Every year hundreds of companies visit college campuses to recruit freshers in their companies. It’s in fact, a matter of pride for students to get selected while being on campus. This projects a high value of the student.
Campus placements are a risk-free way of finding jobs. What’s more? Companies often lower their recruitment standards for students.
However, there’s much more than technical knowledge that is required to clear a campus recruitment interview. In the following article, we are providing you a detailed preparation guide to clear your campus interview.
Know about the companies
Every college has multiple companies coming ever year for campus recruitment. Find out which companies visit your college for placements from your placement cell and maintain a track sheet for those companies. Write down the dates when they’re organizing the recruitment drive in your college, their official website address, links to their social media channels and a brief description about the company.
Now it’s very important that you do an extensive research on these companies and learn everything you can about them. Here are some things that you should know:
- Name of the CEO & founder
- History, Vision and Objectives
- Products and Services they offer, USP of products
- Locations
- Major news about the company
- Milestones and achievements
- Competitors (other major players in the industry)
- About the industry
- History and future of the industry and the company
- Major challenges and trends
Though almost every company holds presentations before the interviews, it’s important that you read up about them on their website and social media channels. Use your networks and if any of your seniors is working in the company, ask them about the recruitment process, interview, etc. When you’re given a chance to ask them questions after the presentation, don’t hesitate.
Ask them about the job profile, the qualities they are looking for in their prospective employees, typical day at the job and/or something unique that you noticed about them during your research or during the presentation. So it’s important that you pay attention during the presentation.
Tailor your resumes
One of the things that will instantly set you apart from the crowd and get you noticed is your resume. Take a fair amount of time writing your resume. Do not just fill out a preset template. It goes without saying, that your resume needs to be customized according to the company and job profile you’re applying for. A resume made for the profile of a Business Analyst needs to be different from a resume made for the profile of a Software Developer.
Do a thorough research about the job profile and the company. Talk to your Seniors or friends or acquaintances working in that company and take their help. Most companies have a preferred format of resume.
Have your resume reviewed by your friends, peers, and placement officers. Take their feedback and if required make necessary changes. It needs to be properly structured and formatted. Use simple language, check multiple times to make sure there are no spelling and grammatical errors, do not use fancy fonts or colors and make sure your resume layout is clear.
Prepare for the interview
Now that you have set your resume, it is time you start preparing for your interview. Though most companies intimate you about their recruitment process, there are many who don’t. You can however prepare based on Aptitude Test, Group Discussion, Technical and HR Interview, which a lot of companies follow.
Generally, in Aptitude Tests, you’re tested on your decision-making, problem-solving skills, logical abilities, math and english vocabulary and comprehension. The Aptitude Tests usually contain three sections: Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning and English language.
Group discussions are vital. In group discussions, you will be part of a group of 15-20 candidates and will be given a topic to discuss by a panel. The panel monitors the discussion. You will be evaluated on your ability to interact, listen to others, lead the discussion and conclude it and also on the knowledge on the topic. You need to be careful not to be aggressive or submissive while giving your opinions.
For Technical and HR Interviews, you need to know the in and out of your domain. We suggest you brush up your basics on your subjects for your technical interview. In the technical round, your knowledge about the domain you’re applying for will be tested. Make sure you come completely prepared.
It is important to appear confident during your interview, your body language shouldn’t suggest that you’re over confident or worse, relax and have a relaxed body language. Sometimes the interviewer might come off as rude, or might actually be rude. This could be a stress interview to check how you would behave in such situations. Take a cue and keep calm.
We hope the above tips help you crack your campus placement interviews with flying colors.