Students' Speak: Follow these tips to prepare for placements

By: Shrusti Shah

The most common mistake most students make in the preparation strategy is that they don’t prepare well for aptitude. Be it any job interview, the one thing that is common in the selection process is an aptitude test. So, make sure that you have practised it well and have spent at least 15 to 30 days for this part.

Placement is the primary goal for almost every student who enters a well-esteemed institution. Even then, till 5 semesters, they are not a matter of concern. But as soon as the 6th semester starts, it hits you hard that you are only 6-7 months away from getting your dream job. If the right actions are taken at that time, you could get ahead of at least 70% of the students competing with you. But what kind of actions am I referring to? Let's dive deep into it point-wise. Also, let me mention here that since, I am a computer engineering student, some of the preparation advice and suggestions might be specific to my branch.

1) Make sure that you have cleared all the core subjects conceptually since most of the questions in the technical round comes from these subjects only. For computer students, subjects like Data Structure, Object-oriented Programming, Java and DBMS are the subjects you should have a grip on. Websites like “geekforgeeks” and “java point” are the ones who are excessively helpful in getting you interview-ready.

2) Coming from the technical background, the most common mistake most students make in the preparation strategy is that they don’t prepare well for aptitude. Be it any job interview, the one thing that is common in the selection process is an aptitude test. So, make sure that you have practiced it well and have spent at least 15 to 30 days for this part. Try to cover the chapters mentioned below which have the most significant weightage in any aptitude test.

• Time and Distance
• Partnership
• Profit and Loss
• Average
• Clock
• Ratio and Proportion
• Time and Work

The best online website which I personally referred to is “IndiaBix”.

3) The third area where an interviewee needs to excel is communication. If you are still in your pre-final year, I would suggest you to start watching English shows or series or read books which have an easy language. Try keeping your shyness at one side and start speaking in English with people around you as this will really help you in the personal interview round.  Also, if you aren’t very fluent in the English language during your interview, there is nothing to worry as for most of the companies hiring for technical profiles and language fluency is not a requirement. Having good communication skills is like an icing on the cake.

4)The most important point- Before appearing for any interview, do enough research of the company and the role for which you are about to apply. If any of your alumni works there, contact them and take as much information as possible. Get clear and detailed knowledge about the interview process from your placement officer. Also, read everything about the company coming for placement from websites like “Glassdoor” and “Ambitionbox”. This information really helps a lot in bagging the job.

During my campus placement, these were the four points which helped me a lot. Even though our college doesn’t have a specific placement cell, our alumni association (VAA) invited few alumni to guide and mentor us for placement preparation.

About the Author:

Shrusti Shah is pursuing B.Tech in Computer Engineering from Vishwakarma Government Engineering College. She recently  got placed in an IT company. Besides that, she is interested in Content Writing.