Top Skills to Crack Campus Placement Interviews

Campus placements are one of the biggest events in every graduate and postgraduate student’s life. Grabbing a good campus placement offer is a milestone that every student strives hard to achieve. It a milestone which isn’t easy to achieve given the cut-throat competition and economic conditions that currently prevails in India. You need good skills to succeed in campus placement interviews.

Campus placements are one of the biggest events in every graduate and postgraduate student’s life. Grabbing a good campus placement offer is a milestone that every student strives hard to achieve. It a milestone which isn’t easy to achieve given the cut-throat competition and economic conditions that currently prevails in India. You need good skills to succeed in campus placement interviews.

What are the skills required to crack Campus Placement Interviews?

Skills are not limited to only the technical skills you acquire while studying different courses in college. There are many non-technical skills required in a workplace regardless, of the nature of the job. In fact, these skills are in high demand among companies looking to hire freshers.

Build the top 6 skills outlined below and increase your chances of getting hired during campus placement interviews:

v Communication Skills

Possessing good communication skills are a must these days if you wish to grab a seat in one of the big corporate. Communication skills are not limited to being good at verbal and written communication and delivering a message clearly that can be easily understood by others. It covers much more such as choosing the right words, knowing when to take a pause, watching one’s tone, listening to others intently, and displaying a positive body language.

You can cultivate this quality while you are still in college by practicing effective communication with your friends and batchmates when working on group projects and assignments. During college internships, observe how professionals communicate with each other closely, figure out what works and what doesn’t and try to incorporate these learning into your communication style. It will help you a great deal especially during the discussion rounds.

v Problem-Solving

Problem-solving skills are among the top employment-worthy skills. Companies prefer hiring fresher who are problem solvers rather than those who wait for others to come up with solutions for work-related challenges. This particular soft skill can give you a much-needed edge over the competition. For it means that you are capable of identifying & defining a problem, coming up with alternative solutions, evaluating & choosing the best alternative and implementing the chosen alternative effectively.

You can develop problem-solving skills while you are still in college. All you need is to be open-minded, inquisitive, and the ability to analyze a problem in parts and not as a whole. You can also take online aptitude tests that are specifically designed to measure problem-solving skills of the test taker.

v Team Player

Let’s take an example from college life. Most colleges give group projects to students and to ensure completing these projects successfully needs effective teamwork and unity among the team members. Lack of it won’t allow the team to complete the project successfully and achieve desired results. The same can be linked to an organizational setting where people working in a particular department or on a project have to work in harmony towards one common goal.

Companies don’t wish to hire people who will later face difficulty in working with teams. Develop teamwork skills and become a great team player while you are still in college by taking each college project and group activity with the utmost care.

v Leadership Skills

Companies wish to hire leaders hence, leadership skills are a must for them. Moreover, good leadership skills is an amalgamation of a number of qualities such as planning & organizing skills, strategic thinking skills, management skills, entrepreneurial skills, change management, and persuasion & influencing skills.

It is often said that leaders are born, but one can definitely develop leadership skills over time. To become a successful leader, you need to improve your communication skills, maintain a positive attitude, have a clear vision, set definitive goals, follow concrete action plans, motivate others, have strong values & morals, and be passionate.

v Honesty

Although we have covered honesty as one of the qualities that come under leadership skills, it is still important to address it separately. Personal credibility and integrity are highly valued qualities in the workplace. Companies look for candidates who are honest and have strong principles during campus placements. They seek candidates who they can trust completely knowing they will never compromise the company’s standards.

The best way to demonstrate this quality is by giving honest answers to interview questions asked during campus placements and giving correct information while filling in your job applications.

v Openness to Learning

Knowledge and skills are the most important factors companies use to assess freshers during campus placements. Your learning should neither end with the completion of your college nor restricted only to what was taught there. Workplaces come with a competitive learning environment that will require you to constantly keep up with the changing technologies and customer demands. Possessing an attitude that allows you to constantly learn new skills can win half the battle for you.

Expand your knowledge outside the academics and seek what new things you can learn within your area of interest or the job profile you want to get into. 

The chances of getting a fresher job in your campus placements will increase manifold if you are able to demonstrate the above-mentioned skills to the companies. Simply saying that you have these skills won’t help. The way you conduct yourself during the campus placement interviews, your behavior, your answers, and most importantly your resume will clearly reflect whether you have these employable skills or not. Prepare to put your best foot forward.

Factors to be considered by the Faculty for motivating and keeping the students focused

They are: -

1.      Giving a sense of control is essential:

Experts are of the opinion that giving a sense of control to the kids in what actually happens in the classroom can be a wonderful strategy to keep students engaged. 

