Societe Generale (SocGen) conducted its recruitment drive on our campus in mid-August 2024.
Online Assessment
The online assessment was conducted on the Hirepro platform and consisted of a mix of aptitude and technical multiple-choice questions, followed by two coding questions.
- Technical MCQs: These questions covered topics such as operating systems, data structures, and SQL.
- Coding Questions: One question was easy, while the other was of medium difficulty.
About 35 students were shortlisted for the technical interviews held in person on our campus.
Technical Interview Round 1 (August 14, 2024)
During the first technical interview, the interviewer reviewed my resume and asked me to introduce myself, including an instance where I motivated myself. The questions included:
- What do you understand by web technology?
- How do you implement security in the front end?
- Why is React used?
- What is the use of Node.js?
- What do you know about Java?
- How does Node.js use APIs?
- How does JavaScript display the website?
- What is a compiler?
- What do you know about OOP?
- What is a class and object?
- If you have a class BMW, what can be the child class?
- What is the difference between object-oriented and object-based languages?
- Is JavaScript an object-based language?
- The day before yesterday, you were 21 years old; next year you will be 24 years old. Explain how this is possible.
- What do you understand about LLM (Large Language Models)?
- Can chats be used to train LLMs?
- Write a code to reverse a string.
Managerial Round (Round 2)
In this round, the interviewer focused on my final year project and asked the following:
- Explain your final year project on paper, including details on how you will test it and real-life scenarios for the project. Why did you choose this methodology?
- He reviewed my second project involving LSTM and asked me to explain its architecture, its drawbacks, and alternatives, particularly RNN. I was also asked to draw its architecture and state its drawbacks.
- He presented a scenario: There are three buttons on your website, but the user is complaining that only two are visible. What would be your solution? (The expected answer was to refresh the user's cache.)
HR Round
The HR round covered:
- Introduction, family background, why I chose software, and future plans.
- You need to complete three tasks in three months (one task a month), but after two months, you have only completed 1.5 tasks. What is your next plan of action?
- A colleague is not completing their work on time, and your delivery depends on them. What will you do?
- How will you handle an inefficient team?
- What will you do if assigned work outside of your interest?
- How will you help your teammates?
Outcome
Unfortunately, I was not selected after the HR round. When I reached the HR stage, I assumed I would surely receive an offer, which may have led to a bit of overconfidence.
Tips for Future Candidates
- The HR round does not guarantee a job offer. Stay calm during the HR round, answer concisely, and avoid dragging out your responses.
- For your future plans, it's advisable not to mention plans for pursuing a master’s degree.
