FOR TCS OFF CAMPUS ATTENDEES

Hello friends,

I was so excited to write about Tata Consultancy Services and its interview process, because it is like my first love, the first company which I attended after my engineering life and got my first offer.

And this week, TCS is going to recruit people in the off campus interview arranged by Anna University, Chennai.

I faced only two rounds 1. Aptitude test, 2. HR interview.

The aptitude test will be a Computer Based Test (CBT). You have to fill your DT number and personal details and then login using the username, password given by the instructor in the room. Then you can start your test. As the test is a CBT, there are a lot of questions in the database that comes in random for you. So it is difficult to predict the questions or the pattern..

Anyhow like others you have to prepare aptitude questions that include numerical aptitude, reasoning and verbal.. R. S. Agarwal is sufficient. But don't forget to go through the old questions since I heard that many questions are repetitive as they have a common database full of questions.

Beware of TCS as they filter most of the students in the first round only. During my off campus, the no. of ppl attended may be 2500 to 3000 or more.. Out of them only 350-400 were selected for the second round and only 250-300 received offers. So be well prepared with the aptitude.

I dint prepare anything or take a look over old questions. But after getting my offer, I searched net to get questions for my friends attending in the following week and I found nearly 40% questions which I got in my interview. So better go through the old questions in the following link.

http://kprawin.blogspot.com/2010/08/sharp-your-aptitude.html

An important tip to clear the aptitude test is time management. The question contains a lot of unnecessary information. For (eg) I got a question, like this.

Ferrari SPA is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari SPA in 1947. Throughout its history, the company has been noted for its continued participation in racing, especially in Formula One, where it has had great success. A model of Ferari car was introduced in the year 1999, Mike brought the car in the year 2000. The Ferari car can get a max speed of 105km/hr. He loved his car so much and he used to go out for a long drive every evening. His brought his car in red color and painted his car black later. Like Ferrari, Porsche is also a leading racing car manufacturer. Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE, a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury high performance automobiles, owned by the Piëch-Porsche family. Porsche SE is headquartered in Zuffenhausen, a city district of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. And Ben brought a Porsche car which can go 125km/hr speed. He is fond of road racing and used to participate in race every Sunday. He is a car lover and ususlly changes his car every month. One fine day Mike and Ben decided to race. Mike started one hour before Ben. Ben started at 12PM. The race distance 788kms. Calculate the time at which Ben crosses Mike.

So how did you read this question? If you read it completely, how much time did you lose in reading the unnecessary data? Most of the questions contain a lot of unnecessary data. So initially read the last 2 or 3 lines and therby you can understand what is asked. Then search the numerical data in the paragraph and then solve it.

Go with 2 pens or pencils, they provide with rough papers. Moreover a few questions require calculators. But they won't allow you bring a calculator or use your mobile phone in the exam hall. But you can use the calculator application in your computer. So before starting your exam open the calculator. The exam screen will be of full screen and so use Alt + Tab to switch over the test application and the calculator.

Use of calculators, pen or pencil and paper, reading the full questions will eat up your time. So be aware of it. The questions will be easily and if you are fast you will be able to attend the maximum no. of questions.

The computer only evaluates your answers. They mention that there are no negative markings for wrong answers but I think (not sure) the evaluation will be based on the hit ratio (No. of correct answers to the total no. of questions attended). So try to attend the questions only you know. At the end try to answer the other questions though you don't know.

And there is a good way to practice before you write the test. You can take up a mock test from TCS directly. As TCS conducts an online based test, it also provide a mock test for the people who are eager to join TCS family. You have to register yourself and create your own profile here and book a test in your convenient timings and take the test. Note that you can take the test twice only. Before attending your off campus take up the test as you might get a good experience. (It was introduced late after September, 2010 and so I haven't took that mock test.)

Click Here to goto the page

All the Best !

Feel free to post comment or write to me, if you have any queries…

You can chat with me online if you have any queries. I will be available online in kprawinmail@gmail.com from 9.00PM to 1.00AM every day..

Now, Signing Off,

With regards,

KP

(Why Be Ordinary When You Can Be Extra – Ordinary ?)

For CTS attending students through Anna Univ OffCampus

Hello friends,

While searching for a new topic to write on, I heard about the off campus interview arranged by Anna University, Chennai in this January and Cognizant Technology Solutions is recruiting the people.

