During the job search, you guys may be getting many calls from consultancies or may be direct from company's HR for the interviews. I have observed that most of the times these people are not aware of or don't have clarity on the technical requirements for the job.
Also you might have observed that nowadays Market is not stable & jobs are uncertain. This makes getting the job further difficult. As currently Business is not sure about the direction to move on & getting quite selective in hiring the new employees & giving preference to low salary candidates. Also as jobs are not secure then you can understand that no interviewer will be selecting the candidate who can replace the interviewer in the current company even if it is good MNC.
So it further complexes the whole interview process.
I think it is the right time where 3rd party agencies can come here to select the candidates for other organisations. Here these agencies need to take the detailed requirements from the managers or Business people of such organisations & take the interviews of the candidates to avoid any further delays.
Also if someone wants to know my views about the organisations for which I have worked in my career, please do write to me or put your questions in Your Views section & I will reply about my thoughts.
Below I have few suggestions which you may or may not find useful during your interviews processes & job search -
Suggestion 1 : Never take the words from these people over the call, ask them the complete JD & employment details first
before giving out any of your details. In general don't believe 'hnssolution.com' or 'TriadSquare' or
'Carrernet' or 'Novahro' or 'MindtelGlobal' kind of consultancies when these give you the call for the job, as
these people will try to convince & fool you that your interview is scheduled or your profile matches the
requirements. Such organisations modulate your CV & requirements as per their needs & will try to send you
for the interview to show their numbers of candidates.
Will be better to block such organisations/consultancies as such organizations try to exploit you on your
own fears & job condition.
Suggestion 2 : Ask them the confirmation over the mail if your profile is suitable for their requirements as per their technical
panel. Don't believe the consultancy people, they are there to convince you to attend the interview with those
organizations, just try to search for the information from your side & if it is suitable then agree. Also do the
same before you join the organization.
Suggestion 3 : Always give them your feedback also whether the interview was done on the line of JD you got. Also ask them feedback about you also. If you are getting some useful feedback then you are lucky, else I have observed
that these people here give senseless feedback like - You are not selected or not suitable for this job but no
constructive feedback.
Suggestion 4 : I am observing that most of the times interviewers have decided about before your interview even starts. So
during the interviews, if you are getting ridiculous questions then assume that this interviewer has already
decided not to clear you & just asking to show-off. So you can better request him/her to stop the interview &
leave, why to waste your time with such people.
Suggestion 5 : I am observing that many organizations have started to give online tests as part of their interview process.
Some allow you to take such interviews from your place as it being online anyhow. But if you are being called
to their office for such online tests then check with them if they are providing any benefits to you for that. Also
if you are in their office for such online coding tests then always get the clarifications from their people there,
about their expectations, if it is similar to what is mentioned in the question & given sample. As such happened
to me for AthenaHealth & I assumed that sample is correct & during the last minutes I checked with them as
code was not getting passed still. And then I came to know that the expectations were different than what was
mentioned in the sample.
Suggestion 6 : During the interview, it may also happen that you are getting some valid scenario based questions but the
interviewer is not ready to give further clarifications or doubts in that scenario. Or interviewer is expecting you
to give the exact correct answer, which s/he had read or saw on Google. In such scenarios also, consider that
you are not being cleared by such people. As this has happened to me in Synechron, HCL like companies.
Issue majorly here is, people check/watch videos on youtube about System Design interviews & think that is
right way where interviewee has to provide more inputs but as per me, such interviews must be quite
interactive with enough thoughts exchanged from both sides else it is useless to ask such questions.
Suggestion 7 : If there are more than 2 technical rounds then request them to get one technical round telephonic before you
go to their place for interview. As it seems they just call many people to show the count. And it must be
sufficient to get a good idea if your profile is matching to their requirements after 1 telephonic technical call
with you. Even skype/video calls should be fine, if they want to see your face.
