I am Santanu Ghosh, a final year student from Govt. College Of Engineering & Ceramic Technology, Kolkata. I am currently pursuing B.Tech in Information Technology. I am very much glad that Im placed at one of the fastest growing company, its Cognizant. Now I am going to share my Cognizant experience with you. Cognizant visited GCELT campus on 26th Sep, 2011 for recruitment from both GCECT & GCELT, Kolkata.
At first the Cognizant people came to the college at 9:30 a.m., gave the pre placement talk. It was very good and there was an inspirable video clip which influenced me very much. After that selection procedure was started.
There were two stages:
1. Aptitude test
2. HR and Technical Interview
Before actually start written test, they provided the OMR sheet to fill the following information:
1. Name, Date of Birth, Cognizant Application ID (which will be provided by College after registration)
2. Gender, 10th class percentage, 12th class percentage, UG percentage, Year of passing, if there any Backlog/Backlogs (current and previous)
3. Details of 10th, 12th standard school and UG college, like Degree Name, Branch, Year of passing, Name of the Institution
4. Permanent Address, Mobile and Telephone No, E-mail1, E-mail2, Nationality, Current Address
5. One question will be asked on Soft skills which needs a detailed answer in your own words.
Now I want to tell something about Aptitude Test.
It had two parts, Verbal and Analytical.
1. Verbal part:
Two long passages were given but needed to read thoroughly because the questions were simple and direct. After that there were finding the correct and incorrect sentences, arranging a group of sentences in an order so that they have a meaning. There were total 25 questions and time was 25 minutes. Overall it was quite tough paper. Time was very short for answer completely to the whole paper.
2. Analytical part:
It contained finding the odd figure, finding the next figure in the sequence, syllogisms, data interpretation, data sufficiency, coding-decoding, finding logically correct statements, and puzzles. It was compared to easy than other section. The book of R.S.Agarwal is enough for covering most of the tropics. There were 30 questions and time was 30 minutes. In this section also time is too short for answer properly all the questions.
There was sectional cut-off for each part. Dont worry about it, keep your cool and do as much as possible. No negative marks were allowed for wrong answers.
After a long wait around 2 p.m. our Aptitude result was declared and my name was in that list. Total 111 students cleared the Test, 47 from our college and 64 from GCELT. Any way there were 15 panels and I was selected for 9th panel and I was the first person in that panel. My interview time was 2:30 p.m. I was little-bit tensed as that was the first interview in my life. Hopefully my HR was a nice person and quite friendly. Before entering into the room, I took the permission of the HR and the whole interview process like that:
HR: Are you Santanu Ghosh?
Me: Yes sir.
HR: ok, please have a seat. (In the mean time he was going through my aptitude marks, the aforesaid forms)
Me: Thank u sir.
HR: Give your CV.
Me: Yes sir, please take it.
HR: Tell me about yourself.
ME: I started and after a sometime he stopped me.
HR: why are you tensed?
ME: Sir, as it is my first interview in my life and I am the first person in that panel, thats why I am little-bit tensed.
HR: ok, be cool. carry on.
ME: Thank u sir, continuing.
HR: What was your Joint-Entrance rank?
ME: Told
HR: what is your position in the class according to semester marks?
ME: Told.
HR: Where do you live? How many times does it take to come to your college?
ME: Bla..Bla
HR: What are your interests and hobbies? (He looked my CV attentively and praised for my good academic marks)
ME: Told
HR: what computer related subjects did you read up to this semester?
ME: I told all the computer related subjects from First year to third year, like C, Data Structure,, DBMS, Networking, etc.
HR: What is your favourite computer language?
ME: I answered C.
HR: Why c?
ME: Told some points regarding Cas it is the fundamental of other languages.
HR: How many C programs have you done into your machine?
ME: Answered. (I thought for a while as I was not ready for such type of question, and took time for assuming proper figure.)
HR: (with a smile) ok, very well. Do you know pointer?
ME: Yes sir.
HR: What is pointer in C? Explain with an example.
ME:I defined it clearly and explain with a short C program also its pictorial representation.
HR: (he satisfied with my answer) What do you mean by call by value and call by reference?
ME: Told
HR: Explain it with help of C programs.
ME: (He gave me blank page for writing)I wrote these two programs promptlyas it was quite easy for me.
HR: Does C support call by reference?
ME: Told.
HR: Are you sure?
ME: Yes Sir
HR: (with a smile) How much? ...........100% or 200%?
ME: (At this time I think for a whileIf I say its 200% then it may be indicated overconfidence) I told 100%. (Then he wrote a complex C program through a whole A4 page and explained it and asked the next question)
HR: ok tell me what are the outputs of that program?
Me: There were two outputs of that program I told the 1st one correctly.but unfortunately I did mistake for the second.It was pretty tough for me and code was very complex using multiple pointers.
HR: (He was not satisfied with my answer then he told me the right answer and moved up to next question) Do u know Data Structure?
ME: Told
HR: What is the definition of Data Structure?
ME: I gave the definition from my knowledge.not actually as proper definition..
HR: What are the practical applications of Data Structure?
ME: Told some points(Here I emphasized the application of tree also)
HR: What do you mean by tree?
ME: Told
HR: What is its importance?
ME: bla bla
HR: What is the definition of Operating System?
ME: I told the exact definition (Here I use the words user interface)
HR: why mouse/key-board are not OS though they have user interface?
ME: I explained the reason vividly. (He looks satisfied with my answer)
HR: What do you mean by Data Base Management System?
ME: Told
HR: What are the practical applications of Data Base Management System?
ME: Told
HR: so what is the difference between DS and DBMS?
ME: Bla bla(When I answered he looked at my face)
HR: Are you tensed?
ME: no sir..(Each and every time he observed my face and checked my confidence label and I also always maintained eye contact with him )
HR: what is the uniqueness with you thats why I select you?
ME: I told two points of my uniqueness (but he looks not satisfied with my answer and after that he asked some cross questions depend on my answer like Why do you think this is unique? Etcetc.)
HR: Why I select you?
ME: I told some points (my innovative skills, flexibility, adaptability ..etc.) regarding this question
HR: Why Cognizant?
ME: Bla BlaHere I told that Cognizant is my dream company from starting of my B.Tech course.and Cognizant is the best platform for freshers for expressing their innovative power.and another points and information about Cognizant. Actually I was ready for answer this question and also prepared it carefully (He was very much satisfied with my answer).
HR: Why Cognizant is your dream company?
ME: Told
HR: ok thats all Have you any question?
ME: I asked about the initial training program of Cognizant and the role of freshers at Cognizant.
HR: Gave the answers very carefully.
ME: Thank you sir.
HR: Thank you.
ME: Then I shook hand with him. And told nice to meet you, sir.May I leave now
HR: Ok, You may go now.
ME: Thank you sir very much (And I left).
It was around 30 minutes.
The result was declared at 8:30 p.m. on that day by Cognizant HR Manager. Total 69 students had been selected, 30 from our college and 39 from GCELT. When my name was called out, I could not control myself, its a joy of heaven. Actually I was more than happy. Thank God, and to my parents, my respected teachers, my friends and seniors, without their inspiration I could not achieve such type of great success.
My advice is keep yourself cool, calm and not to get over smart at the time of interview and be confident about your every answer. Never tell a lie about yourself.Always say Cognizant not CTS for a single time. It will be better if you try not to get tensed the whole day.
