The recruiting process consisted of a total of four rounds:
1) Technical Aptitude and Coding Round Online
2) Two Technical Interview Rounds
3) Managerial Round
4) HR Round
1) Technical Aptitude with Coding Round:
* This round was held online on the Hackerrank platform. The duration of the round was 75 minutes. There was a sectional cut-off for qualifying.
* It contained 25 technical aptitude questions and 2 coding questions. Majority of the questions were on C, C++, and Java with few of them coming from data structures and algorithms and their complexity.
* The coding questions were not the same for all who took the test. I was asked to code the following two questions.
1. Given a string S with its length N (1 <= N <= 5000), find the number of palindromic substrings in the string.
2. Given an API endpoint to a Movie Website which accepts a movie name as a parameter and returns a JSON object containing various information about the movie, print the "total" field that describes how many times the movie name appeared in the database.
The URL to hit was given. For your language of choice(there was no c++ for this question) the libraries needed to perform the operations were already imported.
I passed most of the test cases in the first one. I couldn't do the second one as I didn't remember the API's required to request to an endpoint.
* 19 out of 80 students cleared this round.
* Tips for clearing this round:
1. Be good with OOPS concepts in C++ and Java especially regarding the order of object creation of an inherited object.
2. Practice coding in various online judges like codechef, hackerrank, hackerearth, codeforces etc.
3. Have a good understanding of algorithms and data structures(with time and space complexity).
2) Technical Interview I:
* This was a face-to-face interview with 2 interviewers. Interviewers were friendly and helpful.
* Followed by a quick introduction about myself, the interviewers asked me the language which I was more comfortable with, I choose C++.
* Then, they went through my resume and asked the following questions.
1. write a simple program that takes a number as input and prints its digits in the text format.
* For eg, if the input is 1234, we should output, "the digits are one, two, three, four".
* For the same question, print the answer with the order of digits in reverse.
2. LinkedList, the creation of a node and deleting it. Implement a stack and queue using linkedlist.
* They went through my projects and picked the one randomly and asked me to explain it. I explained the project by describing what it is and the various challenges I faced during the implementation and how I overcame it. Based on the project, they asked me a few modifications and DBMS queries.
* It was followed by a puzzle that went like this.
1. There are rabbits and chickens in a farm but there is no information about an exact count of them. But we know that there are combined 200 legs and 72 heads. Find the number of rabbits and chickens.
I was stuck for a while, then realized it was a simple linear equation after the interviewer hinted.
* In the end, they asked me if I had any questions for them, I asked them about the software engineering process in their company and about how the code gets reviewed and gets into production.
* The interview lasted for about 30 minutes.
3) Technical Interview II:
* Here there was only one interviewer. The interviewer was a bit solemn.
* He looked over my resume and asked me to explain a project which he picked up by his wish.
* Then, I was asked to write the flowchart for the project describing various actions and triggers. After I wrote the flowchart, he asked me to write Java code for how I handled adding an item into the cart in my project. I wrote the code and explained him. He was happy with knowing that I had used a Singleton design pattern for managing the data.
* The interviewer gave me a simple program to write.
1. Given an array of numbers, reverse the order of the first half of the array.
I wrote the program and explained to him the various approaches we can use.
* Towards the end, the interviewer then asked me how comfortable I was with OOPS and to rate myself on a scale of 5, I quoted 3.5 - 4.
* The interview lasted for about 20 minutes.
* Tips for clearing the technical interview:
1. Be thorough with whatever you mentioned on your resume.
2. Know about your projects in and out, and be ready to answer questions related to various aspects of the project. Being vocal and taking a step forward to describe the challenges faced and overcome in the project while explaining will have a positive impact.
3. Be comfortable with Java. This is more of what I felt personally towards the end. They were interested in candidates who had a bit of Java programming experience.
4. Know your core subjects well(OS, DBMS, CN, DSA). Read the prescribed texts. Almost these are subjects around which a technical interview can revolve.
4) Managerial Round:
* There was only one interviewer in this round also. This round was more about testing how much I can think on my feet and how good I fit into their team. As such, the round also consisted of questions that were reserved for HR round.
* I introduced myself and about how I came to be interested in computers and Computer Science and gave them a brief overview of my passion and interests.
* Then I was asked to list the problems that are serious in nature in the society that could be solved using technology. I told her about healthcare and medicine.
* Expanding on the same discussion, she asked me what are the biggest problems plaguing Bangalore. I told her about traffic issue, real estate, lack of proper infrastructure etc.
* Then it was followed by a very long discussion on how I would go about solving the Bangalore Traffic problem. This was quite difficult to properly answer. I thought of all that I could manage and talked about various steps I would take that involved collecting data, doing statistics, finding probability distributions about the traffic at various points in the city and optimizing the signal time etc.
The goal here is not to check if you can actually solve the Traffic problem but is about testing how you approach solution when confronted with problems that are highly unusual and challenging.
The discussion wasn't that smooth as I described, I had my moments of pausing and thinking and coming up with something viable.
* After this, there were HR questions. Few of them were:
1. How good a team player are you? How would you manage a team that you are leading? How do you share the responsibilities among the team members? what would you do if some team members don't perform well?
2. What motivates you? Technology or the problems around which these technologies are built.
3. Where did you learn about SAP? Why SAP? What value will you bring to SAP?
4. How do you manage your learning outside curriculum? What are your hobbies?
It is best to answer these questions with your own real experiences as it adds up a natural touch to your answers rather than making up any stories.
* For if I had any question for her, I asked about how people cope as a fresher at SAP and grow from knowing nothing to making valuable contributions. How would you handle a person who is doing not so well in the team? etc.
* In what felt like the toughest round for me, it lasted for 30-35 minutes.
* Tips for managerial Round:
1. Try to give them a good impression of the kind of person you are and what really makes you.
2. When questioned with something unusual, try your best to explain whatever you can. It will be better if that explanation came from something you learned in the past, it shows that you can apply your knowledge. Don't panic.
5) HR Round:
* One interviewer. Most of the HR questions were asked in the managerial round itself as the previous interviewer was a senior in some respect. So It was easy to reproduce the same.
* quick introduction, interests, hobbies, What do you know about SAP?, why SAP? What social sites are you in? (like GitHub, StackOverflow, online judges), What programming language are you comfortable with? current thoughts about working at SAP?
* She asked me if I was okay to be placed in any of the job locations they were hiring for.
* I asked her few questions about her job as an HR and when she would reject a candidate despite performing well in technical rounds.
* This round was for 15 minutes.
*Tips for HR round:
1. As the final round of your stressful hunt for the job, it is highly critical here not to say something that would put your chance at risk.
2. Be careful in what you let the interviewer know about you, don't say in all craziness the things that would question your hiring.
3. Be polite and humble. They want people with a good attitude. Specifically for one of the questions I asked, the HR told that bad attitude is one of the major reason they reject potential candidates.
Results:
Finally, 4 out of 19 candidates were selected for the company.
Final words:
* start early, prepare well, don't push your preparation too far to the end that later it becomes hard to manage.
* Be polite and respectful to the interviewers. They are hiring you, not the other way around.
* Ask questions when they ask if you have anything for them and be careful in doing so, that shows you are interested in being part of their company
* Good luck and all the best for your future :-)
PS: it's important that you spell SAP as "Yes AP", not "sap". They are a bit particular about it.
#SAP
1) Technical Aptitude and Coding Round Online
2) Two Technical Interview Rounds
3) Managerial Round
4) HR Round
1) Technical Aptitude with Coding Round:
* This round was held online on the Hackerrank platform. The duration of the round was 75 minutes. There was a sectional cut-off for qualifying.
* It contained 25 technical aptitude questions and 2 coding questions. Majority of the questions were on C, C++, and Java with few of them coming from data structures and algorithms and their complexity.
* The coding questions were not the same for all who took the test. I was asked to code the following two questions.
1. Given a string S with its length N (1 <= N <= 5000), find the number of palindromic substrings in the string.
2. Given an API endpoint to a Movie Website which accepts a movie name as a parameter and returns a JSON object containing various information about the movie, print the "total" field that describes how many times the movie name appeared in the database.
The URL to hit was given. For your language of choice(there was no c++ for this question) the libraries needed to perform the operations were already imported.
I passed most of the test cases in the first one. I couldn't do the second one as I didn't remember the API's required to request to an endpoint.
* 19 out of 80 students cleared this round.
* Tips for clearing this round:
1. Be good with OOPS concepts in C++ and Java especially regarding the order of object creation of an inherited object.
2. Practice coding in various online judges like codechef, hackerrank, hackerearth, codeforces etc.
3. Have a good understanding of algorithms and data structures(with time and space complexity).
2) Technical Interview I:
* This was a face-to-face interview with 2 interviewers. Interviewers were friendly and helpful.
* Followed by a quick introduction about myself, the interviewers asked me the language which I was more comfortable with, I choose C++.
* Then, they went through my resume and asked the following questions.
1. write a simple program that takes a number as input and prints its digits in the text format.
* For eg, if the input is 1234, we should output, "the digits are one, two, three, four".
* For the same question, print the answer with the order of digits in reverse.
2. LinkedList, the creation of a node and deleting it. Implement a stack and queue using linkedlist.
* They went through my projects and picked the one randomly and asked me to explain it. I explained the project by describing what it is and the various challenges I faced during the implementation and how I overcame it. Based on the project, they asked me a few modifications and DBMS queries.
* It was followed by a puzzle that went like this.
1. There are rabbits and chickens in a farm but there is no information about an exact count of them. But we know that there are combined 200 legs and 72 heads. Find the number of rabbits and chickens.
I was stuck for a while, then realized it was a simple linear equation after the interviewer hinted.
