Infosys/WIPRO/TCS/SATYAM/Cognizant Interview Experience

[mayurpathak]

New interview, new post

I had an interview with the General Manager of the Harbinger Group today morning. Unfortunately, after so many successful stints, I failed to clear the hurdle. Here is how I fared.

Q1: Mayur, tell me more about your personal and professional self.
Ans: I hate this question. But the interview was at 9:30am, too early for me and I was in no mood to bite back. I tool full advantage of the opportunity and started the story right from my childhood. I went on and on... before realizing there was no movement on the other end. "Hello?" I said. "Ya ya, go on." Thank god he didn't hang up. But I'm wise to know that he was bored to death, which left me a very small window to explain my current profile.

Q2: What do you know about IT product sales?
Ans: Bingo! He hit me in the eye. All these years I have been involved in purely IT services. I tried to bluff before finally giving up and saying I had little experience in product selling.

Q3: Why do you want to leave your current job?
Ans: Don't you know that idiot? Money of course. Ah! But yes, I had to bluff again. I told him about how difficult it is in Mumbai and how much I love Pune. It didn't work!

Q4: Whats your current and expected CTC?
Ans: Hmmm... subjective question. I don't like to bluff when they ask me about money. I open my mouth as much as I can (joking!) and I did just that.

Q5: Alright Mayur, I'm interviewing other candidates as well. I will get back to you after we are done.
Ans: Darn! I lost it. He was a man of few words. If only I could have been more specific and told him what he wanted.

Well, I have shared my experience no. 2. Waiting for fellow CEans too comment. Also, if you wish to know some gyan on how to handle telephonic interviews, do read here.

[The_Big_K]

Ans: Don't you know that idiot? Money of course.

How much money do you want, Mayur?

[mayurpathak]

Originally Posted by The_Big_K

How much money do you want, Mayur?

Darn! Forget about that Biggie... I'm not having a good day today. I don't have a good answer.

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by mayurpathak

Darn! Forget about that Biggie... I'm not having a good day today. I don't have a good answer.

[Off topic] I hope you still remember what you told me about your limited expectations about money. A nice office, a cabin, a car, a house & a nice wife - that's all you wanted. You already have everything, don't you? [/off topic]

Nice Interview.

I feel sorry for the Harbinger Group dude

[anuragh27crony]

Hi fellow CE' ans here's my interview with AMDOCS company...... (as part of campus placement)

(After a 3hr written test....Idiots i have been waiting for 2 hours with empty stomach desperately....take my interview .... so atlast my chance came)

Anurag: Sir....May i Come In.?
Interviewer :Yes please ...... be seated

Interviewer :Can i have a look at your file......
Aurag: Yes ...please

Interviewer: So how was your written exam....?
(Question paper was lil bit tough and iam confident that i gonna top in it )
(Idiot then what's point in asking such stupid question )
Anurag: Hmm good,but the SQL paper was lilltle bit tough...if had prepared well...i would have done little bit good

Interviewer: Tell me about yourself...
(Yeah this was the chance i was waiting for .....grabbed it and told my autobiography.....)
Anurag: my schooling details,10+2 details,graduation details,my hobbies and achievements.....

Interviewer: What are you planning to do in Future ?
(I know i'm gonna for MS sure......but asually bluffed him )
Anurag: To become Project manager.....where i can lead and help my team to achieve success...

Interviewer: Tell me about your family....
Anurag:My father &mother profession details and my bros and sis professional details

Interviewer: so do you know who is Iron Man of India...
(Shocked a bit ...i knew it was HR interview.....what a shitty question is this.... no relevance at all)
Anurag:Sardar Vallabhai Patel

Interviewer: Why do you want to join Amdocs??
(A Historical question continuing from my Grand Pa's generation .....prepared already...ofcourse for money & benifits idiot)
Anurag: Told some Pro's of company over others.....

Interviewer: What are your weakness??
(Ah...got me....nice trapping question... but no prob's already prepared...so confidently spoke)
Anurag: I'm work-a-holic....

Interviewer: What Alcoholic......?? (Should be presented award for Crappy joke of the Year )
Anurag: I mean ...once iam involved in the work...i don't care about outside world....

