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Agree on all points. Interesting that you brought IIT up. Though I barely cleared IIT JEE and did not attend it for I could not get CS at any of the good schoo

Agree on all points. Interesting that you brought IIT up. Though I barely cleared IIT JEE and did not attend it for I could not get CS at any of the good schools, I had the feeling that it was becoming more and more hackable with the proliferation of coaching institutes. When I was in a top 5 PhD program which attracts the best of IIT K/B/M guys the quality drop became more evident over the years. There were and are still very bright IITians at my school, but I saw more noise coming in at later years. And for those who are not aware- there are cram shops in India which 'train' you to clear Google/ Microsoft interviews. And this has been going for at least 6 years, if not more. Now from talking to my friends in India I get the impression that the superficial interview difficulty is higher in India than the Bay Area for similar companies. And that is despite the work quality being much higher in Silicon Valley. It's all very funny and ironic.

kamaal 13y ago
>>there are cram shops in India which 'train' you to clear Google/ Microsoft interviews. This is so true, that I can't even find ways how to assert it more. As a fresher, I attended a off campus interview here in Bangalore(Those who don't know- these are generally mass hiring drives, where hundreds/thousands get hired) where I happened to talk to a guy between written test sessions who even had taken very elaborate 'class notes' on clearing these interviews. He had gone through something like a 3 months coaching class just to attend these interviews. There are standard coaching materials, which are updated pretty frequently. Pretty much anything that they can ask you in these interviews will be covered. They have made you hard practice it so much it will be cake walk to you make it through. >>And this has been going for at least 6 years I can assure this has been going on for a very long time now. >>It's all very funny and ironic. Its all about the volumes. A recruiter told me, if a resumes falls down during a mass hiring drive they don't even bother to pick it up. We live in an era where recruiters search monster.com based on some keywords and pick up candidates based on that. So we are now down to SEO optimization for resumes. And then coaching classes to game the interviews. As a side note, in all major IT services companies in India you have to take 'certification exams' for pay hikes and promotions. I've seen people drop everything they do and practice clearing these for months. The worst part is you have to 'memorize' the whole material. Later I would see those people go on to get promotions and hikes, while the actual who go the work done fail(due to lack of time to practice) in the certification exams.
- kubrickslair 13y ago
  >> where I happened to talk to a guy between written test sessions who even had taken very elaborate 'class notes' on clearing these interviews. Pretty sure there would be coaching classes to get into coaching classes with higher hit rates of finally clearing the interviews. It's that broken. Whenever people talk about the madness of India's youth, I can't help not quoting Soumen: "It's hard to overstress the liability of a nation of a billion people out of which 700 million are functionally illiterate and the rest have no wish to follow instructions, even when they are asking for a favor." http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/soumen/APKGKAH/illiterate/Applications.html http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/soumen/APKGKAH/illiterate/Applicat... >> As a side note, in all major IT services companies in India you have to take 'certification exams' for pay hikes and promotions. Hope you are fortunate enough to be not working for such places anymore.
  - Evbn 13y ago
    Broken? It sounds exactly how optimization systems work :-)

kamaal 13y ago

>>there are cram shops in India which 'train' you to clear Google/ Microsoft interviews. This is so true, that I can't even find ways how to assert it more. As a fresher, I attended a off campus interview here in Bangalore(Those who don't know- these are generally mass hiring drives, where hundreds/thousands get hired) where I happened to talk to a guy between written test sessions who even had taken very elaborate 'class notes' on clearing these interviews. He had gone through something like a 3 months coaching class just to attend these interviews. There are standard coaching materials, which are updated pretty frequently. Pretty much anything that they can ask you in these interviews will be covered. They have made you hard practice it so much it will be cake walk to you make it through. >>And this has been going for at least 6 years I can assure this has been going on for a very long time now. >>It's all very funny and ironic. Its all about the volumes. A recruiter told me, if a resumes falls down during a mass hiring drive they don't even bother to pick it up. We live in an era where recruiters search monster.com based on some keywords and pick up candidates based on that. So we are now down to SEO optimization for resumes. And then coaching classes to game the interviews. As a side note, in all major IT services companies in India you have to take 'certification exams' for pay hikes and promotions. I've seen people drop everything they do and practice clearing these for months. The worst part is you have to 'memorize' the whole material. Later I would see those people go on to get promotions and hikes, while the actual who go the work done fail(due to lack of time to practice) in the certification exams.

kubrickslair 13y ago
>> where I happened to talk to a guy between written test sessions who even had taken very elaborate 'class notes' on clearing these interviews. Pretty sure there would be coaching classes to get into coaching classes with higher hit rates of finally clearing the interviews. It's that broken. Whenever people talk about the madness of India's youth, I can't help not quoting Soumen: "It's hard to overstress the liability of a nation of a billion people out of which 700 million are functionally illiterate and the rest have no wish to follow instructions, even when they are asking for a favor." http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/soumen/APKGKAH/illiterate/Applications.html http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/soumen/APKGKAH/illiterate/Applicat... >> As a side note, in all major IT services companies in India you have to take 'certification exams' for pay hikes and promotions. Hope you are fortunate enough to be not working for such places anymore.
- Evbn 13y ago
  Broken? It sounds exactly how optimization systems work :-)