I sat for campus placements at IIT Kanpur in December 2020 and got placed on Day 1. Sitting for campus placements at IITs is one hell of a journey that is a combination of your hard work, luck, and faith in yourself.
I had prepared specifically for non-core roles. I believe that by targeting and setting daily goals, one can surely secure a deserving job on-campus placements. I would like to go step by step on the preparation.
- Talk to your seniors: This should be the first step before starting your preparation. You should be aware of what the company looks for and what to prepare. They can also guide you with their experiences and sources.
- Devise a plan: Usually, non-core roles require you to have a decent resume, strong aptitude skills, basic technical skills, and good communication skills. The roles for which I sat required basic statistical knowledge and coding skills.
You need to make a plan for what to study and from where to study. - Prepare resume: It is one of the most important steps in campus placements. Sometimes, a person who has cleared all the tests is not able to clear the interviews just because of a mediocre resume.
A resume is all about selling yourself. Get it reviewed by someone whom you trust will be giving honest reviews. - Prepare for Aptitude and Reasoning: I had prepared my aptitude and reasoning from the following sources:
1. Pariksha (Beginner Level)
2. Prepleaf (Medium to Hard Questions)
3. Arun Sharma for Quantitative Aptitude
And if you give regular tests on Pariksha and Prepleaf and practice from Arun Sharma book, trust me you are good to go.
I had cleared the aptitude of almost all the companies for which I had applied for 🙂 - Prepare for puzzles and guesstimates: Some companies like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Blackrock, etc. ask puzzles on probability. Some common sources are Brainstellar, Geeks for Geeks, Interview Bit, etc. I had prepared from the first two sources.
Guesstimates are usually asked in interviews. Indus Insights asks a guesstimate in their test. IITB Casebook is good for that. - Learn Probability and Statistics: This is extremely important for non-core and quant roles. If you have not done any such course in your curriculum, make sure you do an online course on probability and statistics. Analytics companies do look for Statistical skills.
- For Interviews: I had done some courses on Financial Economics, basics of finance, etc. to have an edge during interviews in finance roles. Although the finance companies visiting the campus do not expect you to have a finance background, I prepared because I had time. For case interviews, I had gone through casebooks of IITB, IIMA, Victor Cheng, etc.
- Prepare HR Interview Questions: This is also one of the most underrated areas where a majority of the students lack. I had prepared a document and written answers to all sorts of HR questions and resume based questions 15 days before my interview. It helped a lot in building confidence in yourself. Get it reviewed as well. You should sound prepared in front of the interviewer. Make sure you read all those answers aloud in front of the mirror a day before.
- Learn a bit coding: No offense, but the requirement of software engineers is at its peak. There are plenty of software firms that visit IITs every year. You should learn basic coding and algorithms. I had practiced coding from Interview Bit. It helped me to clear the test of Goldman Sachs, Trexquant, Walmart, etc.
- Have faith and confidence: Always remember to believe in yourself and have confidence. Give your best. Always remember that the campus placements are just a phase, whether good or bad, this is definitely not the end.
P.S. For core roles, I think having sound knowledge of your subject can keep you going.