Hello, coding champs!
Are you planning to take part in the HackWithInfy challenge but need some last-minute tips to help you get ahead? Look no further! In this article, we’ll be discussing seven essential tips that you can use to give yourself the best chance of success in the HackWithInfy challenge. We’ll be covering topics such as effective time management, the importance of practice, and the value of feedback. So, let’s get started!
This mega coding competition by Infosys attracts thousands of students. It is not only a great opportunity to prove your merit, but also to bag excellent career opportunities at Infosys. The salary package starts from 3 lakhs per annum and can go up to 8 lakhs per annum, depending on your coding and salary negotiation skills.
HackwithInfy conducts three rounds of exams. Each round has three questions. Candidates who clear the first round can proceed to the second round, and the difficulty level increases with each round. About 100 students who clear round 2 are selected for round 3, which is the finale round.
However, there’s a lot to gain. There are mainly three job roles for which candidates are selected: Software Engineer, Software Engineer Specialist, and Power Programmer. These three correspond to the three rounds of HackWithInfy, so it is an excellent opportunity to land a great first job and launch that career you have always dreamt of.
Last Minute Preparation Tips for HackWithInfy
A bit of careful planning and learning how to manage time well can do wonders. Much like any other exam, a few last-minute tips certainly help. However, do note that the “last-minute” actually means two or three days before the D-day.
1. Revision of key topics
Good preparation always begins with getting the basics right. HackWithInfy 2021 doesn’t have a set syllabus or curriculum, but there are some important topics that are often part of the exam questions. These include but are not limited to:
- Dynamic Programming
- Greedy Algorithms
- Backtracking
- Stack
- Queue
- Mapping Concepts
- Array manipulation
- String manipulation
- Tree
- Graph
- Bit Mapping and Hashing
- Recursion and Heap
You can easily expect at least one question from one of these topics in round one and round two. So, going over these important topics a day or two before the due date is always a good idea.
Another critical thing is to go over previous years’ questions. The chances of questions repeating maybe less, but it will give you an idea about the question pattern and their difficulty level.
The fresher the concepts in your mind, the easier it will be to recall them during the competition.
2. Research past interviews
A quick Google search will help you access the publicly available articles of previous candidates who have taken the challenge. There are also many online communities where seniors often dole out tips and tricks to ace the HackWithInfy challenge. If you are part of any learning community like online coding classes, your mentors and peers will be able to share their valuable experiences with you.
So, it is recommended that you go through the past interviews of HackWithInfy or test papers to judge what works and what doesn’t. It will also give you a fair idea of what mistakes to avoid and help you keep calm on the main day.
3. Mock Attempts
It’s only natural to face initial nervousness during any competition. No matter how many months you have been preparing for, you have only three hours to showcase what you have got. Therefore, every single second during those three hours counts. At least a day or two before the interview, try attempting mock tests. It’s better if you start even before.
A great method would be to give yourself a problem and a strict deadline (less than three hours) within which it has to be solved. This will help you build an eye for details and also how to manage time well.
If you have already pushed yourself to be self-motivated and to keep a sharp eye on the clock then the initial nervousness won’t dampen your spirits or your code.
4. Be extremely thorough with CV and common HR questions
Once you make it to the final round, then all that’s between you and your first job is the interview process. During the interview, the interviewer will be entirely focused on your CV. So it is always a good idea to be as thorough with your CV as possible. Never list skills or tools you are only partly comfortable in. Instead, list only those you have excellent command over.
A good practice way to take care of this is to get a friend to grill you about every single word you have listed on your CV. The tougher, the better.
Basic HR questions like, “Tell me about yourself?”, “Why do you want to work for this company?” and “What should we consider you?” are some of the expected questions which you can prepare for the HackWithInfy interview round.
5. Explain concepts to a non-tech person
Software engineers with excellent communication skills have a distinct advantage over others that don’t. One of the best methods to enhance your communication skills is to explain tough technical stuff to someone who has no technical knowledge. Using everyday analogies and examples is the best way to go about this.
For example, if you need to explain the difference between source code and object code, you can give an example of a washing machine’s instruction manual. An instruction manual is written in multiple languages, but not all users are familiar with all languages.
For an English-speaking user, the source code will be the instruction set written in English. The same instructions may be written in Chinese script as well, but our English-speaking users may find the Chinese characters gibberish. Now imagine the same set of instructions written in 1 and 0. No human can understand it, but a computer can since that’s a computer language. That is the object code.
If you want to build excellent communication skills as well as your coding skills, you can try out CodeQuotient. It offers paid internship to crack HackWithInfy and heavily emphasises on team working.
Ready to kickstart your career? Enrol today.
