Internship Season Preparation Guide 2024

This article is very specific to the students in their sophomore year who are prepping for the internship season, which commences at the start of their pre-final year (ie, 5th semester) & may contain some details more relevant to students of NSUT, Delhi. Fortunately, I’ve got a bunch of extremely useful and very comprehensive advice to guide you in your tribulations. So here’s the wisdom I received (and appreciated deeply), bequeathed to you.

Last year, I made an internship preparation guide and sent that in a form of a mail to around 65–70 of my juniors. The response I got from that was amazing, hearing the success stories of many juniors & how that article helped them in their preparation led me to publish the guide in the form of a Medium article.

With that out of the way, here’s what y’all need to focus on.

PS: This is a very long article, but an important one!

Section 1: Resume Prep

Most of you have done that already. Make sure that there are no typos, and that it’s written in single-line points. Try to highlight how you made an impact at places you worked for or the projects you made. Talk in figures — improved efficiency by raising x amount, etc. There are a few examples in the following thread, please read them through. And a ton of advice on Resume Prep. You can always reach out to me or any of your trusted seniors for a quick review (let’s call it to critique for the sake of accuracy). I would recommend writing your Resume in a good Latex template. You do not need to adhere to the TnP format, which is not so pleasing to the eye. Some of the templates that are good for making your resume are:

1. Template 1 — I use and recommend using this one
2. Template 2
3. Template 3

About projects — they do matter a lot if you make it to the interviews. Make sure you have atleast 2–3 of them & they are non-trivial ones that you can explain for 5–10 minutes. Nothing extraordinary is needed.

Section 2: On-Campus Working of TnP

Somewhere down the summer, application forms for Assistant Placement Coordinators (APCs) are going to be opened by the TnP Cell. APCs majorly assist in the day-to-day activities of the Cell — coordinating with their assigned companies throughout the process, management of internship and placement data and overall making sure that the process goes smoothly for both recruiters and potential recruits. Getting selected for the posts of APCs have its pros and cons, however, I wouldn’t recommend signing up for this if you have upcoming major commitments (academic/non-academic) in your 3rd year as the responsibilities of the TnP Cell are non-negotiable and often, you will be required to spend entire days for the process of companies. Nonetheless, make/have friends that are/become members of the TnP Cell as it will benefit you greatly during the entire season. Even though they are not permitted to dispense inside information about the functioning of the TnP Cell, they may occasionally provide you with important information regarding — which company’s process is scheduled in the next few days, whether you have been shortlisted for the next round and whether applying for a company is worth it.

The internship season usually begins in the second last week of July, by then the entire batch must have been added to a Google Group through which all information will be communicated. Hence, make it a habit to check your emails regularly (this means twice a day atleast :)) as you’ll be getting multiple emails with short deadlines very frequently. Believe me, there’s no worse feeling than missing the deadline for filling up the Google Form for a company. Furthermore, the TnP Cell is very particular in its guidelines, deadlines, and information. Whenever you get the email, read it carefully and for god’s sake don’t take them lightly. Scores of people in my batch have been banned from sitting for a few companies in the internship season due to a violation of TnP guidelines.

Section 3: On-Campus FAQ

Q1. How many companies come to NSUT to recruit interns?

A1. About 80–90 came to recruit interns. Some hire as many as 30+ people and some went without selecting even one. On average, a company recruits 4–5 students.

Q2. What is the break up of tech/core/non-tech companies?

A2. Tech: ~70, Non-Tech: ~10, Core: ~10(is less majorly).

Q3. What are the statistics on the stipend offered?

A3. Highest: 2L/month (Sprinklr); Lowest: 0/month; Average: 40k/month

Q4. What are the most common places for posting?

A4. Gurugram, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Noida.

Q4. How long does a company’s recruitment process last?

A4. Most of the companies wrap it under a day and few may stretch to over a week.

Q5. What is the recruitment process like?

A5. It starts with a mail from the TnP Cell detailing all the information about the company including but not limited to: Profile, Stipend, Place of Posting, Branches Eligible, CGPA Criteria, etc. along with a google form that asks for basic information including your CGPA. This is where CGPA shortlisting takes place. Following this is a test (coding/aptitude/technical) based on the profile proffered. Post this, the process consists of 1 or 2 more rounds followed by the interviews. The results are either declared on the spot or communicated later via email/call.

