Microsoft Campus Placement - 4th August 2012

I’ll not write about the technical rounds,  written or interview, as you can look them up at a zillion places.  

I’ll talk about few other things.

1. Marks are important.  This year most of the software companies didn’t keep cut-off for COE/IT/SE people, but if you are not from these branches, you must cross 70 to sit in a good software company, and 75 if you want job in your field (ECE).  For interns, irrespective of branch marks are very important. 
2. Start early. If you are in 3rd year, it is time for you to start preparing. Start doing logical puzzles, better form a group of friends, with whom you can discuss,  when you are not having classes.  
3.  At this time you can look to try and become good in competitive programming, like codechef, ICPC, various events at SPOJ. If you are having any difficulty join DCE-CODERS  on facebook and DCEGEEKS google groups. Post general difficulties on the former  and specific questions on the latter group and someone will help you.
4. As the year progresses start shifting your attention towards  trees, Link List, Arrays, questions on numerous websites ( geeksforgeeks.org ,  do this if you can do only one ), but  do this in the later part of the year only, you will not gain anything, if you at first, don’t try point no. 3 and become sufficiently good at it .
5.  Then there is stuff like OS, DBMS, networking which can be done in this order to a point where you are not sitting blank face in front of interviewer. If you are looking for adobe – OS should be completed inside out.
6. The 2 months june-july before your placements will  be very important. If you get a good internship, do it, and do it with all your heart. If you don’t, thank God that you got time to prepare, unlike others, and do that.

Now to most important things :

Once the placement season starts, every day give your best. It’s a long race, but aim to get out early.

 It may sound childish and school-grade but if you do not reach five minutes early than the reporting time for the company, although you know nothing is going to happen for at least an hour from the reporting time, in your heart you do not want that job, or you think you are not fit for the job. Don't ask for pencil, pen from your friends, it shows your level of preparedness.

Last thing, for every good candidate that is selected there is a better who is rejected.  If you are the one who got selected, thank your well-wishers, for that was the only difference you got selected and the other guy/girl got left behind. If you are the one who was better and got left, know this that you were "better", but also that, you were not “good enough” in absolute terms or wouldn’t have been left behind.  Also, not everyone is better than the one who got selected, so whatever be the case keep preparing ( even if you get placed on 1st day) and don’t waste too much time in cursing the whole system.

Good Luck.

Arpit Gupta

P.S.    I didn’t say anything about my experience. I’ll say a few things here. If you get a chance, sit and prepare for a company you are a passionate about.  I was (am)  very passionate about Microsoft, I didn’t visit their website the day before interview to look for answers to questions like “Why Microsoft ? “ like I would have to do for other companies like DE Shaw ( which someone else maybe passionate about). Have some insightful questions for the interviewer in mind, I thought about this for 2 months and had about 100 questions I wanted to ask Microsoft people, but I ended up asking and talking to them about various Microsoft products. In my 4 interviews I discussed 4 different products, praised them sometimes, at others pointed out faults, both were appreciated equally, although at one point, I was shown an updated version to be out next month with the feature included.   You will not have this opportunity for every company, and you don’t need to be passionate about some company beforehand, but whatever company you are sitting for, spend at least 1 hour researching about what they do, who are they looking for,  do you fit over there? If you get the  answers good, otherwise see them from some dumb sites but do not go blank about the company to an interview.

P.P.S .  I have a lot of people to thank for it. Akhil Sir, Nikhil sir, Saikat sir, Rohit Kumra sir, anurag(atri,gupta), anubhav, anant, akshit, aakash,abhishek, and all the people from programming SIG. Somebody told me every single person you meet, contributes in some way towards your success, so thank you every one.