Cognizant interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview
Intern
Cognizant
2 rounds | 3 Coding
problems
Selected Interview preparation journey
Journey
I, Aditya Kumar belongs from Sasaram, Bihar. I have not studied computer science till my 12th standard. took a 1 year gap after passing 12th Exam for JEE. In this time I had developed interest towards computer science so I chose to study B. Tech Computer science and Engineering. got admission in NIET, Greater Noida through AKTU Entrance Exam. Initially it was not easy for me to learn Programming languages like C, C++. College first year passed but I did not have confidence in Coding, In second year I watched some videos of people who are working in FAANG(now MAANG). then I realized that if I won't learn coding then it would be difficult to crack Software Engineering job. So I worked upon my skills like Programming, DSA &CS Fundamentals. Not to forget my soft skills. I took help from many YouTube channels likes of Coding Ninjas. I got FTE offers from NPCI, Apisero & Cognizant but Joined Cognizant. Although my goal was to crack product based company but it didn't happen. I am still working to enhance my DSA and System design to crack that PBC job.
Application story
I have applied through on campus opportunity where we have register On Superset platform(https://app.joinsuperset.com/students/login) in August 2021 for Genc next profile(Programmer Analyst).
Application Process follows:
1. Application screening based on resume
2. Genc next Skill based Assessment
3. Technical Interview
4. HR Interview
I passed Application Screening a got mail for taking Genc next Skill based Assessment scheduled on 14 Aug,2021. I cleared the assessment and my Coding Interview and HR Interview happened in First week of September, 2021.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I aced all rounds of Interview and have all the eligibility criteria for this job role. my skill were aligned for the Programmer Analyst role.
Preparation
Duration: 6 months
Topics: Java, OOPS, DSA, C, SQL, DBMS, Computer Network, Aptitude
Tip 1 : Prepare for Aptitude problems, Standard DSA questions, Some output based problem based on java, C,C++
Tip 2 : Revise all concepts daily
Tip 3 : Work on soft skills that will help you represent your knowledge
Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 60% in Graduation
Tip 1 : Mention At least two Project (preferably Full Stack Application)
Tip 2 : Only mention the skills on your resume for which you feel confident about it
Interview rounds
01
Round
Medium
Face to Face
Duration50 minutes
Interview date4 Sep 2021
Coding problem2
It was Technical Interview. I have to log on to superset platform for this interview. The timing was morning 09:00 AM IST.
Interviewer first asked me to Introduce myself. After that, he gave two DSA Questions. That I was able to solve both question then, he asked to optimize the code, I used Java to solve the questions. Then he asked about projects. I explained my projects. And in the end he asked whether you knew any programming language besides java. I said yes, I learned C language. he gave one coding problem to solve using C language. I solved that too. I have had good Interview experience with him. he was very polite and helpful.
1. Reverse Linked List
Moderate
15m average time
85% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Given a singly linked list of integers. Your task is to return the head of the reversed linked list.
For example:
The given linked list is 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4-> NULL. Then the reverse linked list is 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> NULL and the head of the reversed linked list will be 4.
Follow Up :
Can you solve this problem in O(N) time and O(1) space complexity?
Problem approach
Step 1 : First, I gave him a recursive solution. The idea was to reach the last node of the linked list using recursion then start reversing the linked list. Time Complexity: O(N), for Visiting over every node one time
Auxiliary Space: O(N), for Function call stack space.
Step 2 : Interviewer asked me to optimise the space complexity.
Step 3 : Then I gave a iterative solution that uses three pointers, curr, prev, and forward to keep track of nodes to update reverse links. Time complexity: O(N). I have not used any extra space, so Space complexity: O(1)
2. Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array
Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
You are given a sorted integer array 'arr' of size 'n'.
You need to remove the duplicates from the array such that each element appears only once.
Return the length of this new array.
Note:
Do not allocate extra space for another array. You need to do this by modifying the given input array in place with O(1) extra memory.
For example:
'n' = 5, 'arr' = [1 2 2 2 3].
The new array will be [1 2 3].
So our answer is 3.
Problem approach
Step 1 : I gave a solution using hashSet. I copied the array element each one by one in hashset. After this operation I copied all hashset element to new array and returned the array. Time complexity : O(N) and Space complexity : O(N). interviewer was happy with this solution did not ask to optimize it.
02
Round
Medium
HR Round
Duration30 minutes
Interview date9 Sep 2021
Coding problem1
It was HR round, conducted in afternoon around 01:00 PM IST firstly HR asked my introduction, after that she verified my aadhar Card and 12th Marksheet. She also asked some typical HR round questions. She was very happy with my answers.
PS: I got selection mail from our College TPO after 3 weeks.
1. Basic HR Questions
Introduce yourself
Why should we hire you?
Are you able to relocate within India?
Problem approach
Tip 1 : Improve your soft skills.
Tip 2 : Keep your documents handy for showing to HR.
Tip 3 : Prepare a good Introduction to give impression to HR.
Here's your problem of the day 
Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company
Skill covered: Programming
To make an AI less repetitive in a long paragraph, you should increase:
Choose another skill to practice
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