Getting a handsome salary and a lucrative technical job is something most of the engineering students dream of from the first year of their college life.

But, many students find themselves in a bothering situation because of a lack of guidance on how to prepare in the right manner for a technical job.

Shashank Mishra, currently working as a Data Engineer in Amazon answers some of the most frequent doubts engineering students have while they are in college. After completing his MCA from NIT Allahabad, Shashank has also worked in McKinsey & Company and Paytm before joining Amazon this year.

Q. As a first-year college student planning to get a job in the technology sector, what’s the very first thing anyone should be doing?

• Don’t start thinking about placements since Day 0 of college life
• Focus more on core CS fundamentals like DSA, OOPS, DBMS, Networking, OS
• Dedicate the starting 6-8 months of your college life to explore different emerging technologies like Android Dev, Web Dev, BigData, Data Science, AI, ML, CyberSecurity, AR, VR etc, and figure out your Interest. Once you pick any tech stack according to your interest then start creating good projects around that and deep dive into it.

Q. In between coding, development, Data Science, DevOps, and various other technology fields, what is the ideal order in which one should explore these fields to find the field of my interest?

• Coding, DSA and Problem-solving skill is the building block of any job profile and tech stack. Always keep them at the top of your priority list.
• There is no proper sequence to explore any skill set and job profile. The only important tip here is that, before exploring any technology and job profile, do some research about it’s building blocks, it’s current value in the IT market and the future scope.

Q. The faculties and seniors have always emphasized on the importance of coding. Do I need to code to get a job in the tech sector? How should I start coding?

• Yes, problem-solving skills and coding are important to growing in the IT industry.
• To start with coding, you should first have a crystal clear understanding of each Data structure & algorithm present there. You should understand different use cases, when to use, why to use, and run time of these DSA’s. To master yourself in these concepts “Your Books Are Your Best Friends”

Q. What are some of the common mistakes students makes within the first 12 months of starting coding and how to avoid them?

• They start comparing themselves with others.
• Without covering the basics of DSA, they quickly jump onto competitive programming and when they are not able to solve the coding challenges, they start feeling pressurized & demotivated.
• They start running behind competitive programming only & start solving challenges on tens of online platforms.

How to avoid - Make sure your basics are clear, you are able to think any good approach, you can understand coding problem’s constraints and choose any 1 or 2 good coding platforms to practise the things.

Q. As students approach towards the end of the third year, they face a dilemma of doing an internship in the summers or utilise that time to prepare for the upcoming placement season. How to decide what can be the best option?

• Internships are always the best and easiest way to become part of any tech giant company. It gives you the chance to learn development skills, new tech stacks and real-world use cases. Even if you are not able to get PPO, such kind of internship projects will still make your resume and job application very strong for On/Off-campus opportunities.

Q. When companies/organizations come to college for on-campus placements, what looks better on resume, internships or projects?

• Internship projects have more weightage than normal projects.
• If you created some internal projects on emerging IT technologies and you know each & every bit of it, then it would also work and will help you to get shortlisted for the interviews.

Q. During the six months just before the on-campus placement season, how should I prepare myself?

• During the last six months, you're not supposed to do anything extra. Do as much revision as you can do for DSA and Core CS subjects.
• Start reading interview experiences of different companies which visit your college often.
• Know all the In’s and Out’s of your projects.
• Make yourself confident and comfortable in communications.

Q. What are some important core subjects that I should be good to have a better chance at placements?

• OOPS
• DBMS
• Networking
• OS
• Automata

Q. How much important is it to maintain a good pointer in college?

• It is important to maintain a decent CGPA because that would help you get more and more On-Campus opportunities.
• Companies can not allow 1000 students to sit in placements drive, that’s why they use CGPA criteria to shortlist the candidates. On average, companies follow 7 CGPA as minimum criteria.

Q. Not many companies come to my college placements? How should I prepare and apply for off-campus college placement?

• First, make your problem solving and dev skills very strong, you should have good projects on your plate.
• Be aware of different companies and their hiring season, keep checking their career pages.
• Start taking participation in open challenges and hackathons, conducted by different companies to hire candidates off-campus.
• Stay in touch with your seniors who are working in different companies and seek a referral from them
• LinkedIn is the best platform to get connected with industry professionals, recruiters, asking for referrals and applying for off-campus jobs opportunities

Q. How can I use Linkedin to land my first job?

• Make a very good and attractive LinkedIn profile
• Mention all your projects, skill sets and achievements there.
• Make a good professional circle by connecting with different industry folks working in different companies.
• Create job alerts.
• Keep checking open job roles.
• Join different pages and communities for better reach.

Q. What are some mistakes I should avoid committing on my resume?

• Make single-page resume
• Mention only the relevant details, skill sets and projects
• The project description should be very short and crisp, mostly in 2-3 lines using bullet points
• Mention your relevant achievements
• Please don’t put your picture in resume for tech profiles

Q. It’s my first interview tomorrow and I am panicking too much. What are some handy tips for tomorrow?

• RELAX. Don’t study even a single word before 24 hours of your interview
• Stay calm, positive and confident
• Stop thinking about selection or rejection
• Just make yourself ready for tomorrow’s cheerful interview discussion

Q. What are some good resources to prepare myself for a technical interview?

• Question Bank: GeeksForGeeks, InterviewBit, Leetcode
• Short Notes : Javatpoint, TutorialsPoint, W3School
• Coding platforms: Hackerrank, HackerEarth, Codechef, SPOJ, Codeforces
• YouTuber Channels: Tushar Roy, Gaurav Sen, Rachit Jain, Ravindrababu Ravula, Naveen Reddy, Saurabh School, Durga Soft and many more.