Q6. Do we get attendance for the classes missed due to the internship recruitment process?

A6. Accordingly to the university rules, teachers are not liable to provide you with attendance however almost all teachers do give attendance if you ask them nicely. Furthermore, you can get an application for “Reimbursement of Attendance” signed and verified by the TnP Cell as well for the troublesome ones. Such tactics may not work for some of the even stricter professors in the ECE Department. I always prefer the former method.

Q7. Can we sit for companies even after getting selected?

A7. No, once selected you are not allowed to sit for on-campus internships. The placement policies are a bit different.

Q8. I have a backlog(s). Can I sit for internships?

A8. Up until last year, the TnP Cell didn’t allow 3rd-year students to drop any subjects to calculate their CGPA. Since almost all companies have a 0 backlog eligibility criterion, having one would have effectively barred you from sitting for internships. Furthermore, don’t lose all hope if you have backlogs, some (read: very, very few) companies do allow students with 1 backlog to sit for their process. However, the process and TnP rules may or may not change in this upcoming season. Hence, be prepared.

Q9. How many students finally get an on-campus offer?

A9. In our batch of 1200, about 300 people got an internship offer. So don’t feel disheartened if you don’t get an offer on campus. It is not the end of the world!

Q10. Should I skip a company if it doesn’t interest me

A10. Only if you are very sure of your capabilities. Things go wrong, a lot. And while some companies may not look as good as others from a quick Google search, that’s rarely the whole story. In most cases, if don’t find the role suitable or the stipend isn’t much or the reputation/work-life balance of the company isn’t great, only then I will recommend you skip.

Q11. How much time do I need to put in to be at par with the people giving contests since the first sem?

A11. It depends. The only difference between you and them is implementation skills and speed. Give as long as it takes for you to think and code a difficult question in 20 minutes.

Q12. What CGPA is optimal?

A12. 7.5 is good for almost all companies. 8 is optimal, it’s the cutoff for a couple of good startups. Few companies like Rubric (which didn’t visit last year) have had a cutoff of 9 in the past. But they hate NSUTians so it’s not a good place to go.

Q13. Amazon, Microsoft and Google > all startups. Right?

A13. Wrong. It’s tough to get promoted at MNCs, and little to no independence. Working hours are probably a lot more at startups but so is the potential for growth and learning. It’s much easier to get into a senior position at Google later by first getting a few promotions and proving your worth at CRED, BYJUs or Zomato. In the end, it comes down to your preference.

Section 4: Important Guidelines

1. Obvious, but necessary nonetheless — Always dress formally when going through the selection process. Make sure your clothes are ironed, your sleeves are down, your formal shoes are polished and your hair and nails are trimmed. (Yes, people have been rejected in the interview round for unkempt hair and rolled-up sleeves.)

2. While on-campus internship season is going on, companies also start their off-campus recruitment drive. Hence, keep an eye open for such opportunities as well. Check out the “Work with Us/Student/Career/Jobs” pages for the companies in the field you want to work in and keep trying for off-campus drives as well. There’s a whole section down below, please refer to that.

3. The TnP Cell has strict guidelines against cheating. You may get banned from applying for the next 5 eligible companies up to the entire season depending upon the severity of the situation. Hence, I advise you against indulging in any sort of unfair means. You may hear of your batchmates indulging in such methods and making it to the next round and you, on the other hand, may not, but it’s better safe to be sorry. Internship offers have been cancelled in the past in cases of unfair means. You have been warned!

Section 5: DSA Preparation

As only approximately a few months are left before the start of your season, you do not need to put in all your time, 16 hours a day to prepare like you once did during your JEE. That could do more harm than good. But do as many questions as possible. When you feel you are unable to think well, take a break.

You need to improve your coding speed to do as many questions in as little time as possible. Questions are never too hard — they are tricky, but never hard (this may not apply to CodeNation — their question bank is a mix of both tricky and hard questions).

If you have religiously gone through all-important (and tricky) questions on GFG or Leetcode or InterviewBit, I am sure you will be able to get the solution to any question put forward in the test eventually. But you need to do that in the 1–1.5 hour time period and code it through.