For instance, permitting them to select the type of assignment they do or the problems on which they will have to work will give them a sense of control and they will also gain the motivation to do more.

2.      Creating a threat-free environment:

It is important that students should be made to understand that there will be consequences for each and every action they take. Even though this might feel to be a threat, it can bring about positive reinforcement in their lives. When a supportive and safe environment is created for students by creating a belief in their ability, as against laying out the consequences of not doing things, they can stay motivated much more. In short, it is important to focus on what can be done and not on what cannot be done.

3.      Using positive competition can be a great idea:

Generally, competition in the classroom is something healthier. It will in some cases motivate the students to try harder to stay ahead of the competition. However, the teacher should work towards fostering a friendly spirit of competition in the classroom. For instance, group games can be conducted to promote healthy competition among students.

4.      Defining the objectives:

If students are not given a clear picture about their objectives, it will be difficult for them to complete tasks or even behave in the classroom well. So, it is the responsibility of the parents and teachers to make the kids aware of what are their objectives. It is important that students will have to be taught what is expected of them to make them stay focused. So, it is better to clearly lay out the objectives of that particular academic year at the beginning of the year itself.

If you are looking for doing the job then you need to look for placement preparation website for engineers and prepare for a competitive exam to get closer to your objective.

In addition, long-term goals are also to be instilled in their minds and should be encouraged to work towards the long-term goal as well. This will clear them out of confusion and they will be more focused on working towards their goals. 

5.      Changing the work environment:

It is true that a classroom is a wonderful place to learn, but sitting in the desk all through the day will remove the focus from the minds of students. To renew the motivation, it is the best idea to change the class environment. For instance, some field trips can be organized, speakers can be brought in and they can also be taken to the library for conducting research. The human brain loves novelty and a new setting can just help some students to stay focused.

6.      Offering valid experienced can help:

Generally, different students respond to lessons differently. For some of them, practical training will be the best way of teaching, while others love reading books. So, to keep each and every student in the class to stay focused, it is important that the teacher will have to mix up different teaching approaches. This will help students with different preferences to get focused on things that impress them a lot. This strategy will help students to pay attention and stay engaged.

7.      Offering rewards can help

Each one of us likes to be rewarded and this is truer in the case of students. Providing the chance to your students to earn rewards is an excellent motivational factor. Some strategies like appreciation, sticker on the paper, badges can really motivate the student to work towards getting rewarded. The teacher can consider the personalities of each student to fix rewards accordingly to improve the motivational factor. The teachers and parents can also follow other strategies like encouraging self-reflection, praise, allowing children to work together, giving student responsibility and by harnessing interest in them.

Sharpen your ‘axe’ - Short Story

 There was a newly joined woodcutter and the king was really impressed by his dedication towards his work. Out of encouragement, he started giving his best in work and cut 18 trees in the first month and the king was glad.

The next month he put in the same effort but could cut only 15 trees. And the third month, he still tried his best but could cut only 12 trees. The king visited him the third month and talked about his decrease in productivity.

He explained that he might have lost his strength or got too old to do the work. The king asked him “when was the last time you sharpened your ax?” To the surprise, he has not even done it once in the last three months. That was the only reason why he couldn’t cut more trees.

Moral: It is good that you put in a lot of effort and hard work to work towards your goals. But you should balance your life priorities and invest time with your family and save some time to relax which would boost up your productivity.

These are just a few among the many motivational stories that guide students to work hard on many aspects of life and grow successful. Such inspirational stories can help students to keep moral values in life despite whatever life offers them.

Value yourself - Short Story

A speaker started off his seminar by showing a $20 to the public. He asked the people “who wants this?” There was no surprise to see that all of them lifted their hands. He offered to give the money to one of them but insisted that he will do something to it.

He crumpled the paper money and showed it again to the crowd and repeated the question. Still, everyone raised the hands. He then put the money into the ground and stepped on it and then raised it again and offered it to the public.

The people gathered there still showed interest to take that money despite seeing how dirty the note was. He told the public” No matter what I did to this money, you all still wanted this.

You all went in favor of my offer just because the value of the money never decreased despite what all I did to it. Similarly, value yourself despite the painful conditions or failures”

Moral: Believe in yourself and work hard to achieve success. Value yourself irrespective of the failures or obstacles and don’t degrade yourself just because of the temporary setbacks.  

Let go of your stresses - Short Story

A psychology professor entered the classroom with half a glass of water in his hand. The students expected the old common question “was it half empty or half full?” But to the surprise, he asked them “How heavy is this glass of water?”

The answers given by the students ranged from 7 oz. To 25 oz. But the professor replied that the actual weight of the glass with water doesn’t always matter but how long you hold the glass is what matters.

