IBM Software Engineer Interview Questions and Answers for Freshers

Round: Test
Duration: 1 hour
Total Questions: 36

College Name: Swarnandhra college of engineering and technology

Round: Test
Experience: Quant, Sequence series, Basic mathematics
Each question was given a specific time after which other question appeared on screen and you cannot go back to the previous question. So this was a bit stressful.
12 people got selected.
Duration: 30 minutes

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: The moderator picked each and every guy and asked him/her to put his/her views, and then time was allocated to debate on the points raised. In total 15 mins GD. No elimination through GD. Basic GD skills were looked for that is ability to speak and to drive the discussion to a positive direction.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Just 1 round of interview. Mostly HR question were asked. Resume based questions were asked. Basically HR questions were asked.

Round: Resume Shortlist
Tips: Interview was basically the criteria for selection. The internship, project POR everything mattered. Co-curricular activities were also asked.

General Tips: I think i was selected because I was able to justify my skill set properly. I gave valid explanations of my skill sets, I was able to justify my internships. Projecting my confidence level was an added advantage. Decide your future i.e. what is your area of interest and then prepare for it.
Having a good POR always help.
CGPA should be above 8.
Have mock interviews with a wingmates.
During internship work properly.
Skill Tips: Prepare for CAT. Quant, Puzzles, Case studies are important. Mock GDs and Mock PIs with wing-mates are very important. Revised all basic courses. All app-mech courses, solved some questions from unsolved section of any text book. Ensure you have mock GDs and mock PIs with wingmates.
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: CGPA above 8.

Round: Test
Experience: Simple quant questions, 2 sections, 20 - 30 min each. Calculators were not allowed.
Duration: 60 minutes

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: 11 members were part of the GD! They were under the impression that students from IITs are usually interested in technology, research and engineering. Your enthu/understanding of what a 'business consultant' does is what is tested in the GD. Just before the GD, they said that they would explain what they meant by "smarter planet". They
confused us by mentioning some technological innovations (like solar power, prosthetic limbs, artificial heart, brain, GPS, etc.) as examples of smarter planet. After the GD, they were able to simply separate those candidates who talked about business consulting from those candidates who got confused and talked about technology.
Duration: 30 minutes

Round: Interview
Experience: 1. The first 3 minutes was just a general talk about my hometown, junior college, etc. ( I think he was also from Andhra)

2. He went through my resume and asked me why I put certain points, like my BITSAT score in there. He also pointed out that there was nothing much regarding sports. I just made defending arguments.

3. He asked me about my teamwork, instances of good and bad teamwork, what I have learned from my experiences of teamwork in IIT. He said that the profile would need me to work in teams with IIM grads and asked me how I could manage.

General Tips: 3 things:1. I had 9.67 CGPA in Management minor and this added weight to my non-core side.2. I did an internship at IMaCS in infrastructure consulting. I was able to put pseud that I worked in teams with MBA grads during that internship and that we worked well. I think I also spoke well about my teamwork in class projects.3. During the GD, I gave a good example of business consulting (something regarding Maruthi Suzuki which I recalled from Marketing Management class). It gave them a strong opinion that I'm into business consulting.
Skill Tips: Practicing early in the semester would definitely help for any kind of placement.
Skills: quant, puzzle solving
College Name: IIT MADRAS
Motivation: I was apping, so I didn't prepare properly. However, I must suggest those who app, (not the ones who are bent on going abroad, but the ones like me, like cats on the wall) to attend all the placement tests and put proper fight during placements. I'm not saying that you should practice quant months earlier or mug up the finance material. (Its great if you can do that too, but I expect you'd be busy with GRE, TOEFL, etc.) I suggest you to finish (or pause) your SOPs and stuff before the third week of November and attend all the companies' tests and get placed early. A good placement is not only a big relief but it also allows you to drop your safe universities and apply to more strong. I didn't attend a couple of tests and regretted it during placements(getting placed on 16th day is not exactly Christmas) Never ever mention GRE or MS or any higher studies, for that matter, in any placement interview if you want to get placed in that company, no matter how friendly or understanding the interviewer might seem to be. (I got rejected in the first round itself in a couple of companies for doing this.)

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: I had sent my resume to the hiring group, Selection through telephonic interviews. I was interviewed by three different research groups  (once by each).
Tips: Factors in decreasing order of importance: CGPA each stage. Ability to explain your projects precisely. Ability to solve ''standard" logarithmic problems.  The way you think and put down your Answer is the most important. The final answer .s not so I important, and they prod you when you think out aloud anyway.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Almost- by default they ask about your previous projects/internships if they are relevant to the group. Ofher questions depend on the group you are interviewed by and your own profile, In my case it was machine learning, text mining etc. I was told about the research problem they were dealing with then and asked f or comments/suggestions/.inputs and a discussion followed.
Tips: Basically these are specialized Interviews so it's good to have sound knowledge of your domain (analytical and application skills are very much required).

Skill Tips: CGPA>9.0, 1f not (like me) relevant work done in the domain and in past internship.A recommendation from the professor is also a good add on.
College Name: IIT Madras