Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

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Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai Placement Interview Questions

Updated 4 Dec 2024

1.2k interviews found

8 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: The test was conducted by cocubes.com. I didn't even clear the aptitude during the on campus process. It's fairly easy though. Attempt at least 13 questions. I think the cut-off was around 10. Around 450 students passed this barrier.

Round: case study
Experience: Some details were provided about a pharmaceutical company. We were expected to write down 3 questions that we deemed important regarding the details provided. Also we were to ask 3 additional questions that would give additional details about the problem statement. (10 minutes). These two rounds were combined and then there was an elimination. Around 100 people cleared these rounds.

Round: video synthesis
Experience: A video featuring Mr.DhirajRajaram (CEO of Mu Sigma) was screened. In the video, he explained the core values of Mu Sigma. We were expected to synthesise the video. Write down three main points about what we got from the video.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: Our GD was initially based on the video itself. After 10 minutes, our monitor gave us a new topic- Iron Man vs. Super Man. 3 from 8 people were selected. The selection was based on the quantity as well as quality of the matter you spoke. Again, these 2 rounds were combined and then an elimination. At least 50 cleared this round.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: There are scores given to you based on your performance in each round. So after the GD round, if you pass a certain threshold, you'd have only one interview with the senior HR. I didn't, so had to go through 2 interviews. My 1st interview lasted for 65-70 minute. The other half of my interview was based entirely on my resume. Questions about my experience as the Head of Finance for IETE and Udaan'14 were asked. I had to tell him in great details about what did I actually do. What did I learn from my experience and would you recommend your juniors taking up such positions.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I had to wait for 3 hours for the final interview confirmation. The last interview was a kind of a formality I suppose. Questions like tell me about yourself and my hobbies were asked. Then again resume based questions were asked. I was asked to ask some questions about the company. (Always ask). I asked two questions and I was done.

College Name: IIT MADRAS
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5 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: It consisted of 20 questions primarily on C (What will be the output/error types). 3-4 of these questions were on basic logic, data structure, operating system etc.  30 minutes were given, which everyone found adequate. The test was not very difficult since I was thorough with books such as . Two codes were to be written, compulsorily in C. Both the questions were directly taken from the book Cracking. Question 1: A sorted array is given, but it is rotated an unknown number of times. Find an element in this array. Time complexity should be log(n).  Array example:  15, 17, 19, 50, 1, 2, 6, 8. I did not know how to do it. I tried a modified binary search but it did not work for all cases. So I just used a normal for-loop (Linear Search)Question 2: Find the in-order successor of a node in a binary tree.
Duration: 30 minutes minutes
Total Questions: 20 questions

College Name: IIT MADRAS
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7 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

  • Q1. How I would have attempted the first question in round 2
  • Q2. Asked me my interests?
  • Q3. How would you find least common ancestor of two nodes in a binary tree?
  • Q4. How would you optimize it for a binary search tree?
  • Q5. Find a string in a 2D character matrix in any order(horizontal/vertical/diagonal)
  • Q6. How would you identify two nodes that have been swapped in a binary search tree?
  • Q7. Asked me to write a function for reversing characters in a string
  • Q8. Asked me to explain my projects.
  • Q9. A few HR questions about family, achievements, why Microsoft, future pla
  • Q10. Creative Interview

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Duration: 30 minutes
Total Questions: 15

Round: coding
Experience: Write 2 functions(not entire programs) in C language on cocubes.com platform Q.1 Find an element in a rotated sorted array in O(log n) time. For ex. Find 4 in 7 8 9 1 2 4 5 A binary search technique could also do it in O(log n). They wanted an optimized binary sort and so I felt, the question wasn't clear enough. Didn't attempt it and told the interviewer the reason. Q.2  With a parent pointer in every node of a binary tree, find the in order successor of a given node. Solved only the second, but I ensured it could work on all boundary cases. Results of round 2 were declared on the day Microsoft visited the campus.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: How would you find least common ancestor of two nodes in a binary tree? I said you could use two stacks, push nodes as you traverse and then compare when you are popping. He asked me to explain on the whiteboard. I did, but realised there was a problem, I looked at him and he was there, smiling as wide as he could. I asked for 2 minutes, and then gave him a better approach with a stack and a hash table. He seemed satisfied
Tips: Keep talking while you are solving a problem/writing code. This keeps him informed of your progress and if you are lucky, you might receive some help. He repeatedly had been asking me stand up and sit to explain everything on the board. So eat adequately on any interview day.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Asked me to write a function for reversing characters in a string and left the room. I wrote  4 lines of code to swap characters from ends. A vague question it was, he returned and explained what he wanted later. It was his fault but I politely apologized for not understanding the question. Remember: The boss is always right!

He wanted the string to be reversed alphabetically. So if it was "adecb", it should become "edcba". I wrote code. He had a 2-second glance at it, and then asked for an explanation

Round: Other Interview
Experience: A happy two hour discussion-cum-interview on designing another Facebook, all data structures, algorithms that can be used and features, optimisations that could be added. I asked him a few conceptual questions related to his subjects of interest and he answered delightfully. He gave me his email ID to contact him for more knowledge and for a second I missed my heartbeat, coz that might mean he won’t meet again. But results were announced and there he was, shaking my hands with a gleaming smile.

General Tips: Overall, it was a great experience interacting with them. Seemed to be a nice bunch of interesting people, looking for intellectual conversations with students.
Skills: C, C++, Data structures, Algorithms
College Name: IIT MADRAS
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user image Anonymous

posted on 7 Jul 2015

7 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: We had no Aptitude test. Students were shortlisted directly for GD round on the basis of their resume.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: Group Discussion: Groups of approx. 10 were made. Topics given were very general. At the end of GD everyone was asked to conclude individually for 2 minutes.In all 11 were shortlisted for the interviews.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: They asked me about my projects, internship and why I see myself at KPMG. They also asked about my final year project. No technicality, but you should be able to give them a clear idea. What is my role in the project and other general questions.5 were shortlisted for the next round.

Round: Paragraph writing
Experience: Each one of us was asked to write a short paragraph on some random topic.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: It was not an HR round. A person with higher position in the firm usually takes this interview, in my case, it was the Partner. All resume based questions were asked. He asked me about my favourite subjects and few technical questions regarding those subjects. He asked me about my hobbies and achievements.
Tips: Be honest, the company is very particular about it.

College Name: IIT MADRAS
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Interview Questions

user image Anonymous

posted on 7 Jul 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: It was a pen paper test with 50% negative marking. Please attempt wisely as negative marking is high. The time is enough for thinking and attempting 16 questions.
Duration: 30 minutes
Total Questions: 16

Round: Test
Experience: Java code on trees was given with some functions. 6 questions were given and we were asked to answer in one line only Questions were like what is this function doing, if you remove this node how the new tree will look like. The test was tough. Try to attempt each and every questions as there are no negative markings, even if you are close to the answer they will consider. I only attempted 3 out of 6 questions.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: Two puzzles were given and it was asked to give solutions to the puzzle. If you know the solution, try to explain it in detail.I knew both the answers and gave a detailed explanation for it. 2 were selected for the interviews.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The interviewer asked me puzzles; he was looking for my approach on every puzzle. He also asked few basic HR questions.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: It was a pool campus. There were 12 candidates for the Final Round. Interviewer asked me about some questions on the technical quiz of which was taken in the college. Asked me about what have I studied in the previous semester. Asked me to explain a subject in brief like what have you covered in this subject. Few basic questions on that subject. Then a puzzle question for which I took time, I couldn't solve that puzzle but they liked my approach towards solving that. Questions were asked on my T.E. project and the applications of it in real life. Then few HR questions related to why you want to switch to Software Company being an EXTC Engineer.

College Name: IIT MADRAS
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user image Anonymous

posted on 7 Jul 2015

7 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: There was no aptitude test, only resume screening, out of that 120 people were shortlisted.

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: General topics were given. Everyone was praising NAMO so just to stand out, I decided to go against the motion and it worked. The main catch in the GD was each group had 8 members but time allotted for discussion was only 5 minutes so you might get only a few opportunities to speak so prepare solid concrete points so that you stand out from the others, lay them out effectively and you will clear the round easily. After GD 12 people were shortlisted for forensics
Tips: Take the center seat if possible. If you start the discussion, do so with proper topic(it may seem stupid now but people do make mistakes in that as well). Don’t try and dominate from early stages of discussion. Give everyone a chance to speak(not at a cost of your own turn though). Your nature in the discussion(aggressive or a team player) should depend on the type of job description. At the end you should have stated one concrete point don’t just talk without any sense it does not help at all.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: There were no 'ice breaker' questions straightaway tech questions.
Tips: Select one language you want to be perfect at, know the basics of others as well. I had selected C asmy language.In general I was preparing from the standard textbooks (Let us c,Test our C skills and others)Solve each and every problem in the book clear your concepts thoroughly. I preferred leaving the coding part for the later stages of my preparation as I had focused first on clearing my aptitude test and then on my interview(coding was required at the interview and not for aptitude test).

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The interview kept on shuffling between the Tech guy and the HR lady so that was a good sign.5 people were shortlisted after this round.

Round: Other Interview
Experience: Interview with the director. This was a telephonic interview since the director was unable to reach the campus.Most of the questions were repeated from the previous rounds.

General Tips: Your resume introduces you to the interviewer before you do it yourself so work hard onit.DO NOT copy some templates from the internet, design one for yourself. Avoid cluttering it withuseless facts. Design one for each profile accordingly.
Skill Tips: It doesn't matter how good the product is you can't sell it. Your soft skills help you present yourself in front of the recruiters. This cannot be developed overnight, you need to have consistent practice for the GD and the interview. Some of the tips for Interviews: Never Say ‘NO’ or ‘I don’t know’ in an interview, say you don’t remember or are not clear on the concept a direct ‘NO’ places you on the defensive. NEVER LIE, this is an interview not our viva,the person sitting in front of you is much more experienced in spotting liars and much more smart then we are. Show some respect. Prepare the answers to standard questions Be prepared to be grilled on anything and everything on your resume so don’t give false facts in that.
Skills: Soft Skills
College Name: IIT MADRAS
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Engineering Graduate Interview Questions

user image Anonymous

posted on 7 Jul 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: About 40 students are shortlisted from 160 applicants.

Round: Test
Experience: Questions asked for Technical test:1) Finding the thrust of a an engine with given specifications2)Finding the efficiency of a Rankine/ Brayton cycle3) Given a truss structure with loads, and asking to find which elements were under tension which under compression?4) Some question on what kind of bearings to be used5) Some question on how to reduce the stress on a turbine blade- whether to increase the base dimensions or decrease it, something like that

Round: Test
Experience: Questions asked were similar to the example given below-Situation:You are a member of the board of directors and have recently launched a new automobile design and it has become very popular. You are sure that if the design reaches the assembly line, you willhave demand for the next one year.But today your chief engineer comes toyou with a design flaw and says, if the vehicle moves with very high speed and has a head on collision with another vehicle, the fuel tank will dis integrate and come off with fuel leaking.CHOICES GIVEN :a) you can have a small fix, and limit the damage to vehicle moving with a very high velocity, having fuel tank filled more than 3/4th and having only head on collision. This will take a month.b) You can have the complete fix. This will take another 6 months and might change the look of the design

1. what are your first thoughts?2. What choices do you have?3. what are your actions

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Questions will be asked mostly to test your knowledge in topics of propulsion, materials.

Sample questions:1-How do you test the safety of particular product  2-Related to propulsion - shown a diagram engine and required to explain functioning of each part, hints will be abundant(difficult)  3-Stressconcentration and load distribution on a sheet with hole and also over a wing

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Questions related to resume, team work capabilities and also regarding PORs taken.Sample question: Situations like conflict aroused in your team.Brief some situations where you have faced some critical situation and how you dealt with it and questions regarding projects and your internship were asked.

Skill Tips: Preparation topics : Propulsion,Basic,Mechanical basicstuff related to bearings and tolerance,Product Design and General knowledge about Jet engines and their industries.
College Name: IIT MADRAS
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Engineering Graduate Interview Questions

user image Anonymous

posted on 6 Jul 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: About 40 students were shortlisted from 160 applicants and this was based on cutoffs for CGPA(10th & 12th Exam).

Round: Test
Experience: Comprehensive Test was of about 20 minutes questions consisting of a situation to be managed. Technical round had Completely
MCQ’s on topics like propulsion and materials and the final test was on data interpretation with a set of 60 questions.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Questions
were asked mostly to test your knowledge in topics of propulsion, materials and related
to your projects worked in institute and finally on some data interpretation.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Questions
related to  resume, team work
capabilities and also regarding PORs taken were asked and a  situation was given and we had to explain how we deal with it.

Skill Tips: Preparation topics for ROLLSROYCE are-Propulsion,Basic Strength of Materials,Mechanical basic stuff related to bearings and tolerance,Product Design and General knowledge
about Jet engines and their industries. Having extra credentials like being a head of a club or core which shows leadership and team managing skill will help.
College Name: IIT MADRAS
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7 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: Some companies don’t make any strict regulations regarding the language in question, but Microsoft always goes with C/C++. The questions are similar to what you would find in books like “Let us C”. Questions regarding pointer manipulation, predicting the output, pre-order postorder increment decrement, structures, arrays formed the majority. · These are their favourite areas of computer science that they choose to focus on. That being said the questions asked in this section were quite few. Maybe 5 or less than that. Questions regarding like memory allocation in OS, preferred data structure for a particular application, properties of database management systems made it in.
Tips: 1.   While preparing for the aptitude, sharpen your C skills. Give second preference to OS, DBMS and DSA. 2.   Get extensive practice in the most common types of C aptitude questions and give regular online tests. 3.   Cover what you can in OS, DBMS and DSA in the time that remains.
Total Questions: 30 MCQs

Round: programming round
Experience: Once you clear the aptitude you become eligible for the programming round. This round has two questions meant to be solved in C. The focus is on the following aspects and in this particular order:CorrectnessOutput is correct for the given test cases Completeness Output is correct for all the test cases Time Complexity The program has the specified time complexity or less Space Complexity The program does not occupy too much excess space
You don’t have to write the entire programs just the necessary functions to perform the tasks given. The results were declared after a few days when Microsoft visited.
Question1 - Find an element in a rotated sorted array in O(log n) time. For ex. Find 4 in 7 8 9 1 2 4 5 
Question2 - With a parent pointer in every node of a binary tree, find the in order successor of a given node. I solved both of these questions, yet my solution for the first one used some amortized amount of time (amortized time is time that is not significant enough to affect the order, that is log n, but it is not too insignificant to be ignored as constant) more than the required time constraint which had me worried a little
Tips: Work on getting at least the right answer, worry about the run time and space complexity later. Even people who could get just the right answer made it to the wildcard round

Round: case study round
Experience: People who barely managed to get their output right in the last round were eligible for this round. I don’t have details about how this round was conducted since I wasn’t part of it but it is pretty standard procedure, the same kind of GD or case study that happens in most companies

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Keep it real. Say stuff that is good about you AND makes you a good candidate for the job. You never have more than 3-4 minutes for such questions so focus on conveying what is most important. After general introductions, I talked about how passionate I am about programming and technology in general, how I didn’t just see it as a subject or a career option but something that I enjoyed doing and have successfully used in my daily life. Talk about what values and work ethics you believe in. End it with what qualities you have as a person or as a possible employee. Please note that you should not leave the interviewer on just your words to believe on. Give short descriptive examples to support what you are saying but don’t go on telling long boring stories I gave the required answers. I am not elaborating on this part since this is something that you can answer just by knowing your stuff. It was nothing out of the ordinary but it wasn’t all that easy. DSA and DBMS were among my favourite subjects so I did pretty well.  I wrote the code since I had actually made the application. This is an important question where he was testing whether I told the truth or not earlier. So whatever happens do not lie or make up even a single detail while explaining something, you never know what might come back to haunt you Write code for designing the ADT (Abstract Data Type) for all the classes that might be required to represent the game of chess Me: This was the kind of question that I wasn’t expecting. Also the reason I got this question was that I had mentioned chess in my hobbies. So keep in mind every small thing you put in your resume matters a lot. He allowed me to choose my language of choice so I began with Java and then I did the important part.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Why Microsoft?- Give some answer that is well thought and prepared beforehand.
You left Barclays for Microsoft? -Basically what they wanted to know here is that I don’t have the same plans for Microsoft. I told them Barclays was an investment bank and while I was fortunate to get a chance to work in that great environment I want to start my career in a product based company so Microsoft (Microsoft is becoming a service based company now BTW) Note: If you have done internship somewhere else and have rejected an offer from there, say only good things about your previous employer. Anything else will reflect badly on you.   
What makes you better than you colleagues? - Whatever nice things you can say about yourself, everything comes here. Don’t, however mention the negative points of your colleagues, in hopes of making yourself look good. It will only make you look bad. 
Write the artificial intelligence logic in code for your Chess representation- Now the fact that this question was asked in HR rather than Tech should give you an idea about the real purpose of this question. When this question was asked we didn’t even have AI as a subject yet. The interviewer knew beforehand that I could not code this. He wanted to see how I would handle it. So after thinking for a few minutes I decided to draw flow charts and map out scenarios

College Name: IIT MADRAS
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user image Anonymous

posted on 5 Jul 2015

7 Interview Rounds

Interview Questions

  • Q1. How would you find whether a number is even or odd without using any conditions?
  • Q2. Implement a dynamic 2D excel sheet using DS (underwent various levels of improvisations)
  • Q3. A build up that resulted in the concept of using joins in DBMS
  • Q4. Discussed the concept of virtual memory and paging in OS

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: There was negative marking for these questions (+4 & -1) and the number of questions in the second section were more (10 and 20 respectively, I think).The second part of the test was a Coding Round, online. We were given 3 problem statements to be solved in 45 minutes and the programming languages allowed were C, C++ and Java. However you are required to use the same language for Part 1 (Technical Skills) and Part 2 (Coding Round). So make sure you know any one language in its entirety. I hadn’t touched anything apart from C. The questions were essentially based on data structures.
Tips: Word of caution: Be wise in designing your strategy to solve questions, there always IS a sectional cut off and the competition is cutthroat.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: -1 was pretty much basic, probably just for them to find out whether you know everything that you claim to know. I was asked questions on the basics of C, Data structure implementation, DBMS AND OS. Sounds daunting, but it really wasn't. My panellists were really cool about giving me all the time in the world to think about my answers, they'd even roll their chairs to the corner of the room and chit chat when I'd ask them to stop looking at me. Not a recommended course of action for you guys, because you might get really badass panellists who might want to take a stress interview and using this would probably get you a ticket to take you directly out of the building. But the point is that you don't need to panic when you're asked a question that you don't understand AT ALL. It is probably just a coating of shiny silver on a very basic problem. ALWAYS remember to restate the question as you understood it to make sure that you're on the right track. If you're right you get a bonus for being able to analyse well. If you're not, they will make you understand and you won't spend 15 minutes of your interview time solving a misinterpreted question.

Round: Group Activity
Experience: This is subject to change every year, but for ours we had the one with the Lego toys

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: This round was perhaps the most difficult of all, with gruelling technical questions that I couldn't make head or tail out of. But they were satisfied with a broad outlook to the number of solutions and the different ways to approach the problem. They asked me a little about how my day had been till then and for improvisations on the answers to the questions I was asked in the previous rounds. I was also asked a question about synchronization that I answered with my knowledge of embedded systems. They were really interested in how I applied unrelated knowledge to solve a problem that I would otherwise not be able to answer. This was the end of TECH-2 which made me believe that I had screwed up entirely and that I was out for sure.

Round: PRO FIT ROUND
Experience: I went in to my ProFit round with an "I-should-really-have the-best-time-with-this-thing-since-it-is-all-down-the-drain-anyway" attitude, but really, I think that is just what you're expected to do anyway. :) This ended up being the coolest round of all and I had the time of my life for those 30 minutes. My interviewer asked me ALL the general questions you expect in an HR, and I answered them all very, very truthfully and with really long explanations :P The guy was a veeeeery keen listener and caught on to each and every one of my indications. He let me talk about practically everything, from my very hippie-like outlook of life to the most silly bets I have placed, ever. And the best part was that he was always interested, poker-face like, but always waiting patiently for more exemplifications. Don't bother trying to make up achievements you haven't really made, because they don't care about how accomplished you are, more like how zestful you are, and it probably shows when you're talking about things that you love. Long story short, talk your heart out, they hardly speak in all of those 30 minutes. Let them know that you really ARE passionate about the things that you do.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The next round that I was immediately ushered into was my HR. Now, I probably felt what I did because I had talked a LOT in my previous round, but I really thought this round was predominantly precursory. My interviewer was one of the big shots of the day, but he hardly asked me any questions that could qualify as HR. This person was the only one from all of my interviews who was even remotely rigid, but that too only marginally. He was ultra-friendly again by the end of the interview. This might vary case by case, but he only asked me things like my comfort with relocation and what I aimed to achieve in the next 5 years. At the end of the interview, he kid around a little and escorted me to the waiting room.

College Name: IIT MADRAS
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