If you hold the glass for a minute, you won’t feel much weight. But if you hold for 10 minutes, you will feel a little more weight and it gets heavier for you with hours.

If you hold it for the entire day, then your hands would go numb and pain. Similar is the case when you carry stress with you. If you think about it for a while and leave it, then there is no problem but if you think about it for hours, it starts becoming a problem and it becomes worse if you sleep with it.

Moral: You should learn to let go of your stresses and never sleep with it. If you can do something about it, just do it. In the other case, just leave it and work towards your goals or else it just kills your productivity.

Shake off problems - Short Stories

A man and his donkey were on the way to grazing while the donkey fell into a huge pit. The man was shaken and tried hard to pull off his favorite donkey up to the ground.

Despite his strenuous attempts, he failed to bring the donkey back. But he can’t leave the donkey to starve and die with pain for days.

So he decided to bury him alive and make his death smoother. So he started pouring soil over the donkey in the pit. When he poured the soil, the donkey felt the load and shakes it off and he steps on it.

He does the same every time when the soil was poured on his body. In the end, he reached the ground level and easily walked away to graze in the green pastures.

Moral: Don’t choose to live with your problem. Just shake off your problems and stand on it and step up in life after learning from them. Every bad experience is a new learning. So get the positives out of it and work towards your goals.

Seeing opportunity in obstacles - Short Story

Once there was a king who was curious but wealthy. He decided to test his fellow people to know who has a got a good attitude in life and who would spare some time for country’s progress.

He placed a huge boulder right at the middle of the road and hid in a nearby place to see if anyone would make an attempt to move it off.

He saw some wealthy merchants and courtiers passing by the road. None of them made any attempt to move it off but simply walked away while some others blamed the king for not maintaining roads.

Later, a peasant came the way with a load of vegetables and saw the boulder. He kept his load down and tried to move the boulder away. After strenuous effort, he succeeded in moving it away. He saw a purse lying in the place of the boulder.

It contained many gold coins and a note from the king which read ‘this is the reward for the person who moves the boulder away’.

Moral: It is quite common for people to run away from problems and obstacles. But the story clearly shows the importance of seeing an opportunity in every obstacle which might improve our condition. Invest some time to remove obstacles on your way and experience many unseen presences.

Struggles develop strength - Short Story

One day a man was passing by a garden when he saw a butterfly cocoon which was about to get open.

He saw a small opening on it and watched the several hours of struggles the butterfly came through to get the body out of it. After many hours, it seemed that the butterfly stopped trying as there was no progress.

He thought to help the butterfly by cutting the cocoon with a scissor. So the butterfly came out easily but the wings were shriveled and the body was tiny and withered.

Unfortunately, the butterfly was not able to take flight and spend the rest of life crawling with a wounded body.

Moral: This is nature’s way of telling the importance of struggles in life. Sometimes, different kinds of struggles are needed in life to make you stronger in the future. Never feel disappointed in life and stop trying when life offers you struggles but keep on fighting until you see success.

The Group of Frogs - Short Story

Some frogs were traveling through woods and two of them accidentally fell into a pit. The other frogs which were safe upside understood how deep the pit was and saw no hope for the frogs to escape out of it.

Both of these frogs started trying to get out of the pit but failed many times. The frogs on the safe side shouted at them to give up the pain of trying as it was not possible.

Eventually, one frog heard the other frogs and decided to stop trying and fell down to death. However, the other frog went on trying and at last managed to reach the top.

The other frogs asked him, “Did you not hear us?” He explained that he was deaf and thought other frogs were encouraging him to get out.

Moral: Some people around you may ask you to be on a safer side always and stop trying and taking risks. However, there is no gain without pain. So try hard to achieve success in life despite what life offers you.

Thinking Out of the Box - Short Story

Once upon a time, a merchant named Sam owed a huge sum of money to Tom, a money lender. The time came when the merchant ran out of the last chance given to him to give the money back.

Sam had a beautiful daughter who was very affectionate with her father. Tom asked the merchant to give all the money back failing which he will marry his beautiful daughter.

Tom was not at all good looking and ill minded and so the merchant was in dilemma. Tom proposed a new condition. There was a mix of black and white pebbles on the ground where they were standing. He will take two pebbles on both hands, one will be white and the other will be black.

If the daughter correctly chooses the white pebble, then Tom will write off all the debt and leave the marriage proposal too. But if she chooses the black pebble, he will write off the debt but will marry the daughter.

Tom bent down to pick the pebbles from the ground and the daughter noticed that he took black pebbles on both hands. The girl had three choices- to notify the same to her father which may provoke Tom, take the black pebble and sacrifice her life or simply refuse to take the pebble which might land her father into trouble. But what she did totally surprise Tom.