Suggestion 8 : Like I have mentioned in Suggestion 5 above that organizations are taking coding interviews using
Codility/HackerRank/HackerEarth/TechGig/Hackothon kind of services, but these organizations are getting
restless & senseless to get the optimum code for the problems given to the candidate in strict time line may be
1 or 2 or 3 hours. So again the work culture in these organizations with such kind of mentality may not be
satisfactory where managers/recruiters don't understand that good solutions can be derived by free mind &
time in hand. So consider this also before going for these organizations.
Suggestion 9 : If you are deciding based on the reviews on Glassdoor or such websites about the company, then don't. As
many organizations post fake positive reviews about themselves to attract the people but the real story can be
different & may be horrible. So try to check with people if you can contact any before joining these
organizations.
Suggestion 10 : If your profile & the requirements stack is not matching, which 99% will never match, & the company
HR/recruiter/consultancy person tries to convince you saying that they will be looking for the basic concepts
only & will check if person is eager to learn new technologies or they would like to understand more about
you if you can fit in any way etc. Don't get too positive by these words, they may be just want to be in
the interview for some reasons well known to these people. You will keep on getting a gigantic list of
technology stack & still they that they are just looking for basic concepts. You can go to attend if possible
easily, to such places, to try your luck if you are ok to join these. Suggestion here is, not to be too optimistic
with such interviews & you will not feel sad if rejected due to missing some skill from the stack.
Suggestion 11 : If you feel that in general your interview went satisfactory & still you are rejected & you wonder why.
There can be following few reasons -
a) You answered the questions too perfectly that interviewer may feel threatened.
b) While answering the questions you didn't use the words which interviewer was looking.
c) May be your profile is too good to replace the interviewer.
d) May be interviewer thought that you can do better or you may not stay long in current
requirements/position
e) May be the vacancy was already filled but to show & for the process you were interviewed.
f) May be interviewer has already decided on the resources/candidate.
g) May be you gave the wrong answer for those 1 or 2 questions which were more important for interviewer,
no matter if you answered correctly for previous or other 10-15 questions. This is interviewer's choice,
one can't do anything.
h) Your day/time is not good & your talking style is not liked by interviewer. So no matters, if you give all the
answers, Interviewer has decided already to reject you. So, you can keep on trying like I am doing.
No-one knows everything & no one is perfect in everything, even no interviewer knows everything, though
they pretend & many of them would have got the questions/answers from google & you are on your luck
with such people. I believe, in this world of so many things, every one tends to forget the things, so do I.
And I don't feel to keep the things in the mind when we have google. So just keep trying, some where,
some day you will find some sensible interviewers.
Suggestion 12 : Never tell the count of interviews you have been through to the interviewer, you may just say you have just
started or 2-3 interviews just. And give some other reasons for not getting success in the previous interviews
but never say that you were not able to answer the questions in the previous interviews. As some interviews
take such data as negative about you & these interviewers decide in their minds that you are not technically
fit or you have some issues so you are not supposed to be selected. And now these interviewers will ask you
any ridiculous questions just to put some reasons on their papers for your rejection, such thing has
happened to me in Deutsche Bank.
Suggestion 13 : If you are getting calls for/from Sapient like organizations for some interviews on some day, so I will suggest
you not to cancel any other plans for that day & if it is possible to shift the timings of other tasks for that day
then just do that or try to negotiate the time for this interview for that day. Will be great if you can get this
interview to be shifted to some other day when you don't have any other tasks. As I am observing that such
companies do last minute changes in their interview timings or dates, so never rely on these.
