This is a great guide to solve all your problems regarding GRE/MS. It's written by a VESIT/SFE Alumni Kunal Atitkar.
Download pdf here
Hope you've found it useful.
Deep Patel
dmpatel.1988@gmail.com
It looks like placements is the buzzword in VESIT once again. It’s bound to be chaotic, confusing and at the end ... cathartic. And as a responsible senior who has nothing better to do on a boring weekend afternoon, it is my duty to help you find some organisation amidst this disorganisation. But before I say the P word once again I’d like to clarify one thing – I’m no expert in this erm... field. There are probably people who are better suited to give away this gyaan. But as I said, it’s a weekend and there’s no good movie, so the onus falls on me to do what I’m doing. What I want to say is that you should reach out to as many people as possible with your queries esp. the generic ones. A single person might have a prejudice that could lead you to take a disastrous career decision.
So now that the disclaimer is done and dusted, let’s move on:
1) Why so soon?
Well, up until last year this WAS the period during which people got placed. Then came recession and along with it a premise for NASSCOM to pass the directive to defer campus placements to JAN 2010. Whatever be the reason, the sooner you accept it, the better.
2) Do I qualify? If not I’d rather use my time efficiently by catching up on some World Cup action!
The general criteria for companies vary and have to be agreed upon by BOTH sides of the bargain i.e. the recruiter and TPO cell. So it is generally observed that after the initial rounds of stringent cut-off for eligibility, the TPO relaxes norms to accommodate more unplaced students. However there are exceptions. For example, companies like Deloitte and Directi came with a ‘NO CRITERIA’ policy. So no matter what your aggregate is, you might want to pay Mr. RS Agarwal a visit.
3) Is this the only way I can get placed?
Definitely not! There are also other options like walk-in interviews or off-campus tests. Alternatively, you can appear for standard aptitude tests like NACTECH and apply to wide range of companies like Patni, HCL on the basis of the scores. However all this options require you to venture into the murky waters of researching and searching where you compete with a pool of probably thousands of freshers and experienced candidates. Also expectations are high in an off campus interview. So don’t let this opportunity go by without your best try. Luckily, VESIT has the repute that gets you the best of companies to come look for you rather than the other way round.
4) What is the process and what the hell is a stress interview?
The process again is pretty standardised for all companies with each company adding a minor tweak or two. In general, the process is like this:
Aptitude test (Quant, Verbal, Data Interpretation, Reasoning and C/C++ in some cases)
Technical Interview (Optional)
GD (Optional)
Presentation (Optional)
HR Interview (notoriously known as the stress interview, though in most cases its only a myth)
Apart from this there is the pre placement presentation which is very important to help you make the decision whether that particular company is worthy of having you or not.
5)Woah! Long list!! How do you prepare for it?
Well, the entire process is so designed to assess you on your capabilities in a wide range of skillsets. Understandably, resume building is a process that happens over a period of time. So something this versatile is difficult to be mastered in a span of a few days. Although planned preparation can do wonders to how efficiently and systematically you approach the tests and interviews.
Aptitude tests:
I personally think that for aptitude tests you should follow a two-fold approach .
• Get your basics right in your weakest areas
• Sharpen your skills in your strongest areas
Here I list some of the sources which may help you prepare for either scenarios :
Quant:
Basic: RS Agarwal, TCS Aptitude Papers, Test funda concept books, IMS BRM
Advanced: Arun Sharma(Only shortcuts, don’t solve examples), Test funda work books, IMS workbooks
Verbal:
Basic: TCS wordlist, IMS Verbal Reasoning BRM(Highly recommended)
Advanced: IMS workbook, TIME Verbal module on correct usages
DI/LR
Basic: IMS BRM for DI/ Reasoning , GRE Data Interpretation questions, TCS Apti papers
Advanced: IMS BRM / workbook
Technical
Certain subjects are very important for the interview like Data Structures, DBMS, OS and System Programming apart from the programming languages of course. Revise important programs like linked lists, fibo, etc. Also concepts such as processes and threads in OS , keys in DBMS, etc.
For other subjects you can just brush up whatever you had studied from reference books or class notes. Don’t try to go into a lot of detail. If you didn’t like the subject in the first place, chances a dim that you’d like it now.
Interview:
Loads of material exists on how to prepare for an interview. Just keep it simple , be polite , diplomatic yet honest and you should see yourself through. Just remember they want you as much as you want them.
6)All right! That’s it? Isn’t there something called the resume?
Yeah, the resume! Again, there is lots of stuff on the resume on the internet. I would like to add a few more pointers to it though.
a) Keep it short, very short and precise. Definitely not more than 2 pages
b) They hardly glance twice at your resume. So highlight the things you want them to see and discuss in the interview.
c) Know what you’ve put because only that gets discussed in the interview.
d) If your achievements don’t amount to much space , so be it! Don’t add irrelevant matter just for the sake of it
e) Prepare a rough draft with all that comes to your mind, then ask yourself ‘Which of these can I talk about the best’. Keep those things only!
f) Prepare separate resumes for separate companies. Gauge the need of the company and what you want to portray yourself as to them.
All this gyaan is no ultimate gospel of course. Please consult as many knowledgeable seniors as you can. Make a decision for yourself. Don’t get intimidated by opinions or reputations. Think straight, think right. Wish you all a great placement season
Deep Patel
dmpatel.1988@gmail.com
Hi guys, there is this post a senior wrote a few years ago on an orkut community about life of society council members in VESIT. It was way back when VESIT had 7 societies but the essence still holds. It was retrieved from a blog by some Vaibhav Kamat. It goes like this :
10:30 AM on the VESIT 4th flour
At 10:30 the bell rings, its break time .But no break for SCR(society council members)
Students looking so pathetic in the lecture , suddenly are the men of action.
Some run, some jog and slowly the random mob seems to forming n-sized groups . while few
still like to run dodging the fellows . In the pretty confined space of the corridor SCRs manage space , after all managing is their job. Discussions are in the air and the sound waves superimpose and distort.
Many time their are announcements and the SCRs force their way in a class , sometimes the students/SCR ratio is embarrassing , but adjustments are made persuading the outsiders.The groups move from one class to another and the PROs repeat the same stuff.Yeah SCRs are excellent time managers too!
At the peak time, people density is at its best. Many SCRs excellent dodging
skills rescue them. As they say "when going gets tough tough gets going".
Finally the ending bell rings , SCRs realize theres end to everything. groups slowly disperse and the men of action are again the dull guys in the classroom along with others...
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Very well put, Vaibhav. Its strange how being in the thick of things kind of rouses certain people's energies and channelizes them... Perhaps it's the sense of 'doing something' in this monotonous engineering life or maybe as Dale Carneige wrote, people just want to 'feel' important. Whatever it might be, this is the thing that makes VESIT what it is for me and I'm sure many share the thought. And no amount of cribbing on my part about non-funtional printers, slow-internet connections, lousy staff ,pain-in-the-ass faculty can take away the fact that many remain and many will be indebted to VESIT for giving them this pleasure to discover heroes within themselves.