Placements 101

BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus
Disclaimer

● Many resources mentioned in the slide are collected from sources including but
not limited to Dezire (DC), Career Queries FB Group, PU Shared resources,
BITSAA shared resources and a few more. I do not claim ownership of the
same.
● The tips, advices, and process mentioned ahead is what I went through or what
I followed. YMMV. Do not consider this as an ultimate source of truth, I am not
responsible/liable for any kind of mishaps, problems, you might face after
following this.
● Since I sat for IT placements, so slides would be biased towards the same.

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Agenda

Overview of the Interview related

process tips

Resume Related Miscellaneous

Tips

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Process Overview

1. Superset Profile completion

2. Company Listed on Superset / Mail from PU regarding the same.
3. Tailor your resume, and apply for the job with the resume
4. Resume Selection Round [CG = Filter criteria, mostly]
5. Coding Round [DSA (2-3 questions), CS Subjects (sometimes, mostly in Day 1, and some in day 2,
post day 2 basic aptitude is asked as well)]
6. GD [Maybe, Rare (Only Microsoft and Samsung afaik)] - MS calls it Group-Fly round. Gives a
problem to be solved individually, although one mentor (MS person) allotted to a group of candidates.
You need to explain them what you are doing.
7. Technical Interview [DSA, Subjects]
8. Technical Interview
9. ....
10. HR Interview

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Resume

● Must watch tips from BITSAA in this resume session, and this BITS Goa Resume wiki
● Describe your projects in STAR format
Example:
● Winforms is a mature UI platform in Microsoft .NET (Situation).
● I mainly focused on maintenance and on implementing a few new features (Task).
● For the new features, I implemented new UI styles on Winforms controls in C# in order to make them look
consistent between Windows XP and Windows 7. I tried to debug most of the reproducible issues we had with
Visual Studio and employed WinDbg to analyze dump files (Action).
● I fixed more than 200 bugs in those two years (Result).
● Be clear and quantify all your projects and achievements. Do not use vague words like - A lot, many, very few, very
less.
● Can I write academic projects? Yes
● Can I list MOOCs? Yes
● Get someone to proofread your resume, and repeat

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Professional Experience

QUANTIFY - Write business impact in

numbers - dollar values, #users,
improved efficiency in hours,
Write about Professional Work %improvements, rankings, ratings etc
Experiences like internships or any Write timeline
start-up(s) you co-founded. against each
Most recent first One liner position
about the
company

List all Position(s)

held to show
growth. Most
recent first

One bullet for one project

Use PAR method - Problem, Action and
Result
Google “verbs for <domain>” Keep it short and to the point Do NOT be vague. Use
Examples - Integrated, Consolidated, simple words and avoid
Organized, Delivered, Engineered etc. jargons
Coding Round

● If less time is left, and you have no idea about optimal solution, code the BRUTEFORCE solution.
● Target to complete at least 1/2 or 2/3 questions with all test cases passed
● Learn use of STL (C++), Collections (Java) effectively. This would help you a lot.
● Although comments are not very important for coding round, but in case you have time left, try to explain
your logic in comments.
● Most important topics: Arrays, Strings, 2 pointers, recursion, Graph and DP

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Interviews
● What? DSA, CS subjects [OOP, DBMS, OS, CN: in decreasing order of priority], CN is asked very
less, and if you are a non-CS student, don't waste time preparing it, devote that time to DSA
● How to prepare?
○ Leetcode.
○ Before test: GFG previous year company-wise
○ PU Chronicles: previous year questions in our college
○ If very less time remaining, go to Interview Bit, and try to finish it. (Covers topic-wise different
types of questions generally asked in the interviews)
■ Helpful for Day 2+ companies
○ Subjects
■ OOP: Slides from BITS course (mostly pre-midsem is fine): OOP principles, Language
related constructs [mostly asked in Day 1 companies] like Vtables, vptrs, friend classes (C++)
■ CN: The-Bits-and-Bytes-of-Computer-Networking Github Repo
● Finish 1-9, more than enough
■ OS: Read about system calls, concurrent processes, semaphores, deadlock, producer
consumer problem, what is thrashing, Scheduling algorithms, reader-writer.
■ DBMS : You might be asked to write simple SQL queries or basic concepts of the subject,
scenario related questions. Don’t go too deep into the subject.
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Interviews

● HR Interviews: Go through this BITSAA AMP Cheat sheet

● Prepare a 2-3 minute on: Tell me about yourself
○ Who are you, what are you doing currently, about your recent internship(s)/startup(s), what do you
do in free time.
● Whenever stuck, do ask for help/hints. Interviewer (almost) always wants you to succeed.
● Always clarify that you understood question correctly. Think logic aloud, tell the interviewer what are
you thinking, what are you planning to do for the question.
● Write clean code with comments, object-oriented, modular code. [IF POSSIBLE], else logic and
working code is must.
● At the end of the interview, NEVER say no to: Do you have any questions for me?
○ Ask what their day to day looks like in the company?
○ One thing they like about company, or one thing they don't.
● Do not ask about compensation, benefits, work-life balance in HR round, that (might) signal an
unwillingness to work

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Non-Circuit Branches

● For non-circuit branches, many are confused on whether I am eligible for the companies?
● What is the CG cutoff
● What all to prepare, how to prioritize etc.

This guide/FAQs (with a DISCLAIMER) might help you for the same. [Source: DC.]

● How many companies will be open for non circuit branches (not the exact stats)?
○ In Day 1- 4 to 5 (Good Companies) --- percentage wise ( 20 to 25)
○ In Day 2- 6 to 7 (Decent Companies) ---- percentage wise(15 to 20)
○ In Day 3 – almost 65 to 75 percent companies
● What is the cg cutoff?
○ Recommended – cg>=7
○ Good – cg>=6.5
○ Okay – cg>=6
○ Bad – cg<6
○ Most common cutoff – 6
○ If u have cg more than 6.5 then almost all the IT companies cutoff are cleared.

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Off-campus

● Resume: Make one in Latex, avoid Superset resume.

○ Use this template maybe.
● Apply to as many companies as possible, with resume tailored according to the role, and start
applying early. Where to apply?
○ Companies Job portals, look frequently
○ Linkedin: set job alerts for specific keywords and locations
○ Greenhouse: Search google for `university graduate site:boards.greenhouse.io`
○ Lever: Search google for `university graduate site:jobs.lever.co`
○ Do not apply to the companies which are already coming/would come to BITS for placements, as
there is a cool-down period in most of the companies meaning if you have already applied and
were rejected, you need to wait at least X months/year before re-applying
● Do try to get referrals from someone in the company (preferably alumni) before applying, helps in
resume getting selected.
● I am hiring database: List of Managers, HRs with I am hiring Linkedin posts. Worth reaching them out
if you are interested.

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Thank
You

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus