skills, attitude, and body language)
   
   Do improve your communication skills. Your attitude in which you talk to people and the body language that you portray in front of an interviewer. It matters the most. A company is not just hiring you because you can code or you are technically sound. They also look at your overall personality, attitude and communication skills, because they want to see if you can fit into their company culture or not, because you will not always be working alone. You will at some point in time work in teams and directly with clients. So if you are not up to the mark in these aspects, you might get rejected. No matter how technically sound you are.
   Being a TPR, I learned a lot on these aspects. Being a team player, I improved my communication skills, attitude towards life during tough times and how to present myself when in front of senior members.

PLAN

Now let’s get you started with the planning phase for your placement sessions. I believe it is better to have a plan than running in circles figuring out what to do every day. 

Since the placement sessions generally start from the 3rd-4th week of July, we have around 110 days to go. 

1. Plan your days of learning and practicing Data Structures and Algorithms as per the time table shared in this answer by Robin Thomas on Quora.
   This is the best plan ready-made for you. 
2. Start talking in English with your friends. Try to practice explaining the concepts that you know to your friends in English. This will help you prepare your answers during the interview rounds and boost your confidence in English speaking.
3. Practice mock interviews with your friends. Make a group of 3-4 friends. Choose a few problems and topics that you want to discuss. Solve the problems, and prepare the topics for a day or two, then get together and create an interview scenario. For example, if you are a group of 4, then let say 3 of you act as interviewer and 1 as interviewee. For coding questions try to use a pen-paper mode while explaining the concepts to your friends. This will get you prepared for a pen-paper coding interview. Doing this will help you overcome the fear of explaining a question in front of 2-3 people. You will not stammer and hesitate while speaking in English and you will in this process gain confidence to face an interview.
4. Prepare your subjects really well. In general, it is advised to have OOPSs concepts, DA, Algo, OS, DBMS, and Computer Networks (CN) prepared for your interviews, but you should also focus on problem-solving questions and puzzles too. 
5. Also, focus on your Projects. You need to have a clear understanding of your project(s). It is not necessary to have 2-3 projects in your CV. Even if you have 1 and you have crystal clear knowledge about that project and answer the questions in a detailed way to satisfy your interviewer’s quest to judge your knowledge, you will make a positive impact and that will be a plus point for you.
6. Go through the interview experience shared by students. You will find a lot of interview experiences in GeeksforGeeks and even on this blog.
7. Keep your Resume updated and organized. Take your time in preparing your resume. Collect ample details that you think you can put into your resume and then try to prioritize them and put them in your resume in such a way that it highlights your strengths and you are confident enough to answer any questions that an interviewer can ask out of your resume.
   Try to make a one-page Resume, unless you have a lot to showcase and it genuinely exceeds one page, it is fine.

Final Thoughts

• For B.Tech students - Make use of this time and opportunity. You are in MNNIT Allahabad and you will get lots of opportunities and all you have to do is grab one. Start preparing and don’t commit the same mistakes that I did. You don’t want to get out of this college with no job in your hand.

• For MCA and M.Tech students: You have already completed your bachelor's degree and you are here. A lot of you have gone through the same phase that I have gone through, so please take my experience as an example and make use of this. I didn’t have someone to guide me this way.

Note: This year you guys might have to face a tough time because of COVID-19. So I urge you all to be prepared for the worst and work hard in such a way that you don’t let any opportunity slip from you.

Special Thanks:

People who supported me the most during my placement session: Team TPO 2k20, my friends and my parents. I cannot thank them enough. I am here because of your support. 

I wish you guys all the luck. 

In case you want to reach out to me for any further support: 

Email - anmolbinani@mnnit.ac.in