PLACEMENT EXPERIENCE 3: The dreams ( Adobe and Amdocs)

Let’s continue from where we left in the previous post. Just a week after day zero, I was to appear in the CMAT examination but I couldn’t because of some health issues and which effectively halted my MBA preparation. Although I did appear in other 3 exams, I appeared in all MBA entrance on my instinct, got very miserable score in CAT which might be because of my own inability or as some people say because of CAT 2013 discrepancy and the normalization problem, failed to clear IIFT entrance by 1 mark, but finally ended on a good note by scoring 96.56 percentile in XAT. I didn’t apply for any colleges though because by then I was pretty tired of all these and had no motivation left for any kind of new preparation specially travelling throughout the country for interviews, also I find something missing or lacking, don’t know what it was still it didn’t seem like a perfect time.

I had a really nice time in January and February, January was Accenture training so it was a bit hectic still it was enjoyable and February I focused on things I always wanted to do. I did freelancing projects, read many novels, wrote many poems, and most of all what I always wanted to do , I did nothing, just rested, watched FRIENDS again and let the thoughts ran freely in my mind but took no action. Taking rest once a while is really good, really recharges you.

So now let us come back to our topic. The dream companies, dream company is one where you are allowed to sit despite having other placement offers. Generally, if you are placed in any company then you won’t be allowed to sit in any other company as it would be unfair for both the company and for those students who are yet to be placed but still dream companies give a comparatively higher package and take significantly lesser number of people based on very rigorous process, hence everyone prepares for dream companies properly.

I had the privilege to appear in 2 companies, adobe and Amdocs. I cleared the latter one, but failed in the former one. Let’s start with Adobe, though you might only be using only the free products of Adobe like flash player, shockwave, reader etc but yes Adobe had a significantly large number of licensed products and as such is a very nice company to start your career with, it gives significantly high package and other perks and also life and work culture at adobe is different from mass recruiters. Adobe generally used to come around September in my college, but after lots of confusion whether it will be coming or not it finally came in the last week of March.

ADOBE:

Adobe gave us lots of shock. The written test kept on preopening and in fact there were few people who failed to come back in the town and weren’t able to sit in test. It happened much early then the original date and most of us weren’t done with their preparation by then so it’s always better to take some uncertainty factor into account for tests date, things may get pre-pone or postpone. The test contained 4 sections, 2 were of analytical ability and quantitative ability, third one was technical, these 3 were objective the final section was subjective with 4 c/c++ question where you are suppose to do coding.

The questions weren’t tough, aptitude question were more of paragraph type question rather than being single question type. Technical questions were usual, finding the error or determining the output or whether the program will execute or give compilation error. The 4 theoretical questions were also very basic like generating a random number between a specific range, program for matrix multiplication, conversion of binary into decimal etc. Due to some reason Adobe didn’t change the question for the next batch and all the questions were same. People say only 2 people were selected from 1^st batch and 18^th from the second, I was in the first batch.

Anyway, so my journey ended in the first round but I was there throughout the interview processes of other candidates just to support some friends and as I have already said that even if you don’t get selected you should be there in the other rounds just to get the experience. Anyway, the interviews are much more rigorous and far tougher than any other company. Interview last for more than 1 hour, there are three or four rounds. Some people were rejected after 2 rounds (1 tech and 1 HR) and rest few had an extra or 2 extra technical rounds. Adobe asks different type of questions like how much total memory MS word consumes while running, difference between 32 bit and 64 bit system, difference between FAT and NTFS, logical puzzles, pattern generation program, questions related to JVM etc various programs of which you have to give an efficient answer so better brush up your C/C++ skills and coding skills if you are appearing for adobe interview.  Adobe selected only 3 candidates from our college and at the same day GATE results were announced too which further enhanced the gloomy atmosphere, I tried to cheer my friends up by this poem.

http://kaahiankaahi.blogspot.in/2014/08/blog-post.html

AMDOCS:

Anyway, in less than a week we were supposed to sit for AMDOCS written test. Not much people has the strength and well power left to prepare for it, many didn’t appear and those who did just come without any preparation like me. Amdocs written has 5 sections, quant + some passage round + technical language + programming round + SQL and Unix. Written is followed by 2 interviews, technical and HR and all the 3 rounds are elimination rounds.

First round was easy, I attempted initial 3 sections nicely but the 2 programs that I had to solve were very tough, I had no idea and I wasn’t able to write anything productive at all. Both, SQL and UNIX were never my favorite subject, I had zilch knowledge of Unix and very basic knowledge of SQL, so I attempted this round mostly by common sense and elimination method. As I knew both my programs were wrong so I wasn’t expecting to clear written but I did, guess there weren’t sectional cut off here so it’s always a nice feeling to clear a test when you are not at all expecting to clear it. Even if you are not knowing anything about question still instead of random guesses, look for some hits and apply a little common sense, you would definitely be able to solve few questions.

The interview were postponed again and happened almost 2 weeks after written test between our final exams just a day after control system paper. Barring some few very studious highly sincere no life people every CS guy has screwed the paper so again tired by the exam studies we don’t have much stamina to prepare for interview. As Unix and SQL plays an important part in Amdocs and I wasn’t having much time to prepare them I downloaded lots of videos and PPT, watch them throughout the night and made a word document to revise all the commands and theoretical concepts so that I can revise it on the interview day. Transiting to PPTs and videos is always a good option if you don’t have enough time for preparation and it’s actually a nice way to learn.

The technical interview started with programming only. I was asked to make 3 programs, to find length of a string, to reverse a string and to check whether a string is palindrome or not. Rest followed by simple SQL questions like JOINs and all and lastly a few basic UNIX commands. The HR round mostly focused on whether you would be flexible enough to work on a 24*7 schedule ( Yes I am facing that now :P ) and she was quite impressed by my role in the college level startup I was part of, so yes having a diversified profile indeed helps, rest it was just normal question. Others follow the same league, simple programs + basic HR questions. A few people who were the high scorer in the written test, their interviews were taken by a director, rest of us have our interviews by managers. My interview ended around 1 PM, we waited around 11 PM before the results were announced. I got in along with 26 other candidates, my joining was on 26^th May, and since then I am having my new life at Amdocs. Quite different work culture here with lots of free and subsidized food which is very nice. Free snacks, sandwiches and fruits twice a day. Flexible working hours, no formals, access to all the social networking sites. So new life, new adventures, new experiments, new challenges, it’s a new world it’s a new start.

That was it from the placement side; I hope you enjoyed all the posts. All the best to everyone who is appearing for recruitment processes. Always remember, no recruitment process can tell your potential or judge you correctly so never be down because of few failures, it’s a big world , just look for the perfect place you will fit in, keep trying and you will definitely make it to somewhere really nice in your life.