Suggestion 14 : I am writing this to alert you or to help you to save yourself from some kind of frauds or cheating issues
during your job search & the hiring process. I also get such calls. Consultancies or some road side
companies' people will call you for some opportunities with Wipro or Infosys & they will say that it is long
term project & you will either be on their payroll(not with Wipro or Infosys) or you will be on contract. And they
even will try to convince you by saying that you will be converted to permanent employee of Wipro or Infosys
after sometime. Never ever even believe them, these people are fraud & your career will be ruined if you join
such projects on the basis of their words. People spend their lives in just a hope that they will be permanent
one day, but no, they are just exploited by these companies. Such frauds even can say that it may take 2
months for becoming permanent due to some securities check. You can try if they are giving this in writing
that you will be permanent after some days/months. And they will not give any written confirmation on this but
they will keep on saying that you will become permanent. Don't believe these people, these people are fraud
& they cheat people to make their money.
Suggestion 15 : Such incident has also happened with me & this fraud was done by 'NowNaukri'. People from such
companies will call you & will try to persuade you by saying that they have many job opportunities for you
with many MNC companies & may be they will tell you some name also. Once you agree to go ahead,
they will ask you to pay money, may be a few thousands, to get your profile customized & sent to those big
MNCs for the interviews. Then may be for next few days they will send some fake job mails to you which
will not be relevant. And after that these people simply disappear & your money is lost & you don't get any
job via these fraud people. So simply say no to them if these are offering you such paid services. Save
your hard earned money.
Suggestion 16 : If you get the interview calls from CA Technologies, DBS, ModelNIndia, Pubmatic, JPMC, Capgemini,
TechM, Turvo, Coforge kind of companies then don't try for such organizations. If you have time then better
try for other organizations, but for these NO. If you are looking for immediate job then can sure try for these
or looking some interview practise then go ahead for these or looking for mix of technical, managerial &
political exposure.
Suggestion 17 : Nowadays you will see many random IT companies are popping up & these will show themselves some
product based or some high end service providers. Funny is, you will get the call from such companies &
they will tell you that some requirement is with Apple or Google & you will start thinking to get employed by
such organisation. Then after some discussion around your skills & salary requirements, you will get the
googly, that you will be on the payroll of such random companies & will be deployed to Apple or Google.
And even they can say that as per your performance you can get permanent with Apple or Google in next
few months. Its a trap, directly say 'NO' & drop the call with no further discussions. It is just a trap.
Suggestion 18 : I see lot of job openings being published via different channels. But if you observe then these give huge
experience range like 7-15 years or 5-15 years or 10-20 years with huge list of technical expectations, so
you should take these as Red signal, when the job poster is not clear him/herself about the proper range like
7-10 years or 5-8 years or 10-15 years with sensible list of technical expectations, then for sure these people
are not serious about the selection of the people & such jobs are being posted for some agenda. You will
even see the big names in such posts, so my suggestion is to ignore these as even if you get selected, by
chance, then your life will be hell in such projects/teams/organisations.
Suggestion 19 : If you get the call from Pubmatic or UHG like companies for some tech which you don't know & these
people say that they will train you on that, then take it as another Red flag, as these people are just buying
more time for recruiting to get the person having experience on that tech. 99% chances are that you will get
some senseless excuse as I have observed in both these organisations. For Pubmatic I observed another
level, here the interviewer was picking the questions from GeeksforGeeks to ask me during the interviews.
Suggestion 20 : If the interviewer asks about what technology or DB you will use for high performing application & why, then
there are high chances that this interviewer him/herself not sure & even dont know why s/he is using some
technology in the project except there is mandate to use that in the project. So you can sense this & be
ready with few such names to speak during the interviews & say those names with confidence & give some
high & complex reasons. There is no guarantee that you will make any impact but there are high chances
that interviewer also have no clue, so may be benefitial for you.
Suggestion 21 : If you get the call from some recruitement firm, then never ever tell your current CTC & expected CTC,
before you get the job details & the employer company details & slary budget.
If you feel requirements match to your profile and the company can have the budget as per your
expectations & you are willing to get the offer from that company then only tell any further details of your
salary & expected salary.
If you get the call from the company directly, then also follow the same rule & first get the job details & your
role & first try to get the budget of company. Then accordingly tell your expected salary first, to check if they
are ok with that & then tell your current CTC.
