Useful Tips

1.1 How is the IT field?
""Market is good or bad, we should get a good job"". Always fresher should keep this mentality. Market is really very good. We need not worry about market status. Keep on trying till you get a good job. Do fight with your job hunting. Surely you will win.
1.2 Do we need to study any mainframe/ testing/ .NET, etc?
For fresher, absolutely no need for computer courses. Aptitude, C, C++ is enough to get a good job and there is no need of practical knowledge. A good guidance is hundred times better than a computer course.
If you got degree before 2004 and not strong in any of the software language, better join some computer courses like testing/ mainframe/ .NET, prepare a fake a resume with one year experience and do apply regularly. In the interview, many times they don’t ask about your experience. Your technical knowledge and way to explain the project is enough to get a job.
1.3 How to get call letters from companies?
Create one Yahoo ID and register it in to the following yahoo groups.
nestjobs (nestjobs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com), chetana, freshers
You use to get at least 100 mails daily regarding recruitment. Don't use your personal id, create a new one.
One more point, Every Wednesday, follow "Economic Times or Times of India"(Bangalore openings) and "The Hindu"(Chennai openings) without fail. There you can find more opportunities. Try to get past one year Economic Times and Hindu papers from library. Collect all the jobs related ids.(including experience also.)
Apply to all the ids. You will be regularly getting interview calls from companies.
1.4 How do we prepare resume?
Freshers: Companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro expects your percentage from 10th onwards, so it is better include all your curriculum (10th, 12th, all Degree) percentage in your resume. Resumes should be scanable it should be simple and easy to get information within a single look. It should not contain unwanted information.
Experience: You resume should have the following details, apart from the basic details.
1. Company name
2. Project name
3. Project duration
4. Client
5. Team size
6. Role
7. Project description
8. Activities (We have to mention our project activities)
9. Platform
1.5 How do we apply?
If you get any openings specific to your skill set, follow as indicted in the advertisement.

If you are applying for multiple companies, without advertisements or for positions not specific to your skill sets,
1. Prepare a generalized cover letter, ascii format resume(plain text format resume) and Word format resume
2. Paste your covering letter followed by the plaintext resume in the compose box of your mail
3. Attach your word format resume.
4. Subject should be like, “Resume for Software Engineer (C, C++, JAVA and VC++)”
5. Type your id in “TO’ field and bulk of ids in “BCC” field, do apply.
1.6 How do we subscribe to receive yahoo group mails?
It is a very simple process. Just send an empty mail to the particular yahoo group subscription mail id. For example, if you want to receive “nestjobs” mails. Send an empty mail to nestjobs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
1.7 Where do we get company model question papers?
If you get a call letter for written test, from any companies then go to the following sites...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nestjobs/files/
http://www.chetana-jobs.com
http://www.vyomworld.com/placementpapers
http://www.go4campus.com/mepz.asp
http://www.geocities.com/careeraid2003/company.html
http://vvasan.hypermart.net/
http://freshersworld.com/questions/questions.htm
http://www.aucse.com/Question%20Bank.htm

Collect the previous question papers and prepare well. Never miss to go to that site before you go for Interview/Test. There may be a chance to get the same question papers.
1.8 What are the books we have to prepare before we go for test/ interview?
Aptitude:
Arithmetic Reasoning - R.S.Agarwal
Barron's GRE Guide.
Shakuntala Devi, George summer puzzle books

Technical Books:
For freshers, C and C++ is enough to get a job.
Let us C, C++, Exploring C - YASHAVANT P. KANETKAR
Turbo C++ - Robert lafore (A very good guide to get basic idea about C++ and OOPS)
Complete Reference – C, C++
1.9 Where do we get the details about companies and details?
http://bangaloreit.com/src/companySearch.asp (Bangalore companies)
http://www.stpc.soft.net/perform_mnc.htm (Chennai companies)
http://www.dqindia.com/content/dq_top20/dqtopcomps.asp?dqlist=top200 (top 200 IT companies)
1.10 Am I suitable for IT field?
Anyone who has completed a graduation from an affiliated university is suitable for IT field. IT field does not expect any specialization from your graduation but it expect good problem solving, logical thinking and good communication skills. This can be achieved along with your curriculum subjects by spending an hour per day. R.S. Agarwal is good subject oriented book for preparing aptitude. Any MBA entrance book is suitable to prepare logical reasoning etc. In fact anyone who is not technically strong but having logical thinking skills is very much suitable for this field. It does not mean that technical people are not suitable.
1.11 Employee reference for MNC’s
If anyone need reference to attend written test or interview or forwarding resume kindly contact any of our career guidance team members. Our career guidance team maintains the spool of reference and provides you when the need arises.