Interviewer: so how is it a weakness??
(Hmm Nice question....so thought for a moment.... Dimag ki Batti Jalgayii )
Anurag: It prevents me to maintain good relationship with my teammates and affects ...overall preformance of team....

Interviewer: good.....
Anurag: (Yahooooo....i scored 10/10.... my job is confirmed....)

Interviewer: thanks for spending your time....
Anurag: My pleasure sir.....

so later after 1 day of waiting ... i was selected ..and cam out of my college with flying colours.....

fellow CE'ans ...comment on my interview...... thanks

[ankur8819]

Well tomorrow i am having an interview for a company and i have got so much to say over there !!
Thanks to Mayur sir and "The Big K" !!

[himabindu]

Hi. Presently iam working in a small company on D2k in Payroll Module.
I have an experience of around 1 year.
Now i want to attend for the interview.
If any one have exp in this path please guide me.

[mahul]

I had one weird experience as well.

This one was a campus interview for IBM. So I comfortably cleared three rounds before I entered the room for the personal interview. As usual the interviewer asked me the standard question I was waiting for, "Tell me something about yourself".

So I said lots of things none of which I had in my CV( I'm not going into the details). I ended it with," I love risks and shortcuts " and the fun began.

All the panel members raised their eyebrows at this. Next they tried to corner me and finally asked me to relate one incident where my risk had paid off. I had already begun to half expect this and so I dug into my brains and came up with one. I told them that I had rejected lots of placement offers like Wipro, ITC, Tech Mahindra, M.N.Datur etc. And I ended saying," That was a huge risk because no other companies were announced back then. But look at it sir, today I would be hired by IBM and there's Samsung and Microsoft comming over as well".

One interviewer asked me why I did not appear for Wipro. I said lots of bad things about Wipro( I really did not care ). After 15 mins of Wipro bashing, the interviewer revealed that he was an ex-Wiproiite. He seemed quite angry and cross questioned me over this furiously. I thought I had flunked.

But they did give me that job at the end of the day.

P.S. Do not attempt this. I got selected only because I had performed exceedingly well in the GD and aptitude test. Anyway, I would not have hired myself had I been in that panel.

[mahul]

OOps, somehow the same stuff got posted twice, My apologies guys!!

[mayurpathak]

One more funinterview.
PS: As biggie said once, I keep appearing for interviews because I feel its fun. It also keeps me updated and confirms my doubts regarding how industry is run by a lot of stupid people. Anyway, this one comes from my blog and I'm posting an excerpt here. You can click the above link and read "me and job offers" This one's with CFO of a company called Fulcrum Logic.

Quoting a recent experience with a CFO of a mid sized (by their definition) company. Right from the moment he said hello to me, he was down right rude from the word go. He had a problem with me switching jobs. He had a lady who called herself the HR head of company. And then poor fellow me was grilled and stressed, almost coerced to accept that by working in a company for only a year, I behaved in an unethical manner. Because I just gained whatever knowledge I wanted to and moved on. I some how knew all my explanations would fall flat on the table. So I said this, “Mr. <snip>, forget my ethics… you run an off shore software development shop. Are you not stealing jobs of innocent Americans? Is it ethical?” Bingo! The old man was taken aback. It was his turn to explain. He said most of the Americans drop out of college because its a culture there. Hence they don’t get literate resources blah blah! … And hence we are not doing any thing unethical. I said fine. Now as the interview progressed, we argued on some more things. Then came the time to throw my hot blow. I asked him why couldn’t we Indians build a Firefox or a Chrome. At his explaining best, he told me how we Indians are brought up in a culture which is service oriented. He went on and said that some American geeks conceive the products, write core architecture and send the non core activities to us. Why can’t we do it? because we are not brought up in an environment to think out of the box… they are.


Now for the knockout punch: I said Mr <snip> you just now said that there is a shortage of brainy resources in America. Now you are saying they develop the product and we provide services because we can’t conceive products. Are you not contradicting yourself? He was pissed off… and there went my offer letter.


PS: For the record, I have rejected more jobs than people who rejected me in interviews. I wish some day I find a perfect match.