She took the pebble from his hand and ‘accidentally’ the pebble fell off from her hand to ground. She then asked Tom to see which color pebble was left in his hand to identify the color she picked. Tom had no other choice but to show the black color pebble in his hand and set both of them free.

Moral: Sometimes, life offers you situations which not only demands hard work and perseverance but some creative thinking which saves the situation.

Shark Bait - Short Story

A marine biologist put a shark into a big tank at the time of a research experiment. Followed by that, he released some tiny bait fishes into it.

As expected, the shark didn’t wait to attack those fishes and ate them. Later, a clear fiberglass was inserted into the tank which partitioned the tank into two and the shark remained in one side.

A similar set of bait fish was sent to the other side of the tank like before. And the shark attempted to attack those fishes but failed by hitting on the fiberglass.

The shark attempted for several days until it gave up. Later, the biologist removed the glass from the tank but the shark didn’t try to attack the small fishes.

The shark always continues to see a false barrier in the tank and stopped his attempts.

Moral: It is quite common for many people to give up after many setbacks and failures. The story is an example for keep trying always and to never give up despite multiple failures.

The Elephant Rope - Short Story

A man was walking nearby to a group of elephants that was halted by a small rope tied to their front leg. He was amazed by the fact that the huge elephants are not even making an attempt to break the rope and set themselves free.

He saw an elephant trainer standing beside them and he expressed his puzzled state of mind. The trainer said “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them.

As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

Moral: It is the false belief of the elephants that denied their freedom for lifetime. Likewise, many people are not trying to work towards success in their life just because they failed once before. So keep on trying and don’t get tied up with some false beliefs of failure.

Guidelines for Project Work

Project Work

Synopsis
Synopsis of the project must be submitted before the end of the first month of 6th semester

1.      The synopsis of the project must include:

a.       Problem formulation and literature survey.

b.       Details of the required tools and technologies for the development of project.

c.       Write up shall not exceed 15 pages.

2.       Internal assessment for synopsis presentation and evaluation of the synopsis by the internal examiner/guide is for 20 marks.

Dissertation

1.      The project shall be carried out in the same institution or in industry/R&D labs based on software tools and technologies learnt in MCA course/internship for minimum period of 16 weeks.

2.      Internal assessment shall be evaluated by the internal panel/guide for 55 marks.

a.       For continuous evaluation of project work by the internal examiner/guide with progress reports is for 10 marks each. (3 progress reports x 10 marks= 30)

b.      Final presentation for the entire project is evaluated for 25 marks.

3.      The internal examiners (Project Guide with at least 2 years experience) and the external examiners shall be appointed by the University for the Final Evaluation of the project.

4.       Internal and external examiners shall carry out the evaluation of Dissertation report for 125 marks individually. The average of the marks allotted by the internal and external examiners shall be the final marks for the project Dissertation report evaluation.

5.      The project presentation and Viva-voce shall be evaluated jointly by both the internal and external examiners for 100 marks.

6.      The student should be encouraged to present/publish the part/outcome of the project as an article in the conferences/journals.

Guidelines for Internship

Internship

1.      The students shall undergo internship for 6 weeks during the vacation immediately after the 5^th semester examination.

2.      The internship shall be carried out in industry/R&D labs or institutions.

3.      Internship should be presented along with the report by the end of 6 weeks and shall be evaluated by the internal panel for 50 marks each.

At the end of the internship students should be able to answer the following questions:

1)     What computer science related tasks did you perform?

2)     What is the relationship of the work to your major studies?

3)     How interesting and challenging was it?

4)     What did you learn from your experience?

5)     What were the benefits to you?

What advice would you have for a fellow student with regard to your experience?

Each internship report should follow the below discussed format: -

1.      Title page

2.      College certificate page

3.      Internship certificate provided by internship institution

4.      Acknowledge

5.      Executive summary / Abstract

This section should address the following points:

a.       About the company

b.      The problem or opportunity

c.       Methodology

d.      Key parts of the report & your findings & solutions provided in the report

e.       Benefits to the company / institution through your report

6.      Index

7.      Learning objectives/internship objectives

8.      Introduction

The introduction should include a description of the internship site and the scope of the work completed during the internship. It may include background information necessary to understand the work completed during the internship.

9.      Internship discussion

This section should address the following points:

a.       How the objectives are achieved?

b.      What skills (scientific/professional) were learned during this internship?

c.       Results/observation/work experience obtained the internship company.

d.      What challenges did you experience during the internship?

10.  Conclusion

11.  Bibliography