There are plenty of topics to prepare. Such answers easily bamboozled me when I was at your stage. Keep in mind that companies do not need competitive programmers. I mean, they are nice to have but their skill probably won’t ever be fully utilised, so there’s no preference for people who have each and every DS and Algo on their tips. Create a priority queue of the data structures you need to study well. You won’t need to code any advanced DS (Fenwick tree, segment tree, Red-Black trees) ever. So just focus on the important ones — arrays, strings, linked lists, stacks, and trees. Know how to use hashmaps well and all special cases like hashing a pair, etc. Remember, however, that Competitive Programming is good but not a must-do for most companies (except for companies like — Media.Net, Uber, Codenation, and Sprinklr)!

This is the most important page on all of GFG. You have to code every one of these questions. We saw many of them in the tests. Some were simply paraphrased or portrayed as a different problem which the applicant needed to look through (it isn’t as easy as it reads).

DSA sheets are full of eccentricities and revisions, an account of what worked for me so remember it might not work exactly the same way for you. With that in mind, I’m adding some resources and my friend’s DSA sheets for reference.

• Daksh Gupta’s Sheet
• Although I haven’t personally gone through them but heard Striver’s sheet is the best one out there! Also, this DSA sheet could be referenced if you’re just starting over.
• This is what I got from Pepcoding for preparation. It contains a lot of stuff, do check them out (especially interview questions for Google).
• For DP, check this out for beginners: Link. For harder, but relevant questions check out this

Other resources:

• This is a zip file containing some more preparation material given to me by my seniors, feel free to check them out.
• https://github.com/ritikmittal13/Coding-Problems and https://github.com/ritikmittal13/Algorithms have a few standard problems.

There are plenty of resources available for free for DSA prep & interviews, you could follow anything from this mail or whatever suits you well in case you’re already following a different prep routine.

Section 6: OS, DBMS, Aptitude and OOPS Preparation

Yes, these topics are necessary except for networks. I have included a couple of attachments that should be sufficient. Keep the basics clear. You don’t need to give too much time to this. Prepare for them just a week before the start of the intern season. You’ll be asked questions from them in your interviews, except for a few companies. While you can skip the questions in the interviews by telling the interviewer that you are yet to study this topic (YES YOU CAN DO THIS DURING INTERVIEWS), you won’t be able to skip these questions during tests.

• Refer to the OOPs notes on GFG and InterviewBit, and try to back all your answers with real-life examples.
• Puzzles: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/puzzles/
• DBMS: Database Management System Tutorial, Solve SQL, Leetcode and checkout GateSmashers on youtube
• OS: Last Minute Notes — Operating Systems and again, GateSmashers on youtube (Also check out Bedtime Stories for OS :))
• System Design: System Design Cheatsheet and Gaurav Sen’s youtube channel
• Aptitude and English: https://www.indiabix.com/

Section 7: Practice Interviewing

In one of my senior interviews with Facebook, he was asked a super complicated question which stumped him, he came up with an answer 10 minutes later with array subsets and DP which was the most optimised and correct version. But it seemed he jumped straight to the answer. There was a sub-optimal but much simpler solution possible. This is pretty well known that you need to come up with simple solutions and follow up until you optimise them. But he was wired into thinking the opposite way. It can be tricky to think about simple solutions. This is (probably) how he screwed up his most important interview after a fairly long and exhaustive process (but he probably got lucky, FB had cancelled all their International internship offers that year :D).

Apart from this “Think Simple Strategy”, another important point is to communicate well. You need to be friendly with the interviewer (even if they are a jerk, which is very common), and you need to be fluent. The terms you say must be correct. Keep your logic clear, don’t confuse yourself or the interviewer. My very smart & extremely deserving friend failed to do this in Microsoft, American Express, Sprinklr and Uber. Although, in the end, he got into MyKaarma (an amazing company to work for). I know a lot of people who definitely deserved it but could not put their thoughts well enough into words. Practice explaining a difficult question in front of a mirror and make sure you are calm before the interview.

