Cognizant interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

Associate Developer

Cognizant
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3 rounds | 8 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 2 months
Topics: Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, Aptitude, OOPS
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Must do Previously asked Interviews as well as Online Test Questions.

Tip 2 : Go through all the previous interview experiences from Codestudio and Leetcode.

Tip 3 : Do at least 2 good projects and you must know every bit of them.


 

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: Above 7 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Have at least 2 good projects explained in short with all important points covered.

Tip 2 : Every skill must be mentioned.

Tip 3 : Focus on skills, projects and experiences more.


 

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration180 minutes
Interview date9 Sep 2021
Coding problem2

There will be 5 sections : Quantitative, Aptitude, English, Pseudo code and the last 2 programming questions.

1. Middle Of Linked List

Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
NoBrokerSamsungCognizant

Given a singly linked list of 'N' nodes. The objective is to determine the middle node of a singly linked list. However, if the list has an even number of nodes, we return the second middle node.

Note:
1. If the list is empty, the function immediately returns None because there is no middle node to find.
2. If the list has only one node, then the only node in the list is trivially the middle node, and the function returns that node.
Try solving now

2. Valid Parentheses

Easy
10m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
OracleSwiggyAmerican Express

You're given a string 'S' consisting of "{", "}", "(", ")", "[" and "]" .


Return true if the given string 'S' is balanced, else return false.


For example:
'S' = "{}()".

There is always an opening brace before a closing brace i.e. '{' before '}', '(' before ').
So the 'S' is Balanced.
Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration50 minutes
Interview date9 Sep 2021
Coding problem5

In this round, I was asked questions mainly from DBMS, SQL and OOPS

1. DBMS Question

What is meant by normalization and denormalization?

2. DBMS Question

Explain different types of Normalization forms in a DBMS.

3. SQL Question

What is a Join? List its different types.

4. OOPS Question

How is an abstract class different from an interface?

5. SQL Question

What are Constraints in SQL?
 

03
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration30 minutes
Interview date20 Oct 2021
Coding problem1

This was a Technical Cum HR round where I was first asked some basic Java-related concepts and then we discussed about my expectations from the company, learnings and growth in the forthcoming years. I would suggest be honest and try to communicate your thoughts properly in these type of rounds to maximise your chances of getting selected.

1. Basic HR Questions

1) Why should we hire you?
2) What are your expectations from the company?
3) How was your overall interview experience?
4) What are your strengths and weakness according to you?
5) Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

Problem approach

Tip 1 : The cross-questioning can go intense sometimes, think before you speak.


Tip 2 : Be open-minded and answer whatever you are thinking, in these rounds, I feel it is important to have an opinion.

 

Tip 3 : Since everybody in the interview panel is from a tech background, here too you can expect some technical questions. No coding in most of the cases but some discussions over the design can surely happen.

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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