Fine. Our batch (2010passed out) also experienced the same company first in Anna University off campus. But I couldn't find myself in the participation list. . (Oops! The thing is I dint meet the academic eligibility criteria.. CTS expected above 80% at that time... I was only with 72 in my 8^th semester)

But that was not my end. . I got chances to attend Wipro, Accenture, TCS and HCL immediately after my 8^th semester exams through Anna University, but I ignored it.

And after that, I personally applied to Wipro, HCL, TCS, Infosys and finally CTS. . I got calls from TCS, HCL, Infosys and then CTS. (I got offers from TCS and Infosys.. I couldn't attend HCL test, and I cleared CTS aptitude test but don't want to attend the next rounds and so ignored it…) So, don't worry friends, who didn't get the chance to attend the off campus now, upgrade yourself and when you come out you can get the best, because no company wants a blunt knife. So sharpen yourself.

I think my story goes boring. So let me get into the subject of this post.

The following two links will help you to know about the pattern what my friends faced in the written test. Each company has its own test pattern and follows it. Here the test is a paper based test and you can know about the types of question in each section through the following links.

[Link 1]

[Link 2]

And in the test which I faced, the pattern is as follows…

Total 55 questions (30 analytical + 25 verbal), 50 minutes paper based test (30mins for analytical and 20mins for verbal)

And they gave both question papers separately. First I received Analytical paper which contains 30 questions that include mathematical as well as logical questions.

That contains simple aptitude questions and I'm sure that I could get 28 out of 30 marks in that. I'm not a genius in problem solving, but it was simple for me. And it took only 18-20minutes to solve those 28 questions. The remaining 2 are cryptography type questions, and I don't know how to solve it.

There are a few simple problems like find the odd figure out, what is the next figure in the series… These will be easier to those who try out such type of problems in daily magazines.

Mathematical will be as usual, that requires simple calculations. Ratio, percentage, average type questions are there for me. A tabular column containing scores of 4 cricket players in 4 matches are given and asked for highest avg in runs, highest avg of score in a match etc..

And logical was more simple, but requires little thinking.

I got this type question. There are 5 movies p,q,r,s,t played in a hostel in an order such that it satisfies the following conditions.

1. p always comes after r
2. s always comes after t
3. only one film is played in a day. No film on monday and Friday.

And there are a few questions for the above given data.

It include, which of the series is not possible ?

    a) rpqts b) rpqst c) qrpst d) rqtps

It is clear that rpqst is not possible.

Another one is like, what is the position of r is q is played 3^rd and p is played 4^th. The answers will be like first or fifth, first etc...

And also questions like,

Given: All dogs are cats.

Some cats are men.

Then which of the following is true?

 a) Some men are cat b) All men are cat c) All dogs are men d) All men are dogs

It is clear that (a) is answer, but do match all the 4 conclusions with inference statements and then get a conclusion.

And same like, Data sufficiency questions.

1. All dogs are cats
2. Some cats are men

Conclusion: Some cats are dogs

The conclusion can be obtained by,

      a) I only (b) II only (c) neither I nor II (d) both I and II

The answer is (a)

These logical questions suck your time. So be careful with them and do think fast.

They collected my papers after 30mins and then I got verbal question paper. It was not difficult for me but I'm not sure about my answers. I think I might have got 20+ out of 25 questions. And it took the whole 20mins for me to answer all of them.

There will be big paragraphs. Though I dint go through them completely, I took my time. There are jumbled sentences, and select the word that match the meaning. A word will be underlined and 4 options will be given to choose a word that matches the meaning of underlined word.

Fast reading is required. For frequent book readers, it is easy to follow the technique. Make fast eye movements along the paragraph to catch some important words. Then read out the questions. You'll find any of the words you caught in the eye reading in the question. And now, locate the paragraph with that keyword and you'll easily find the answer. But if you sit and read the passage completely, you won't find time to answer the other questions.

Aptitude tests don't need bigger brains to solve. It just needs little thinking and shortcuts to do faster. This can be achieved only by practice. So practice practice and practice…

Follow this link to get some sample papers of CTS and also other companies.

http://kprawin.blogspot.com/2010/08/sharp-your-aptitude.html

Go through them too… After aptitude you'll be having a technical HR interview and an HR interview (2 separate interviews). If you are bold enough to talk (even if your English is not so good), then you can easily crack them. But, you have to crack the written test as most of the companies filter the people in first round only. The post goes much longer and so I shall write about the interviews later.

All the best !

Feel free to post comment or write to me, if you have any queries…

Now, Signing Off,

With regards,

KP

(Why Be Ordinary When You Can Be Extra – Ordinary ?)