Students’ Speak: Master these 7 tips to ace placement rounds with ease

By: Srinivas Goud

Placement season is always stressful for engineering graduates. Most of the students are clueless about their preparation and chances of securing placements with top firms. Srinivas Goud shares some wonderful tips for students preparing for the upcoming placement season.

Placements season is always full of dread and anxiety for young engineering graduates. Whether it is securing your dream job or finding a placement with an organization from your own domain, the stakes are always very high for the students. However, most of them only start preparing for the placement only towards the end of their course duration and many among them are actually clueless of where to begin. I’ll share some basic yet very crucial tips to prepare for the upcoming placement season and secure placement with top-notch organizations.

1. Back to the Roots

The first and foremost thing during your selection process is the knowledge of engineering topics that you’ve studied over the last 2-3 years. All of your efforts are wasted if you lack the essential knowledge of the concepts. Forget mugging up and reproducing the content for the exams. Instead, revise all the concepts for the selection rounds.

2. Pick Your Favorite Engineering Subject/ Topic

Most of the questions during the interview rounds revolve around your favorite engineering subject. Once you tell the interviewers your favorite topic then expect a couple of questions associated with it. If you're an Electronics or Computing student then work on your coding skills. Hackerrank.com is a fine place for learning and practicing coding. Register free of charge and begin coding.

It is natural that you should be prepared to answer questions on your favorite engineering subject or topic. If you haven’t already decided, it’d be worth going back to all or any of the topics and determine the one which you found the foremost interesting.

3. Aptitude Tests

This is where the primary eliminations will begin – the aptitude tests. Many engineering students fear the aptitude test. Choose freshersworld.com’s placement papers. They’re simple and based on school level curriculum. Do not worry too much because it’s VERY EASY to crack aptitude tests. Just keep practicing and within a month or two, you'll solve all the aptitude questions like a pro. Don’t expect to master the aptitude skills in only a week or two. A minimum of 1.5-2 months is required for the preparation of aptitude questions.

One thing you should definitely do is skip the harder topics such as questions on permutations and combinations, a probability that often confuses many students. So skip them! But utilize your time to ensure that you’re excellent at cracking another type of question. Always discuss and solve questions with fellow mates to develop your own tricks for the question.

5. Written & Spoken English
   Like it or not but the job market in India demands people that emphasize on spoken and written English. Unfortunately, only a few people concentrate on their communication skills. If you think that you need to sharpen your English speaking/writing skills then now is the time to make an effort. It is going to assist you in your entire career. Trust me, tons of individuals unnecessarily are rejected because they can’t communicate or express themselves properly.
6. Interview (Technical)

If you’re good at engineering topics then cracking the technical interview won’t be a drag. There are several tips available on bihog.com which will assist you to crack the interviews. It is better to ask your doubts in various technical discussion forums (no matter how basic they are) and gain clarity on fundamental as well as advanced concepts.

6. Interview (HR)
   Clearing aptitude and technical rounds don’t ensure that you've selected. In fact, many overconfident candidates get rejected during HR interview rounds, something that shouldn’t happen to you. So take the HR interviews seriously!

However, that doesn’t mean you ought to have a grim and serious expression on your face. All you’re expected in an HR interview round is to be yourself, have a smiling face, don’t be overconfident and be enthusiastic about your subject and area of interest. Don’t go overboard while responding to the interviewers! If you've got any questions or doubts about cracking the campus recruitments, post them below.

7. Build Your Skills Showcase Portfolio
   There are thousands of engineering graduates competing for the job that you are aiming for and your chances of getting selected reduce with the increase in competition. How does one stand out from the competition? Well, the solution is straightforward– have something that others don’t.
   For example, if you're pitching for an IT job, why not work on a couple of pet software development projects on your own and list them on your resume. For instance, you can develop a simple project or projects—sort of a backup manager, an Android or iOS app or a Perl script that does something cool and then add it to your resume.
   When you appear for an interview, don't forget to bring the interviewer’s attention to your projects. I’m sure they’ll be more impressed to find out that you’ve gone beyond academics and done something on your own.
   If you're from the non-IT background, add something to your resume that shows you can do something more than what is required of your profile. It might be a search or observation about something that you’ve studied, some practical study or research or a mechanical design, a computer model, a robot, a drone—anything that proves your merit.

About the Author:

Srinivas Goud is a student at CMR Technical Campus pursuing BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering.