Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur

Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

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

Updated 27 Dec 2024

408 interviews found

user image Abhilash Mittal

posted on 25 Mar 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: Pretty easy, can potentially be a counting factor in the final selection process
Tips: Try your best at it, and learn along.
Duration: 1 Week minute
Total Questions: 3

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Definitely the deciding factor for your selection.
Need to prepare thoroughly the problems based on the basic concepts of Algorithms and Data Structures
Tips: The assignment can be your first step towards this process

Round: Test
Experience: A really basic and straightforward aptitude test. No need to ace it, just do your best

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Definitely not a deciding factor, really simple information gathering HR questions

Skills: Data Structures, Use of IDE Eclipse, JAVA, Algorithms
College Name: IIT KANPUR
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user image Ankit Silaich

posted on 24 Mar 2015

2 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: My resume included 12 websites which I have produced during my four years and also reflected some back-end skills.

I was shortlisted in last 55 students for the software developer profile.
Tips: If you are targeting the front-end or back-end profile, then include your projects in the resume.For the front end profile you should have knowledge of intermediate javascript and MVC frameworks.

General Tips: Revise all your material and basic concept of front-end skills to crack the interview round. You should be able to deliver on basic concepts. Questions at interview are a bit tricky, as they don't ask the simpler ones.
Skills: javascript, angular.js, backbone.js, jquery, html, css, php
College Name: IIT KANPUR
Motivation: Housing is a fast growing startup and for someone like me, it's a dream come true.
Funny Moments: They don't consider the CPI during the shortlisting if you have done significant work in that profile. I was selected in housing at 5.2 CPI and I have also answered  many questions incorrectly. The interview process is very classy and you will enjoy it :)
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user image Himanshu Pandey

posted on 24 Mar 2015

2 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: My resume was shortlisted only twice but thankfully that was all I needed. First for Deutsche Bank (Corporate Finance summer internship, August 2013) and second for Boston Consulting Group (October 2014). I was confident about my academic interns, projects and position of responsibility. However, I was little bit unsure about my CPI which doesn't stand well among my peers. Overall, my experience for resume shortlisting has been plain and uneventful.
Tips: In order to overcome this section, one can find the following advice useful:Your resume should convey a story about you. At least, you should be able to narrate a story about yourself during HR interviews. When I say 'story', it means that your resume points shouldn't contradict each other. For example, if you are/(show in your CV) a research oriented student, then every POR you took should be justified and shouldn't reflect that you were simultaneously interested in pursuing corporate career. There should be at least one pillar in the resume which can catch the interest of the interviewer (obviously during the short listing because I believe resume isn't of much use during the personal interview).Stringent Editing ( CV 101) - Minimize the blank spaces and resume should look ordered; Things important to you (Foreign internship/positions of responsibility/summer internship/publications) should be mentioned in the 1st half of the page. You can change the order of the heading (Scholastic Achievements/Position of responsibility/Summer Internships/Publications).If you have more than 2 points under a sections then it's better to use tabular presentation format i.e. use tables Usually, I have noticed in many shortlisted CVs that it would be beneficial to show your interest in particular subject either via 'Courses undertaken/Area of interest/Academic projects'.
Get your resume reviewed by at least 3-5 distinguished seniors excluding Placement cell guides etc. It is of utmost importance.

Skill Tips: Case in point is best for Case study. Guesstimate problems can be easily found on internet. However, I learnt guesstimates from my wing mates and it was the shortest way to gain the knowledge
Skills: Case study Solving, Leadership, HR skills, Finance Current affairs, Guesstimation, Macroeconomics
College Name: IIT KANPUR
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user image Anonymous

posted on 24 Mar 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: A good core related resume helps a lot.

Round: Test
Experience: Some basic aptitude practice is useful for clearing the online test.
Tips: If you apply for thermal profile, study the basics for Heat and Mass Transfer, the dimensionless constants (Re, Pr, Bi, Nu), and viscous fluid flow (Boundary layer/ Turbulent flow) for online test

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Asked typical questions famous for the HR interviews.
Tips: Don't fail to read your thesis and various other internships that you have done. Many questions will be asked from them. Especially preparing for HR rounds for the companies like GE, will help you get an edge over the other candidates. Don't mention or even hint at higher studies. Display interests in EEDP programs and also in the company. Don;t loose heart and always be confident.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: first round involved me explaining my thesis and answering some weird abstract questions regarding an infinite number of points vortices in a line. I told the interviewer that I was unprepared for thermal questions  although I did very well in the other two questions asked

College Name: IIT KANPUR
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user image Anonymous

posted on 18 Mar 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: DB directly shortlisted from resume. There was no test. After the initial shortlisting procedure, I had a months time to prepare.
Tips: I had started preparing for my resume from August when SPO had asked to send in master resume. After making a rough draft I had sent it to a lot of seniors from my department who were placed in different companies and edited it accordingly.

Round: Test
Tips: I had used the material from T.I.M.E and also from CL to prepare for it. Also,there were some classes arranged by SPO and CL which I had joined.

Round: Group Discussion
Tips: I did not prepare much for the GDs. I just participated in 3-4 mock GDs organized by the placement preparation cell.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I had prepared all my interns and projects along with the courses written in the resume. I had prepared my answers from all the basic questions which are generally asked in an interview and was very thorough with them. I had also gained sufficient knowledge about the work profile of DB along with all major deals in the past year. Specially, for DB's interview I had also prepared for the current affairs by reading newspapers daily for about 3 months and also kept up to date about some major happenings in and around the world such as Syria happening, US shutdown, crisis and bubbles, etc.


I had my interview scheduled at 6:30 in the morning with DB. My first interview went really well and the person told me that I should definitely see the next panel.
Tips: Please do not write those courses in your resume which you found tough as it will create problem at the end moment when you have to prepare so much.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: My second interview was fine and most of the questions were from current affairs and my resume. They also asked me to guesstimate in this interview.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: In my third interview  I messed up some economics related concepts.I thought they wouldn't like me but I was called again

Round: HR Interview
Experience: My fourth interview also did not go well but then somebody from the HR hinted that they liked me for a certain profile and would want to know my take on that.

General Tips: Be yourself and give your best shot. Have faith in yourself. Do not panic.
College Name: IIT KANPUR
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user image Aditya Gupta

posted on 9 Mar 2015

4 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: I had a pretty difficult group with all the stalwarts of the batch in a single group discussion as mine. However, the vagueness of the topic evened out everything. It was 5:30 in the morning and I could clearly see people making stupid mistakes in the group discussions. In the 15 min GD, I just gave 3-4 good points and pointed out a few errors and digressions in the GD and I went through easily. The strength of GD was 12 students.
Tips: First and foremost, you can't get bogged down in a GD. That is NOT an option. You have to speak and speak sense. In a high pressure situation like that of placements, there is high likelihood of the GD becoming a fish market but then that's the perfect opportunity to be  moderator and earn points. It might seem impossible but if you just un-follow the general herd the rest of it is going to be pretty clear. Watch a few good soap/movie characters before you get into a GD. The temporary effect of these would be enough for you to last in a GD.
Duration: 15-20 minutes

Round: Stress Interview
Experience: This is one of my Interviews with Credit Suisse at IITK in Dec'12. There were two interviewers and it was supposedly a stress interview. In my opinion the most interesting interview is a stress interview which in IIT's was I think made most popular by Future's First. At first they were not so common but these days they have become quite common. Here is my experience:

Gentleman Interviewer: I don't have much time for greetings take your seat and give me your resume and introduce yourself in not more than 30 secs. from now.

To this I gave my prepared answer which every aspirant prepares for placement.

Lady Interviewer: Your resume is full of research. Please give me a good reason why do you want to work for a finance firm and please tell me you have some knowledge of finance or are you just another engineer? You got 120 secs for this.

Me: I wont take 120 secs ma'm. I never got an opportunity to expand myself into finance either through courses or practical learning. I did my best in whatever opportunities I got. I am also telling you that I dont know anything about finance. I didn't bother to read up at the last minute so that I could impress you. Half-knowledge is anyways dangerous. I rely on your comprehensive training program to give me the required tools in finance. All I can tell you is that I do well in whatever is given to me be it making tea or trading millions. (All prepared answers based on resume which generally students prepare for commonly asked q's)

Gentleman Interviewer: How are you so sure you will get to our training programme?

Me: I am not sure about getting there but what I am confident of is the fact that once I go through it I will be an asset for Credit Suisse.

Lady Interviewer: What is the best thing you like about CS?

Me: The fact that we are asked to work almost 12-15 hrs. a day. I only wish to learn as of today and can't sit free. The life I have lived at IITK, this is a perfect continuation and in accordance to what I want for myself.

LI: There are 5 different bags of gold coins. All of them have 10gm gold coins except for 1 which has gold coins of 9gm. Using 1 measurement identify the bag.

Its a general puzzle which I had already seen so I explained it to her.

GI: You already knew this didn't you? Why did you waste our time?

Me: I wasn't trying to show you that I can solve this but I was trying to show you how I would talk to a client and give him information that he/she already knows which happens a lot in this profession.

GI: Okay 20 secs. How do you kill a giraffe?

Me: I cut his knees and leave him to bleed to death.

LI: So you are a liar and a murderer too. Just kidding am not really amused that you magaed to answer that one so quickly.

Me: I believe in having a killer instinct not really murder tricks.....

After this the lady started smiling a bit finally but the gentleman was still not in a mood to let me go. He took my resume and crumbled it and threw it on my face.

GI: That ws a piece of scrap for me so I threw it at you as I wasn't very happy with it. You have one last chance. Sell that piece of paper to me in the next 120 secs.

I panicked a bit but then started.

Me: Sir, this piece of paper is one of the best qualities you will find at the most reasonable rate. Its various uses even include writing on it with a ball point pen which you can get along with this by just paying a rupee extra. You can write a letter to your loved one on this, enclose some rose petals into it and throw it on your supposed girlfriend like old bollywood style and just win her over all for just 5 rupees!
(Both the interviewers seemed to be of the age group 25-30. Keeping that in mind I took a hunch and gave such an answer. It actually worked! Both of them couldn't resist their smiles)

LI: Can you do it a little more professionally and less dramatic?

Me: Ma'm I see you have a fountain pen. Can I borrow it? (She gave it to me)

I took the fountain pen and blotted the whole scrambled piece of paper with the ink. As a result of which a beautiful design came out on it luckily.

Me: Now if I put a frame to this will you buy it for a meagre amount of Rs. 30? (She nodded) As you see ma'm, I have used a paper worth 25 paise, Ink worth 2.50 rupees and I will put this paper in a frame of say 20 rupees which brings my CP to 22.75 and I will sell it to you for 30 rupees thereby earning a profit of 30% myself and make a buisness out of it if you throw more pieces at me. I added value to the scrap you gave me and explained my profit on it, I hope that makes it a little professional!

Finally both of them started smiling and told me that they were impressed. Then we had a general converstion where they explained to me that I need to contact them off-campus as they want to hire me for some other post which they haven't advertised in the on-campus recruitments. But I recieved an offer from Schlumberger in the evening and according to SPO rules I couldn't go for CS then. So I had to give up. But it was the most interesting interview I ever blasted. It even bettered the ones I had during the hospi interviews in my first year!
Tips: Within 2-5 minutes you will realize whether you are in a stress interview or not. Once you realize its a stress interview, you need to calm down and realize that its not necessary to give satisfactory answers to every question(in case you do that you know you are selected!), keep smiling and break the interviewer down because that is when you will win and truly crack it. Take deep breaths, slow down the time, take as much time as you want and not as much being given to you. Nothing is binding. In case you know its a stress interview impending get into a personality mode where you become super confident even when you don't know everything. That'll help.

General Tips: Its not the bookish knowledge that you are tested on. Sometimes its just about who you really are!
Skill Tips: Keep calm and respond sensibly like you always do.
Skills: Calmness, Patience, Responsiveness, Communication
College Name: IIT KANPUR
Motivation: Interest in working in the finance domain
Funny Moments: I went into the interview straight out of 36 hours of being awake. There was a different kind of hormonal flow insomnia has and I was high on Ironman movies. It all combined to give a lethal combination. I never expected to crack the interview but I still did somehow and the funniest part is I never joined.... :)
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user image Anonymous

posted on 5 Mar 2015

3 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Resume is the candidates face before the interview. All the things that he/she wants to communicate should be communicated well and in an organized manner. Giving excessive and irrelevant information doesn’t heed well with the company and the recruiting staff. For, non-core jobs a long resume is not necessarily a good resume. They generally prefer a short and concise resume giving only the details relevant to the job profile being offered. For example, for a post of Business Analyst giving a long list of technical and course projects will not help the candidates cause. I personally focussed a lot on Position of Responsibilities and extracurricular activities, especially those showcasing my leadership and oratory skills.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The first interview began with some questions about me. The interviewer asked me to tell something about me and my hobbies. Then he moved on to my resume and asked questions related to my intern and the PORs I had held and asking me to give a brief description about the duties involved. These questions were basically to ease me into the interview. Then he asked the routine interview questions like why consulting, why not a core job, what makes you think you are suited for this job. He asked me to relate some incident that showcased my leadership and teamwork skills. After the HR part, he gave me a case study. I was asked to estimate the market size of the bulbs market in India. It was an easy enough case study and I asked a lot of questions like whether I have to estimate for commercial and domestic both, for bulbs and CFL both etc. The catch in the question was to consider the replacement ratio for the bulbs and CFL.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: The second interview also had a similar beginning with the routine questions. Then he moved on to case study which was a number crunching problem. He gave me almost no details and just narrated the situation. I had to as all the questions probing for the numbers and the data. The case went on as he kept elaborating the case with new additions.

Also, the interviewer was senior partner in the firm and I felt that I had made a genuine rapport with him. I felt free and asked him a lot of questions about his job, the job profile and how important an MBA degree is for the future. He explained me the details and I had a very healthy communication with him.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: This one was pretty short and quick. The interviewer decided to ask me questions about my hobbies. We discussed about Hollywood movies, actors, football and my other interests. We both shared an interest in Hollywood movies and we had a nice time discussing the merits of my favourite actor, MORGAN FREEMAN. Then he gave me a puzzle. There are 25 horses and only 5 can race in one race. I had to determine the fastest three horses in the minimum number of races (the answer is 7. Try it out. It’s not very tough). I was not able to solve the puzzle on my own but he guided me with various clues and finally I was able to complete the puzzle with his help.
Tips: Be prepared with the routine answers but don’t mug them up. Remember them in points and elaborate them as you go through the monologue. Answers to questions like why consulting and why should we hire you should be prepared very well. Prepare these answers yourself and don’t mug up some standard answers. The interviewer will know when you do that. Prepare some questions of your own about the job and the company and ask them to the interviewer when he gives you the chance. Don’t get nervous if you can’t get some question but instead try a new approach or ask for help.

General Tips: Focus a lot on extracurricular and PORs in the resume but at the same time keep it balanced. Prepare for case study interviews and puzzles. Be through with your resume and why you are there for the interview. Getting selected for the interview means you have an equally good opportunity as anyone else, so be confident.
College Name: IIT KANPUR
Motivation: The major information about the company was obtained from the pre-placement talk held by the company at the college campus. Also I talked to some of my seniors working there and in other consultancy firms as business analyst to get a feel about the profile and job description. Also enquiring about the attributes that the company majorly looks for from the seniors helped a lot.
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3 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: There was written test in the very beginning of the selection process. It had questions from logical reasoning, quantitative aptitude and electronics. It had questions from microprocessor and many other electronics topic. Thereafter there were the interview rounds.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: There were 2 rounds in which they asked me both HR questions as well as core field related question. They asked me to describe myself as well as tell them about my strengths and weaknesses. They also asked me about working in the southern part of India and my views on relocation.

