Students’ Speak: Know these 9 tips to successfully ace Placement rounds

By: Payal Jajodia

Placement drives are very crucial for engineering aspirants. Payal Jajodia provides tips on how to leave a strong impression on the interviewer and bag a promising job offer. She also shares details about the facilities and services offered by Poornima University’s Training and Placement Office (TPO Cell).

The final year students, taking into consideration the pre-final year students also, always seem confused about preparation for upcoming placement season. Some of common questions that baffles them include — How to prepare? From where to prepare? How to manage time for everything? What will the questions be asked during the interview?

Let’s have a look at the procedure in typical campus placement.

• Pre-Placement talk: Here the company’s HR presents a brief introduction about the company, the growth rate, the services provided along with the overall products and the success rate.
• Aptitude test: Next, the aptitude test is conducted which may be pen paper based or computer based with a predefined duration. If a student clears this round then they are shortlisted for next round and those who fail to clear this round don’t make it to the next rounds.
• Group Discussion/ Technical Round: Most companies, after the aptitude round, conduct a group discussion if it is a non-IT company. If it is an IT company then the technical round is conducted, which involves a coding contest or a pen paper based test if it is for non-coding domain role. Those who make it through this round are called for the interview round next.
• Personal Interview: In this round, the student faces the company HR/representative where the interviewer evaluates the communication skills and domain knowledge of the student.
• Result Declaration: After completion of placement drive, students who manage to clear all the rounds are selected for specific profiles and offer letters are issued to them.

Here are some tips to ace placement rounds with ease.

• Be aware about the company’s profile and do in-depth research about the organization and various departments in it
• Prepare a short and crisp resume, not more than two pages
• How we present ourselves towards the interviewer is very important. Maintain a positive body posture throughout the interview.
• Be well informed about the placement procedure and the various rounds involved it
• Basic concepts studied during your engineering should be crystal clear before appearing for an interview
• Practice for the aptitude test regularly and try to memorize the short tricks to save time.
• Try to sharpen your communication skills and prepare well for written English assessment as well
• Try to gain hands-on experience to perform well in technical round and do not be overconfident during the HR round.
• Check for all your documents, resume, certificates, passport size photographs, college ID, hall-ticket, etc. before appearing for the placement drive

My college has a separate cell for placement, i.e. Training and Placement Office (TPO). The TPO cell of Poornima University is responsible for providing all the opportunities to students so that they can enhance and upgrade their skills. Moreover, the TPO cell organizes well-planned activities and maintains proper infrastructure so that students can get more out of campus drives and placements.

Some of the facilities that the TPO Cell provides to the students are:

• Life and Soft Skills sessions: Focus on students’ personality development, self-grooming and the communication skills
• Aptitude tests: Regular aptitude test conducted once in a week in online mode primarily
• Industrial Seminar: Introduction to emerging technologies and presenting them to the students
• Talent Enrich Program: Enhancing the talent of the students in various fields beyond studies
• Internship: Providing industry based exposure to develop the skills and build confidence among the students.
• Group Discussions: Mock group discussion round so that students are well aware of the current topics before sitting for placements
• Training Seminars: Seminars and workshops on the upcoming technologies in the industry
• Mock Drills: Dummy interviews and drives for the students from pre-final and final year
• Campus Recruitment Test and Training: Weekly sessions for the students so that they can easily crack the aptitude round.
• Industrial Visits: Visit to IT companies every semester so that student can acquire knowledge about a company’s infrastructure and services.
• Expert Talks: Expert talks by IT companies’ managers or the high profile dignitaries
• Alumni Talks: The alumni encourage the students by their experience & knowledge and provide proper guidance
• Professional Certification Course: Professional certifications and hands-on experience go a long way in leaving a strong impression on the interviewer

About the Author:

Payal Jajodia is a student at Poornima University studying Bachelor in Technology with a specialisation in Computer Science Engineering.