My First Interview - TCS

December 10, 2010 my first blog is here on my experience at TCS interview. I got 75 % overall Xth onwards and got a direct interview opportunity. So no written or online test was there for me.

Sharp at 8:30 AM, I was at the interview site. We got a form for filling our details. Spaces were there for personal details, marks, year gap, projects, PAN No, Passport No etc. I was not having my passport size photo with me to be affixed on that form. Somehow my friends Rajesh and Satya  managed to get me my passport size photo within half an hour (Thanks to both of them). We all filled our forms within half an hour and were told to wait for the interview. (Suggestion - Have at least 2 copies of resume and photos always with you)

Waiting continued..we were watching people coming out from interview hall excited, smiling, and with many other faces. People rushing to them to know the questions....  till 12:30 PM.

My turn for the first round of interview that was technical, came around 12:30 PM. I entered the hall. Interviewer aged 35 above greeted with handshake and a smile. I too smiled, felt comfortable. He went through the form and the resume attached with it. He was quite impressed with my resume. Particularly looking at my projects, he made a posture like fantastic. This went for 30-45 sec.

Now interview starts

Interviewer : So, Anmol I am quite impressed with your resume, I have never seen this before. Why are these Academic and Research Projects separately ?
Me : Sir, I did a lot of projects at different IITs which were research based and I got a IIT feel there and learned alot there. That's why I have mentioned them separately.

Interviewer : So you did under Prof D. B. Phatak.
Me : Yes sir, he is one of the top 36th most powerful persons in India for 2009 ranking

Interviewer : How you manged that ?
Me : Sir I mailed a lot of professors, we get 2 months summer vacation, 1 month winter vacation. I utilized my time in that (explained him how I got that IITB internship along with others from 13 different colleges, NITs)

Interviewer : You have done projects under some very good professors, just in short tell me about these projects, just to make me understand.

Comment - I didn't knew at that moment that he is impressed with the name of Prof. D. B. Phatak in my resume

Me : "He pointed his fingers on IIT B project". This project was on development of multimedia integration. At present a no. of professors at IITs create lectures and publish them over the internet. But they need a studio for this which would cost crores. (This only I got at the moment, crores, i don't think :) ) . But the colleges like Cochin university can't afford those studios. So we were developing a software that they can install in their laptops, integrate videos, lectures, slides, ppts etc and create the lectures and publish them over the internet.

Interviewer : So they can record lectures on their laptops with webcam
Me : Yes sir, we have webcams in our laptops, they can record their voices video there.

Interviewer : Ok, next IIT Kharagpur, project ? Speech based interface design. What you did in that ?
Me : ( I knew almost nothing about speech based interface because that was not my work at internship) I started explaining him, that today we say technology is everywhere, but still it is away from the reach of common people in India. So if a common people don't know about Google, this doesn't mean technology is not for them. ( He said : Right ) . So we developed a interface Blah Blah

Interviewer : But how you managed to recognize the voice of a person to give instructions to the system.
Me :  Then i started, but I stopped and asked him, sir are you comfortable with Hindi. He told no, I'm ok with English, but you can say in this context. I told him that if a person is saying "onn" (means 1 in Malayalam) . So we have the frequency stored in the database , this frequency of a Keralite person means "o" "o" "n" . So we can then recognize with frequency that he told "onn" and search the term.

Interviewer :  Ok, next third project.
Me : This project was development of multimodal user interfaces for common people in India. Here we present a the common people a icon of Indian railways, so there he can search with it. Here the common people refers to village people, rickshaw pullers. Blah Blah..
Again, currently there is a site : www.nid.iitkgp.ernet.in . (he noted that site)

Interviewer : ok, so what is SDLC ?
Me :  Software development life cycle

Interviewer : What are different stages in it ?
Me : I started telling, he helped me when I forgot to tell "Deployment" phase. He noted these steps on a paper.

Interviewer : So what is your recent project ?
Me : online C Compiler

Interviewer : yes so what have you done during your analysis phase ? (something unexpected for me)
Me : We have gathered a survey, on about 100 people.

Interviewer : So what is the outcome of that phase ?
Me :  (I thought for some time) . Sir we have gathered data on excel sheet. (He noted that down)

Interviewer : What in design phase ?
Me :  We have a working prototype for the project, and architecture of the whole project.