All The Best!!!!
Also you might have observed that nowadays Market is not stable & jobs are uncertain. This makes getting the job further difficult. As currently Business is not sure about the direction to move on & getting quite selective in hiring the new employees & giving preference to low salary candidates. Also as jobs are not secure then you can understand that no interviewer will be selecting the candidate who can replace the interviewer in the current company even if it is good MNC.
So it further complexes the whole interview process.
I think it is the right time where 3rd party agencies can come here to select the candidates for other organisations. Here these agencies need to take the detailed requirements from the managers or Business people of such organisations & take the interviews of the candidates to avoid any further delays.
Also if someone wants to know my views about the organisations for which I have worked in my career, please do write to me or put your questions in Your Views section & I will reply about my thoughts.
Below I have few suggestions which you may or may not find useful during your interviews processes & job search -
Suggestion 1 : Never take the words from these people over the call, ask them the complete JD & employment details first
before giving out any of your details. In general don't believe 'hnssolution.com' or 'TriadSquare' or
'Carrernet' or 'Novahro' or 'MindtelGlobal' kind of consultancies when these give you the call for the job, as
these people will try to convince & fool you that your interview is scheduled or your profile matches the
requirements. Such organisations modulate your CV & requirements as per their needs & will try to send you
for the interview to show their numbers of candidates.
Will be better to block such organisations/consultancies as such organizations try to exploit you on your
own fears & job condition.
Suggestion 2 : Ask them the confirmation over the mail if your profile is suitable for their requirements as per their technical
panel. Don't believe the consultancy people, they are there to convince you to attend the interview with those
organizations, just try to search for the information from your side & if it is suitable then agree. Also do the
same before you join the organization.
Suggestion 3 : Always give them your feedback also whether the interview was done on the line of JD you got. Also ask them feedback about you also. If you are getting some useful feedback then you are lucky, else I have observed
that these people here give senseless feedback like - You are not selected or not suitable for this job but no
constructive feedback.
Suggestion 4 : I am observing that most of the times interviewers have decided about before your interview even starts. So
during the interviews, if you are getting ridiculous questions then assume that this interviewer has already
decided not to clear you & just asking to show-off. So you can better request him/her to stop the interview &
leave, why to waste your time with such people.
Suggestion 5 : I am observing that many organizations have started to give online tests as part of their interview process.
Some allow you to take such interviews from your place as it being online anyhow. But if you are being called
to their office for such online tests then check with them if they are providing any benefits to you for that. Also
if you are in their office for such online coding tests then always get the clarifications from their people there,
about their expectations, if it is similar to what is mentioned in the question & given sample. As such happened
to me for AthenaHealth & I assumed that sample is correct & during the last minutes I checked with them as
code was not getting passed still. And then I came to know that the expectations were different than what was
mentioned in the sample.
Suggestion 6 : During the interview, it may also happen that you are getting some valid scenario based questions but the
interviewer is not ready to give further clarifications or doubts in that scenario. Or interviewer is expecting you
to give the exact correct answer, which s/he had read or saw on Google. In such scenarios also, consider that
you are not being cleared by such people. As this has happened to me in Synechron, HCL like companies.
Issue majorly here is, people check/watch videos on youtube about System Design interviews & think that is
right way where interviewee has to provide more inputs but as per me, such interviews must be quite
interactive with enough thoughts exchanged from both sides else it is useless to ask such questions.
Suggestion 7 : If there are more than 2 technical rounds then request them to get one technical round telephonic before you
go to their place for interview. As it seems they just call many people to show the count. And it must be
sufficient to get a good idea if your profile is matching to their requirements after 1 telephonic technical call
with you. Even skype/video calls should be fine, if they want to see your face.