* In the end, they asked me if I had any questions for them, I asked them about the software engineering process in their company and about how the code gets reviewed and gets into production.
* The interview lasted for about 30 minutes.
3) Technical Interview II:
* Here there was only one interviewer. The interviewer was a bit solemn.
* He looked over my resume and asked me to explain a project which he picked up by his wish.
* Then, I was asked to write the flowchart for the project describing various actions and triggers. After I wrote the flowchart, he asked me to write Java code for how I handled adding an item into the cart in my project. I wrote the code and explained him. He was happy with knowing that I had used a Singleton design pattern for managing the data.
* The interviewer gave me a simple program to write.
1. Given an array of numbers, reverse the order of the first half of the array.
I wrote the program and explained to him the various approaches we can use.
* Towards the end, the interviewer then asked me how comfortable I was with OOPS and to rate myself on a scale of 5, I quoted 3.5 - 4.
* The interview lasted for about 20 minutes.
* Tips for clearing the technical interview:
1. Be thorough with whatever you mentioned on your resume.
2. Know about your projects in and out, and be ready to answer questions related to various aspects of the project. Being vocal and taking a step forward to describe the challenges faced and overcome in the project while explaining will have a positive impact.
3. Be comfortable with Java. This is more of what I felt personally towards the end. They were interested in candidates who had a bit of Java programming experience.
4. Know your core subjects well(OS, DBMS, CN, DSA). Read the prescribed texts. Almost these are subjects around which a technical interview can revolve.
4) Managerial Round:
* There was only one interviewer in this round also. This round was more about testing how much I can think on my feet and how good I fit into their team. As such, the round also consisted of questions that were reserved for HR round.
* I introduced myself and about how I came to be interested in computers and Computer Science and gave them a brief overview of my passion and interests.
* Then I was asked to list the problems that are serious in nature in the society that could be solved using technology. I told her about healthcare and medicine.
* Expanding on the same discussion, she asked me what are the biggest problems plaguing Bangalore. I told her about traffic issue, real estate, lack of proper infrastructure etc.
* Then it was followed by a very long discussion on how I would go about solving the Bangalore Traffic problem. This was quite difficult to properly answer. I thought of all that I could manage and talked about various steps I would take that involved collecting data, doing statistics, finding probability distributions about the traffic at various points in the city and optimizing the signal time etc.
The goal here is not to check if you can actually solve the Traffic problem but is about testing how you approach solution when confronted with problems that are highly unusual and challenging.
The discussion wasn't that smooth as I described, I had my moments of pausing and thinking and coming up with something viable.
* After this, there were HR questions. Few of them were:
1. How good a team player are you? How would you manage a team that you are leading? How do you share the responsibilities among the team members? what would you do if some team members don't perform well?
2. What motivates you? Technology or the problems around which these technologies are built.
3. Where did you learn about SAP? Why SAP? What value will you bring to SAP?
4. How do you manage your learning outside curriculum? What are your hobbies?
It is best to answer these questions with your own real experiences as it adds up a natural touch to your answers rather than making up any stories.
* For if I had any question for her, I asked about how people cope as a fresher at SAP and grow from knowing nothing to making valuable contributions. How would you handle a person who is doing not so well in the team? etc.
* In what felt like the toughest round for me, it lasted for 30-35 minutes.
* Tips for managerial Round:
1. Try to give them a good impression of the kind of person you are and what really makes you.
2. When questioned with something unusual, try your best to explain whatever you can. It will be better if that explanation came from something you learned in the past, it shows that you can apply your knowledge. Don't panic.
5) HR Round:
* One interviewer. Most of the HR questions were asked in the managerial round itself as the previous interviewer was a senior in some respect. So It was easy to reproduce the same.
* quick introduction, interests, hobbies, What do you know about SAP?, why SAP? What social sites are you in? (like GitHub, StackOverflow, online judges), What programming language are you comfortable with? current thoughts about working at SAP?
* She asked me if I was okay to be placed in any of the job locations they were hiring for.
* I asked her few questions about her job as an HR and when she would reject a candidate despite performing well in technical rounds.
* This round was for 15 minutes.
*Tips for HR round:
1. As the final round of your stressful hunt for the job, it is highly critical here not to say something that would put your chance at risk.
2. Be careful in what you let the interviewer know about you, don't say in all craziness the things that would question your hiring.
3. Be polite and humble. They want people with a good attitude. Specifically for one of the questions I asked, the HR told that bad attitude is one of the major reason they reject potential candidates.
Results:
Finally, 4 out of 19 candidates were selected for the company.
Final words:
* start early, prepare well, don't push your preparation too far to the end that later it becomes hard to manage.
* Be polite and respectful to the interviewers. They are hiring you, not the other way around.
* Ask questions when they ask if you have anything for them and be careful in doing so, that shows you are interested in being part of their company
* Good luck and all the best for your future :-)
PS: it's important that you spell SAP as "Yes AP", not "sap". They are a bit particular about it.
#SAP
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