TCS Codevita Interview Experience

Introduction

Today I’ll be sharing with you my first interview experience which was for Tata Consultancy Services ↗️ or commonly known as TCS. Read till the end as I’ll also be sharing important tips and bonus questions which were commonly asked to many of my friends as well during the process.

Codevita Round 1

This first step was to participate in round 1 of the codevita competition. The pattern is quite simple. 6 questions in 6 hours.

How many you have to solve to get the interview call? Only One

I was able to solve 3 questions for the sample test cases mentioned locally but only one of them got selected when submitted the solution for the final check. So after a few weeks, I got the mail for an interview at their office in Thane

Interview Day

The schedule was divided into three sets according to the time availability, my set was the last one which had reporting time @2 PM.

When I reached there, I came to know that the interviews for the first set i.e 8 AM are still going on. So it was safe for me to assume that It will be quite a while for my interview to begin.

8 panels were simultaneously taking the interviews. However, each panel on an average took around 30-45 mins per candidate.

The panel which was going to interview me, took the longest time, on average 45-50 mins each candidate so eventually I had to wait a lot more than most of my friends.

Time was going by and it was around 7 PM when they announced my name from the list of candidates who are going to go next.

Before me, there were 2 more candidates and that’s when I noticed that suddenly the next candidate came out in just 15 mins. First I thought maybe he impressed them quickly and that’s why they ended the interview so soon but the next candidate after him i.e one before me, he came out in just 10 minutes.

It became quite natural as the interviewers were taking interviews all day so they might be rushing as it was already way past the time it should’ve been ended.

So I knew I had very little time to impress and my nervousness just sky-rocketed.

Interview Starts

It started with the basic question, Tell me something about yourself?

I just gave a very brief introduction about myself and continued with giving information about my experience in software development and my work as a freelancer. This conversation continued around 5-6 minutes.

By this time, one person was listening to my answer while the other was going through my resume. From that, he said Explain me any one of the projects you have mentioned here.

I choose the EZLyrics Mobile Application ↗️ as it would’ve been easy to explain given a short time and the modules like search, caching data, offline mode and all those functionalities were possible to show them live on the device.

After I explained the app and its features, they took my mobile and were trying to use the app by themselves.

Meanwhile, the HR asked me Have you really purchased the account and published your app to play-store?, to which I said yes, you can search and use the app if you want.

Now around 12-15 mins were passed and they had returned my mobile after using the app.

A few counter questions asked were like, what technology you used to build this, where is the server hosted, how are you fetching the lyrics, how does your search query works, etc.

I was able to answer all of them and I was quite satisfied with my explanation.

”So here’s your final question Akash”, one of the interviewers said. Tell me, why you want to join TCS and why should we hire you?

I answered, basically if you are also asked this question, you have to say it in such a way that it shows you being part of their organization is more beneficial more for them and to you as well.

After which the HR gave a few instructions about the terms and conditions, I was not asked any HR specific questions by her.

After which I left. A month later I got the email that I have been selected in TCS for the Ninja profile.

TL;DR

I talk about my tcs codevita interview experience, about the whole day scenario from whatever I remember from that day.

Bonus Questions

These are a few questions that I was not asked maybe because I had very little time and most of it was used to discuss the project. However, find these common questions in such interviews

Technical

1. SQL Query and commands (DDL, DML, DCL & TCL)
2. ALgorithmic question (but honestly they asked very basic questions like FizzBuzz, Fibonacci series, etc).
3. ER Diagram.
4. OOPS concepts (Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, and Polymorphism).
5. If you are explaining any of your projects then they may ask to write the code of some logic from the application to check your understanding.
6. Client server architecture (asked to Ronak Jain).
7. OSI layers description in less than 2 sentences for each layer (asked to Ronak Jain).
8. Most used python commands (asked to Ronak Jain).

Non-Technical

These mostly apply when you are interviewing with any Multi-National Company

1. Name of their CEO, CTO, CFO, COO? If you know anyone else then add them to this list as well
2. Latest news about the company you have heard
3. Who founded it? Other stats that you can read on the Wikipedia page for the company
4. Behavioral questions like
   1. Given a situation X, what would you do to solve a problem?
   2. If there is a project which has an upcoming deadline and you know you won’t be able to complete it within the time then what will you do?

See these questions are asked to test how would you respond given any particular situation and are you capable enough to work in their company culture.

PS: If you have faced such questions and want to share, add them in the comment section and I’ll update the blog with those questions mentioning your name.

Conclusion & Tips

• Do not copy code during codevita. Strict warning as they are very serious about the plagiarism check. I remember one of my friends came up with the solution and code and share it with his friend, eventually, both of them did not get selected even though they solved and submitted one question.
• If you are planning for interviews in any of these MNC’s, one thing you must always remember is there will be lots of candidates with whom you would be competing. So think well before giving any answer because most likely you would not get another chance.
• Also you can expect a scenario similar to mine, so be mentally prepared for it.
• Although we were offered some snacks, I would advise you to carry some biscuits or food and water along with you.
• Have any doubts about anything, do not hesitate to ask. It’s a two-way street, it’s not just that you need the job but they also need good developers. Know your worth.

That’s it for this one. I hope you learned something from it. If you liked it then show your love in the comment & reaction section below.

See you in the next one. 🤗