Section 8: On-Campus Recruitment Process

The recruitment process for every company is more or less the same. The first and the most important thing that is asked by most of the companies in their process is Data Structures and Algorithms, regardless of their profile. Every interview starts with an introduction of yourself, please be prepared for this beforehand. Following is the recruitment process for most of the companies:

Round I — Online Forms: As a first step of the recruitment process, the TnP cell releases a Google Form to apply for the specific company in an email along with the allowed branches as well as CGPA and backlog criteria to be eligible to sit for further rounds. Around 30% of the companies allow ME, MPAE and BT students, 60% of the companies allow ICE, 80% of the companies allow EE students, 90% of the companies allow ECE students, 95% of the companies allow MAC, 98% of the companies allow CSAI students (new branch bias-ness, although all companies should allow variants of the CSE branches from now on) and all the companies allow CSE and IT students to fill the form. Based on the number of entries, students are shortlisted on their CGPA (this happens mostly during the first two months only when a large number of people are applying for the companies). During our Internship season, a CGPA of above 7 was safe enough to fill out the form. Shortlisting was usually done at a 7.50 CGPA. Some companies may set the form limit at 7.50 or even 8.0 when they want to limit the number of applicants.

Round II — Online Test Assessments (OTA): The shortlisted kids appear for the online test. Every test will have the DS Algo questions, while some of them might have MCQs from various core Computer Science subjects like DBMS, Operating Systems, Computer Networking, etc. Very few of the tests have MCQs from Quantitative Aptitude and English Proficiency as well. For Data Science profiles, there’d be some Python-related questions as well. On average, a company shortlists around 20 students for the next round. Sprinklr shortlisted 100 kids in my year and Expedia, OYO, Samsung etc too shortlisted around 40+ kids for the interviews.

Round III — Technical Interview Round: Shortlisted students go through various interview rounds (1 to 4). Since our internship season was completely online, we had our interviews on a video call. Again, DS Algo will be asked in almost every round. They may also ask some questions from the core subjects (OS, DBMS, etc.). Apart from DS-Algo, there will be a thorough discussion of your CV in at least one of the rounds. Be attentive during the initial phases. While attempting DSA questions, please keep in mind the time and space complexity.

I know multiple people who gave a shitty test and yet received interview calls, and just because they didn’t open their emails they lost the opportunity. CHECK MAILS DAILY (THIS INCLUDES SPAM FOLDER TOO)!!!!

Round IV — HR Interview Round: Most companies also hold an HR round as their final round while some of them have technical-HR rounds as well. Questions like “What are your Future Goals?”, “Why should XYZ company select you?”, “What are your ethics?”, “Tell me about a time when you experienced success/failure”, “Where do you see yourself after 5 years?” etc are some of the most asked questions in the HR round. Please see similar questions on the net and if you’re confused or have too much anxiety, just text/call me or any senior once.

Having given a lot of interview rounds, my anxiety before an interview is kind of over now :D. Pro tip: always go into an interview round believing you’ve nothing to lose & this won’t be the only/last opportunity you’re ever gonna get (this is how I got so many opportunities :)). Also, after each round of interviews, please please ask the interviewer some questions when he/she asks you if you’ve got some. Sample questions could be like “How has been your experience in the XYZ company”, “What tech stack does the company work on”, “What kind of projects does an intern get to work on” or just in-general questions about the work-life balance of the company.

Every company has a general trend or their favourite topic to ask questions from. Search for the company archives on GFG. People usually share their interview experiences and it is really really helpful. Always look up the latest interview experience. Furthermore, remain in touch with your friends from IITD, DTU, IIITD and IGDTUW and ask them the questions that they had in their test, questions are usually repeated. DO NOT GO FOR A INTERVIEW WITHOUT HAVING A LOOK AT THE ARCHIVES. Apart from that, always talk to a senior, before appearing for any company’s test or interview.

Section 9: Off-campus internship offers

If you are unable to grab an on-campus internship offer by the end of 14–15th August, don’t lose hope as I know you would be experiencing a lot of emotions right now. Do the following for off-campus offers and consider it as a plan B (securing an on-campus internship offer should still be your Plan A till the end of September):

• Make a separate email id just for off-campus applications.
• Make a copy of your resume and update that with this email id and a different mobile number (if you have one) and use this while applying.
• Make a sheet of companies that have visited the campus for internship roles and go to their careers page. Start looking up if there’s any active internship opportunity, irrespective of the location, and start applying. Also, start scouting for opportunities on Linkedin, discord and Telegram.
• Start networking on LinkedIn and ask for referrals, if applicable. I’ll attach a sample referral draft message, feel free to change it as you wish.

