Cognizance Check | Interview with Cognizant Technologies.

     The hat trick ball is always the tough one. I had applied for taking part in the series of off-campus placement programme by Anna University even before the Exterro interview. I couldn’t take part in the Accenture interview which was the first in the series because it coincided with the Exterro one. So I participated in the second drive which was by Cognizant. It was held days before the Pongal festival. I remember calling my dad the day before the interview and telling him about my friends coming to my home. It was the first time and I felt a little uncomfortable about the bringing up the topic. Surprisingly, he agreed and was more enthusiastic than I really was. Then he asked about the interview next day. I confessed my fear of continuing to crack all interviews coming my way even though I had just done that two times. It was overwhelming to go on with an invincible track record. Because as Dr. Abdul Kalam puts it, many really are waiting to tell it’s all just luck if we fail after tasting a few consecutive success.  He just told me it’s ok if I didn’t get selected. That was a huge moral boost.

     Cognizant drive was a little overrated in our college. At least I believed so because they gave us practice to face group discussions. And the process of the drive in itself was also a little different in the way that GD preceded aptitude test. So maybe they were right in training us in GD. One person to be mentioned in particular was the new dean of our department Dr. Prabhu Ram Rajan. He was more enthusiastic than anyone else in making us all excel in the drive. Believe it or not, enthusiasm is contagious.

     Coming to the first day, we were all seated in a make-shift auditorium. There was some formal inauguration for the event and registration of the candidates. All this took more than half a day because there were around 2500 candidates. I met one of my old friends from IMU who also switched to engineering along with me during the registrations. He luckily didn’t get through the interview and I say luckily because he’s now working in Singapore and as of today CTS hasn’t called the selected candidates yet. Everything happens for a reason.

     The group discussion started around 2.30pm if I remember rightly. The HR was a lady who was friendly and she stated that she was bored of technical topics and thus gave us an even boring and such an oldie topic of love vs arranged marriage. She gave us some time to gather our thoughts and called out names and they would then stand up and voice their opinion. I presumed that many would support love marriages and it would be cool and unique if I supported arranged marriages. To my surprise, arranged marriage was most supported. Nor that I was disappointed but I didn’t expect it.

     Another funny moment that happened during the GD was the presence three Vigneshs on the same hall and we were not aware of that. When she first called out Vignesh she read with an initial so it was not a problem. The next time she called out Vignesh, I just stood up and spoke and sat down and there was no one raising a problem. After a while, she called out Vignesh Priyadarshan and I was surprised. I just told her that my turn was complete. Probably she didn’t remember me talking or I didn’t know for what she asked me to do it again. So I just stated in one sentence the summary of what I said earlier and she replied, “Perfect” probably remembering my earlier comment. 3 of us were eliminated at the end of the round and the rest of us were asked to take the aptitude test.

      The aptitude test was as usual quants, verbal etc and the result was announced only that night. I found my name on the list and did my usual preparation for the interview. Additionally, I also contacted one of my friends working in Cognizant and gathered first-hand information. Equipped with all that I went to attend the interview on a day when I should have been home for Pongal if not for the interview. The second day was horrible. I had to wait till 3.30pm for the interview and everything was over by 4.30pm. I helped some candidates by telling them some programming concepts they asked once they come to know that I was from IT background. Rest of the time, I was just doodling on extra copies of my resume. How could I pass a whole day waiting?

     I was finally called in for the technical interview. The questions asked to me were anything but technical. First as usual was the self-introduction and I just grabbed his attention by stating that I did my schooling in 7 different schools and went to show-off my varied course choices and my travel experience. He was pretty impressed. He then asked about the papers I had presented and the project that I was planning to do. He raised a few queries about my paper. I gave convincing answers. That was all. It became the easiest technical I had attended by then.

      Finally, there was an interview with an HR. It was kid stuff. He asked me about myself, my hobbies and location preference. He asked me to sign on a declaration that stated that location is not at all a problem for me. I signed because it never is going to be. The funny thing was he didn’t know what doodling meant when I said that was one of my hobbies.

      After the interview, I started left for my home and reached home the next morning. It was a Sunday and I was on my Pongal leave. I saw the results around noon and was really happy that I was selected. I really felt having accomplished something because 3 in a row is never an easy stuff.