Suggestion 8 : Like I have mentioned in Suggestion 5 above that organizations are taking coding interviews using
Codility/HackerRank/HackerEarth/TechGig/Hackothon kind of services, but these organizations are getting
restless & senseless to get the optimum code for the problems given to the candidate in strict time line may be
1 or 2 or 3 hours. So again the work culture in these organizations with such kind of mentality may not be
satisfactory where managers/recruiters don't understand that good solutions can be derived by free mind &
time in hand. So consider this also before going for these organizations.
Suggestion 9 : If you are deciding based on the reviews on Glassdoor or such websites about the company, then don't. As
many organizations post fake positive reviews about themselves to attract the people but the real story can be
different & may be horrible. So try to check with people if you can contact any before joining these
organizations.
Suggestion 10 : If your profile & the requirements stack is not matching, which 99% will never match, & the company
HR/recruiter/consultancy person tries to convince you saying that they will be looking for the basic concepts
only & will check if person is eager to learn new technologies or they would like to understand more about
you if you can fit in any way etc. Don't get too positive by these words, they may be just want to be in
the interview for some reasons well known to these people. You will keep on getting a gigantic list of
technology stack & still they that they are just looking for basic concepts. You can go to attend if possible
easily, to such places, to try your luck if you are ok to join these. Suggestion here is, not to be too optimistic
with such interviews & you will not feel sad if rejected due to missing some skill from the stack.
Suggestion 11 : If you feel that in general your interview went satisfactory & still you are rejected & you wonder why.
There can be following few reasons -
a) You answered the questions too perfectly that interviewer may feel threatened.
b) While answering the questions you didn't use the words which interviewer was looking.
c) May be your profile is too good to replace the interviewer.
d) May be interviewer thought that you can do better or you may not stay long in current
requirements/position
e) May be the vacancy was already filled but to show & for the process you were interviewed.
f) May be interviewer has already decided on the resources/candidate.
g) May be you gave the wrong answer for those 1 or 2 questions which were more important for interviewer,
no matter if you answered correctly for previous or other 10-15 questions. This is interviewer's choice,
one can't do anything.
h) Your day/time is not good & your talking style is not liked by interviewer. So no matters, if you give all the
answers, Interviewer has decided already to reject you. So, you can keep on trying like I am doing.
No-one knows everything & no one is perfect in everything, even no interviewer knows everything, though
they pretend & many of them would have got the questions/answers from google & you are on your luck
with such people. I believe, in this world of so many things, every one tends to forget the things, so do I.
And I don't feel to keep the things in the mind when we have google. So just keep trying, some where,
some day you will find some sensible interviewers.
Suggestion 12 : Never tell the count of interviews you have been through to the interviewer, you may just say you have just
started or 2-3 interviews just. And give some other reasons for not getting success in the previous interviews
but never say that you were not able to answer the questions in the previous interviews. As some interviews
take such data as negative about you & these interviewers decide in their minds that you are not technically
fit or you have some issues so you are not supposed to be selected. And now these interviewers will ask you
any ridiculous questions just to put some reasons on their papers for your rejection, such thing has
happened to me in Deutsche Bank.
Suggestion 13 : If you are getting calls for/from Sapient like organizations for some interviews on some day, so I will suggest
you not to cancel any other plans for that day & if it is possible to shift the timings of other tasks for that day
then just do that or try to negotiate the time for this interview for that day. Will be great if you can get this
interview to be shifted to some other day when you don't have any other tasks. As I am observing that such
companies do last minute changes in their interview timings or dates, so never rely on these.
Suggestion 14 : I am writing this to alert you or to help you to save yourself from some kind of frauds or cheating issues
during your job search & the hiring process. I also get such calls. Consultancies or some road side
companies' people will call you for some opportunities with Wipro or Infosys & they will say that it is long
term project & you will either be on their payroll(not with Wipro or Infosys) or you will be on contract. And they
even will try to convince you by saying that you will be converted to permanent employee of Wipro or Infosys
after sometime. Never ever even believe them, these people are fraud & your career will be ruined if you join
such projects on the basis of their words. People spend their lives in just a hope that they will be permanent
one day, but no, they are just exploited by these companies. Such frauds even can say that it may take 2
months for becoming permanent due to some securities check. You can try if they are giving this in writing
that you will be permanent after some days/months. And they will not give any written confirmation on this but
they will keep on saying that you will become permanent. Don't believe these people, these people are fraud
& they cheat people to make their money.
