Off-Campus Placement Preparation

Off campus placements can be really tiring and intimidating at times and requires an additional effort of contacting the recruiter and getting shortlisted for the selection process of the company and hence factors like resume building, past work experience, etc. comes into play. 

Major differences between on campus and off campus placements can be found in the articles given below: 

1. Placements (On-Campus, Off-Campus and Pool Campus) 
2. How is On Campus Placement different from off-campus placement? 

Due to intense competition in Off campus placement drives good preparation is very essential covering a wide variety of topics in CS as described below: 
 

1. Work on Resume: HR and Talent Acquisition team spends a very short interval of time scrolling through your resume and hence making an effective resume is very important.

There's no doubt that your resume is the best marketing tool for you to showcase your skills & learnings to employers to subsequently get worthwhile job opportunities. In fact, a well-created professional resume can get you some much-needed edge over other candidates.

2. Coding Practice: Most companies take an online test before proceeding to Interview rounds and hence good coding practice is necessary. 
   
   1. Must do coding questions for companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe. 
    
3. Important Computer Science Subjects you should know : 
   
   • Operating System : Good knowledge of Operating System is important and candidates get lots of operating system based questions asked in telephonic round and face to face interview rounds.
   • Computer Network : Networking based questions are not asked in lot of companies but companies like Cisco, Juniper Networks, Citrix, etc. who work extensively with networks focus a lot on this topic. 
     https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-networks/commonly-asked-computer-networks-interview-questions-set-1/
   • DBMS : Databases are used in almost every company and form a huge segment of the Interviews especially face to face Interviews where you can expect both theoretical questions as well as to write SQL queries and hence good knowledge of databases is very necessary. 
     
     1. https://beginnersbook.com/2015/05/normalization-in-dbms/ 
     2. Commonly asked DBMS questions
   • Pointers : Pointers might play a significant role in MCQs asked in Online tests or as debugging questions in Interview rounds especially when you are applying for a profile which requires good knowledge of C and Embedded C like for companies like Honeywell, Western Digital, Qualcomm, etc. 
     1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-HBipu_1P0&list=PL2_aWCzGMAwLZp6LMUKI3cc7pgGsasm2_ 
      
   • C++ : C++ is one of the most widely used coding language used in lots of legacy companies and hence it's in depth knowledge for lots of companies become crucial, although it can be skipped if you are interviewing for a non C++ profile. 
      
   • OOP Concepts : Object Oriented Programming plays an important role in deciding how a code should be structured and plays an important role in off campus interview starting from telephonic round to face to face interview round and hence should be given it's due importance. 
     
     The Complete Reference Java Book, Chapter (6 - 11).
4. Interview Experience : Read Interview Experiences for the company which you are preparing. GeeksforGeeks provide an extensive collection of Interview Experiences of lots of companies and is best for going through Interview Experiences. 
   1. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/interview-experiences/company-interview-corner/ 
   2. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/interview-experiences/internship-interview-experiences-company-wise/ 
    
5. Resume Knowledge : Last but not the least know your resume well, your projects and internships, example you worked on some security technology like SSL then have good theoretical knowledge on SSL and be in a position to talk about your work experience for a long duration and explain it properly.

Hope this helps, all the best. :)