XYZ SDE Intern Referral

Hello Sir/Ma’am, I hope you are doing well.

I am Pranay Kothari, a 3rd-year student at NSIT in CSE. I wanted to apply for a position at XYZ as an SDE Intern at the ABC location. It would be of great help to me if you would provide me with a referral for the same position.

Job Link: [Attach Job link from Careers Page]

Job Id: [From the job link, if there’s one]

PFA my resume for your kind perusal.

Resume: [Google Drive Link, view for all access]

• There are high chances you won’t get an online assessment link but don’t lose hope and keep on applying.
• Do check out JPMorgan for international regions [EMEA region specifically], Amazon UK, Meta UK, Barclays UK, Goldman Sachs UK, BNP Paribas, Palantir, Mercari Japan, Bloomberg LP and Netflix California. They give internship offers to Indians as well.
• There are also various research internship openings across US and Europe. Some of the opportunities are listed in this. There are also various not-so-heard opportunities like Data Science for Social Good by Warwick University, I would recommend digging for opportunities like these on LinkedIn and Google.
• Follow LinkedIn influencers who post about internship opportunities regularly, but don’t heavily rely on them.
• Do check out platforms like Wellfound, Cuvette, LinkedIn Jobs & RippleMatch for internship opportunities. Please avoid Internshala and similar platforms, I don’t find them trustworthy.
• Research the stipend that the company is providing before applying.
• If you’re unable to secure one by March-April, start looking for remote roles in startups. Work culture in startups is very flexible and you would get ample time to prepare for placement season during the summers.
• Try hitting up alumni of your college. They are lenient and you will have an easier way to land an offer. However, don’t expect a hefty stipend here. 20k-40k will be optimum here.

Section 10: Life After Getting An Internship Offer

Now, first of all, congratulations! Your hard work finally paid off and I couldn’t be any prouder of you. Take some time off now, and get back to your routine. Go on trips, binge those shows/movies you missed during prep, but most importantly, take a chill pill at least till the start of the 6th semester.

Also, be there for your friends who still haven’t got an offer. I was super lucky I had such an amazing set of friends, seniors and a few juniors who were always there for me when I was at my lowest during my time during the intern season, so just be there for them and have their backs :D

General Advice

The internship season is not going to be an easy time for any of you. It’s the start of your 3rd year, academics get tougher, the teachers become stricter and the time to do everything before college life diminishes with each passing day. You get further burdened with expectations from parents, responsibilities from non-academic ventures and pressure from friends who bag an internship before you. You’ll learn about what they did for their preparation and you may feel under-prepared. Realizing all of this and going through it myself, made me pen down this guide that shall help you in the upcoming months. As long as you believe in your abilities and this guide, you shall get interned. Don’t worry too much, it’s not that tough.

It is okay if you don’t want to sit for on-campus internships and want to pursue something entirely else. Just be sure and have faith in yourself when you choose to pursue that or any path whatsoever. I hate the saying — “You must either choose the right path or the easy path”. Totally misleading and definitely not true. If you are passionate about something, pursue it. Life doesn’t end at 25 and neither is there any rule that states that you have to be successful at the age of 22.

Each one of you is equally talented and I have complete faith that each one of you will do well in life. However, keep in mind the internship selection process will seem a bit illogical and unfair to you where lesser skilled people may get selected and you may not. Nonetheless, fear not, keep believing in yourself and prepare diligently, you’ll get there.

There would be many people out there who would be advising you that you won’t be able to secure an on-campus or an off-campus offer, please avoid them and keep on applying. In the end, only your resume and skills matter, nothing else. Just remember one thing, what’s yours will definitely find its way back to you and handwork never goes unrewarded. Competing with thousands/lakhs of students would be overwhelming, so please focus on your mental health as well and remember, you don’t know what the future has in store for you. I or anyone of your trusted senior are always just a text/call away & always available for late-night rants :)

See ya in the funny papers,

Pranay