Suggestion 15 : Such incident has also happened with me & this fraud was done by 'NowNaukri'. People from such
companies will call you & will try to persuade you by saying that they have many job opportunities for you
with many MNC companies & may be they will tell you some name also. Once you agree to go ahead,
they will ask you to pay money, may be a few thousands, to get your profile customized & sent to those big
MNCs for the interviews. Then may be for next few days they will send some fake job mails to you which
will not be relevant. And after that these people simply disappear & your money is lost & you don't get any
job via these fraud people. So simply say no to them if these are offering you such paid services. Save
your hard earned money.
Suggestion 16 : If you get the interview calls from CA Technologies, DBS, ModelNIndia, Pubmatic, JPMC, Capgemini,
TechM, Turvo, Coforge kind of companies then don't try for such organizations. If you have time then better
try for other organizations, but for these NO. If you are looking for immediate job then can sure try for these
or looking some interview practise then go ahead for these or looking for mix of technical, managerial &
political exposure.
Suggestion 17 : Nowadays you will see many random IT companies are popping up & these will show themselves some
product based or some high end service providers. Funny is, you will get the call from such companies &
they will tell you that some requirement is with Apple or Google & you will start thinking to get employed by
such organisation. Then after some discussion around your skills & salary requirements, you will get the
googly, that you will be on the payroll of such random companies & will be deployed to Apple or Google.
And even they can say that as per your performance you can get permanent with Apple or Google in next
few months. Its a trap, directly say 'NO' & drop the call with no further discussions. It is just a trap.
Suggestion 18 : I see lot of job openings being published via different channels. But if you observe then these give huge
experience range like 7-15 years or 5-15 years or 10-20 years with huge list of technical expectations, so
you should take these as Red signal, when the job poster is not clear him/herself about the proper range like
7-10 years or 5-8 years or 10-15 years with sensible list of technical expectations, then for sure these people
are not serious about the selection of the people & such jobs are being posted for some agenda. You will
even see the big names in such posts, so my suggestion is to ignore these as even if you get selected, by
chance, then your life will be hell in such projects/teams/organisations.
Suggestion 19 : If you get the call from Pubmatic or UHG like companies for some tech which you don't know & these
people say that they will train you on that, then take it as another Red flag, as these people are just buying
more time for recruiting to get the person having experience on that tech. 99% chances are that you will get
some senseless excuse as I have observed in both these organisations. For Pubmatic I observed another
level, here the interviewer was picking the questions from GeeksforGeeks to ask me during the interviews.
Suggestion 20 : If the interviewer asks about what technology or DB you will use for high performing application & why, then
there are high chances that this interviewer him/herself not sure & even dont know why s/he is using some
technology in the project except there is mandate to use that in the project. So you can sense this & be
ready with few such names to speak during the interviews & say those names with confidence & give some
high & complex reasons. There is no guarantee that you will make any impact but there are high chances
that interviewer also have no clue, so may be benefitial for you.
Suggestion 21 : If you get the call from some recruitement firm, then never ever tell your current CTC & expected CTC,
before you get the job details & the employer company details & slary budget.
If you feel requirements match to your profile and the company can have the budget as per your
expectations & you are willing to get the offer from that company then only tell any further details of your
salary & expected salary.
If you get the call from the company directly, then also follow the same rule & first get the job details & your
role & first try to get the budget of company. Then accordingly tell your expected salary first, to check if they
are ok with that & then tell your current CTC.
All The Best!!!!