On the technical side they asked me the following questions:

1) Design of D-latch from 2*1 mux?
2) XOR gate using minimum number of NAND gates?
3) Shift registers connections to get a particular sequence?
4) Use of Accumulator in processors like 8085?

In general the interview was more focussed on the technical side with the HR side just to make sure I will be a good fit in the company.

College Name: IIT KANPUR
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user image Anonymous

posted on 28 Feb 2015

3 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: Round 1: Online objective test.
There were questions from Operating Systems, C, Algorithms, Data Structures.

Round 2: Online and subjective (choose language C++ or JAVA). This round had 15 questions.
Data structures, C++ questions, Fibonacci optimisation, algorithms (DFS/BFS).

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: In the first round of interview they asked me questions about :1) My project (asked no. of classes and mention their responsibilities).
2) ACID properties of database and indexing in a database.

There were also questions related to OOPS concepts including polymorphism, composition, aggregation, inheritance, Abstract classes, interface; difference between usage of abstract class and interface, can abstract class be instantiated, how to access child class methods having reference of base class.
There was another question on run time and compile time binding and under which category do we classify method overloading and also questions on code for deleting the duplicate nodes in a sorted link list and printing root to leaf paths in a binary search tree.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: This was the second round of the interview. They asked me the following questions,There is a tree (not binary) and all non-leaf nodes are RED in colour. Some leaf nodes are white in colour. If a node has all white coloured children then its colour can be changed into white. So we have to convert maximum number of nodes into white colour – write program for the same.
Code for checking whether a given binary tree balanced or not.
What are virtual functions, what is their role?
Questions related to virtual functions.

You are given the details of each transaction of each item i.e. item_name, quantity, price. So at the end of the day, you want top 50 items that have been sold. There are two cases:
In the first case you have fixed number of items.
In the second case very large number of items – so you need to decide what data structure to be used for this.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: In the third round of the interview they asked questions like :
1) Types of tree traversals (breadth first and depth first (pre, post, in)
2) Determining width of binary tree i.e. using breadth wise traversal
3) Why files are preferred over databases?

College Name: IIT KANPUR
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user image Vishnuvardhan Reddy Kotte

posted on 21 Feb 2015

5 Interview Rounds

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: There were questions on general aptitude like work and time, probability, and some questions were on data interpretation, coding and decoding, etc., most of the questions were very simple...but I felt the data interpretation questions to be a bit tricky (completely my opinion though).. ON THE BASIS OF THIS TEST THEY SHORTLISTED ROUGHLY 15 OUT OF 150 (again a rough figure)
Tips: Manage your time wisely...start with the type of questions you feel comfortable...try to attempt all the questions....improve your speed while practicing.
Duration: 45min minutes
Total Questions: 45

Round: Test
Experience: We were given 3 questions to solve in 30 min duration.Later we were told to walk them through our solution . Two of them were on probability(one random variables and the other on basic probability) and one was on estimating the area of an irregular figure , given some tools.
Tips: Get all the doubts regarding the questions clarified .As you have to explain your solution, it would be helpful if you could pen down all the steps clearly ( as it shows them that your thought process is an organised one). Use pictorial representation if needed. When they propose some other method be open to it and be open to any method they propose and be clear with the method you adopted. Even if you didn't arrive at the final answer, try to communicate your idea on solving the problem( most of the times they will listen to what you say).
Duration: 30min minutes
Total Questions: 3

Round: Other Interview
Experience: They were basically looking for quantifiable factors...so think of some quantifiable factors like the number of Times they are available to you in a day and the number of service providers they engage with. etc.,
For the second question again use quantifiable factors which make sense.
Tips: They patiently listened to what I said . So, be calm and don't be in a haste.

Skill Tips: Be a bit quick while solving the Aptitude questions....Know about the company before you go in for the interview process....No need of any prior knowledge in R language ...They just tested my Willingness to learn new things.
Skills: Aptitude Skills, Communication Skills, Structured thought process, Out of the box thinking, Basic programming skills ( very basic)
College Name: IIT KANPUR
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