Interviewer : So you have the SDD (noted) . What you do in testing phase ?
Me : Sir, we check for the errors in the program.

Interviewer : What you plan in that, when you plan that ?
Me :  First i told him development phase (then he told no and i thought again) then i told him analysis phase

Interviewer :  Then he told you are right, but where we plan test cases
Me :  I had no idea so I kept silent, then he explained,. I too discussed the things with him. cleared the doubts.

Interviewer : I am teaching you also, these all phases you have to follow. Prof like D . B. Phatak is very highly qualified persons, he has the idea in his mind, so they make you do the work. But our client would like to document each phase, then only you can proceed to next phase. Blah Blah
( I realized, he is quite impressed with my work under Prof D. B. Phatak) 

Now he turned, and checked my CV, so you have done C, C++. C# . Now he started the real interview leaving all discussions apart.

Interviewer : very quickly answer me these questions, 20 seconds . Difference between C and C++

Next OOPS properties

Next difference between encapsulation and abstraction

What encapsulation does

Me : answered all quickly

Interviewer : What is abstract class ?

Me : I was blank, didn't answered.  He told me come out of previous discussions. Told me the answer

Interviewer : What is enumerated data types ?

Me :  Explained somehow, he helped. Then asked me to write the code . I wrote a wrong code something . Again he discussed and told me the things. 

Interviewer :  You don't know programming at all

Interviewer : What is overloading ?

Me : Explained

Interviewer : Difference between Char and Varchar ?

Me : I answered something wrong ! He told me that I have never heard such a high funda difference between them. Then he explained

Interviewer : So Anmol, you are not answering the questions, it don't looks like you had a good interview. What do you feel ?

Me :  I feel sir, I had a good interview and I have answered 

Interviewer : But more than 50 % of the questions I have answered ?

Me : But still I feel I would be selected sir, some smile and something :) I don't know what to say ....

Interviewer : What is the difference between, do while and for loop ?

Me : answered

Interviewer :  Ok, last two questions for you ? What is Ohms Law ?

Me : Didn't answered ! ( Who cares in IT someone would ask that, he looked at me with disappointment) . Saw my 10th percentage as 86 %, then told something :(

Interviewer : What is 1/sin(theta) ?

Me :  I told sin (inverse) theta. He told that is a notation. Then asked me what is tan theta, tan 45, 1/cosec(theta) . Finally I got what he meant by 1/sin(theta)

Interviewer :  What is Pythagoras Theorem ?

Me : I told lenth(square) + breadth(square) = hypotenuse(square) . He pointed breadth, I corrected

Interviewer : So what you learned from the interview ?

Me :  We need to learn programming, rather than going for Google Search !

We had a small talk again on the topic Google search again, what industry does blah blah. Then I asked him, about expansion plans of TCS. I made a point that still many areas are lacking technology. He told nicely taken. Ok you can leave. Whole technical went for around 40-45 minutes

There my Technical round got over and I went for a HR Round. But suddenly they announced, that we are going for a break, so come after 20 minutes. We waited there. Then after 40-45 minutes. I got a call for HR Round. HR seemed to be in hurry, aged around 30. I entered, he asked me to take my seat

HR :  Introduce yourself in short

Where do you see yourself after 5 years

What are the qualities of a project manager you see in yourself ?

What you know about TCS ?

Any location constraints ?

Any technology constraints ?

What are the recent advancements in IT you have heard of ? 

Any questions you would like to ask ?

I answered something in all questions, then asked him if we can do our training during our VIIIth semester, he told no after completion only, explained that it can be anywhere, not necessary at cochin. Finally told me to leave.

HR Round was very quick, just 5 minutes, even less.

I came out, waited for around 40-45 minutes for MR. Then got the call. Mr Arun aged 40-45, was the HR in this round.

Interviewer : Introduce yourself ?

Me :  I forgot my own introduction there, completed it in 4-5 lines ( Don't know what happened to me ) .

 Then he told about Bond of TCS, this that, Told me that ok, you can leave now. Come for the results tomorrow .

Finally results came on 11th December, and I made it.