2. Company test patterns
2.1 How to prepare for Infosys?
There is nothing to worry about the Infosys written test. It is easy if you keep your mind cool. There will be 10 questions in aptitude test, each of different marks & without multiple choices. Duration is 1 hr & you have to get at least 7-8 correct to get short-listed. You had to put down the procedure also in the paper. These puzzles are similar to the one in Shakuntala & George Summers. Attempt all questions, as there is no negative marking. No problem if we guess also. Mostly there will be questions on time & distance, probability, puzzles (George Summers), watch questions (related to time), escalator problem, completion of series & profit-loss questions.
Verbal is very easy. There will be 45 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 30 min. Attempt all questions. Mostly there will be completion of sentences (20 Q), correction of sentences (10Q) reading comprehension (5Q), synonyms & antonyms (10Q).
Short listing is mainly based on aptitude not on verbal. Concentrate more on aptitude. We can do very silly mistakes there. So be cool.
Regarding interview, firstly it's not a technical interview. It is purely HR. It will be around 20-30 min. They will even ask 2-3 puzzles. They are easy. If we don't answer any of them also there is no problem. You should be confident whether it is right or wrong. If you are through the written test then you will be almost through the interview. They almost select everyone in the interview. So concentrate more on the written test.
2.2 How to prepare for TCS?
There were 3 main sections verbal, aptitude and reasoning. Generally any company will not change the question paper for a year. So, you people can give importance to 2004 Question Papers. You can collect the sample QP from the about websites. We can see QP from 1995 onwards. Preparing all those papers is enough to get placement. There will be section cut off. Aptitude any one can clear. But In verbal section only we can beat others.
Don’t miss to prepare all the verbal section from 1995 onwards. The choices given to synonym and antonym part will be changed. But the question may be the same one. So, Open "MS WORD" and collect synonym and antonyms for all the words found in all the QP.
Regarding interview:
They check only the confidential level of the candidate. They never expect you to answer for each and every question. All they need to check is how bold you are, how much confidence you have on you. always don’t expect questions from Areas of Interest. Always have a pleasant smile in your face and keep yourself very cool. That is more important than anything. They may sometime ask very basic questions like what is the version of WINDOWS you have worked on? But answers for them are very much important. For non-computer students the interview will be very simple. They need not worry that they don’t know much technically.
Then HR interview, you should be very careful here. They may ask very tricky questions. Think twice before answering to these questions. The general questions in HR interview will be, why do you want to join TCS? What do you want to become after 3 years? Why TCS should take you in?
Be confident and be cool, which is enough to clear TCS interview.

3. Useful websites
3.1 Company question paper sites
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nestjobs/files/
http://www.chetana-jobs.com
http://www.vyomworld.com/placementpapers
http://www.go4campus.com/mepz.asp
http://www.geocities.com/careeraid2003/company.html
http://vvasan.hypermart.net/
http://freshersworld.com/questions/questions.htm
http://www.aucse.com/Question%20Bank.htm
3.2 Technical document sites
http://www.codeguru.com(c, c++, vc++ AND .NET)
http://www.onesmartclick.com/programming/programming.html (All)
http://www.acetheinterview.com/qanda/ (All)
http://www.techinterviews.com/ (All)
http://www.fredosaurus.com/notes-cpp/index.html (C++)
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/ (C++)
http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/ (All)
http://williamstallings.com/Extras/OS-Notes/notes.html (OS)
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~solomon/cs537/notes.html (OS)
http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/ (Windows)
http://ciips.ee.uwa.edu.au/~morris/Year2/PLDS210/ds_ToC.html (Data Structure)
http://hebb.cis.uoguelph.ca/~dave/343/Lectures/testing.html (Testing)
http://pweb.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/pointers.htm (Pointers)
http://www.intelinfo.com/Critchie (very good site)
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mount/420/ (Java)
http://www.nist.gov/dads/ (All)
http://www.intelinfo.com/free_java_training.html (Java)
http://www.math.umd.edu/~lify/hotlink.html (All)
http://www.holub.com/goodies/rules.html (All)
http://www.apl.jhu.edu/~hall/java/ (Java, good one)
http://www.ibiblio.org/winsock/winsock-1.1/winsock.html (Win socket)
http://www.hk8.org/old%5Fweb/ (good one)
http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/C/CE.html(C and UNIX)
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/cbook/html/(C)
http://devcentral.iticentral.com/ (All)
http://www.informit.com/ (All)
http://www.thefreecountry.com/ (All, Very good one)
http://www.tcfb.com/freetechbooks/ (All)
http://www.ibiblio.org/javafaq/javafaq.html (Java)
http://www.afu.com/javafaq.html (Java)
http://www.apl.jhu.edu/~hall/java/FAQs-and-Tutorials.html (Java)
http://www.comeaucomputing.com/techtalk/(C and C++)
http://www.memorymanagement.org (excellent)
3.3 Puzzle sites
http://puzzle.dse.nl/index_us.html
http://www.chlond.demon.co.uk/academic/puzzles.html
http://thinks.com/webguide/mathpuzzles.htm
http://www.eduplace.com/math/brain/
http://www.brainbashers.com/
http://barryispuzzled.com/
http://www.braingle.com/