IBM

PROFILE

IBM India Limited, a subsidiary of IBM Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation), was set up in September 1999. Before that IBM was present in India since 1992, through a joint venture. Today, the company has established itself as one of the leaders in the Indian Information Technology (IT) Industry.


IBM PAPER ON 4th MAY 2007 AT KANPUR

paper consits of 4 sections 10 ques from english.
10 question in technical section (4 unix, 2 dbms, 1 data structure , 3 c) very easy
rest question include venn diagram , binary number, coding decoding, data sufficiency etc.
and of course here is one essay on UNITY IS STRENGTH. this is the first round for IBM labs for (ISL) there is one more paper consist of technical questions after that 138 student shortlisted for GD ROUND here the trick is to speak with confident and dont hurry while speaking.
after gd 96 students are called for interview in interview they through questions like
1 tell me abut urself?
2 why ibm?
3 why u wanna join ibm as electronics engg?
4 what are dynamic and static memory locatoin?
5 about binary tree, traversal, call by value, some dbms commands etc. finally i went for the hr
int.the he asked my strengths and weakness.
plz go through ibm site and learn its three values he ask me iad i told him all he got totally
impressed .

IBM PAPER ON 24th APRIL AT KOLKATA

207 students sat for the test. Finally 66 got selected. & I am one of them.
There were 3 rounds : Aptitude test, GD, interview. (Pls keep your college ID card with u, else they won’t let u sit for the test.)

APTITUDE TEST : 55 ques, 60 min time, followed by 15 mins for essay writing. R.S. Agarwal is more than enough. But if u r confident & have practiced enough of apti from any standard book, that will certainly do (I did from TIME materials for placement). But direction test, data sufficiency, venn diagram etc were common from R.S. Agarwal. AT LEAST GET FAMILIAR WITH THE TYPES OF QUES AS TIME MANAGEMENT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN THIS SECTION.

Section 1- Verbal part She performed _ the opera house.(in/at/on etc) Another qs on preposition-easy.
Synonym-apathetic _ clown of that circus became famous for his antics.(article)
Article again-easy. Then a RC on some plants, pollen grains etc. Do it at last if u get time.

Section 2 – Well guys I don’t remember the problems, but it was very easy. Just stay cool and keep pace with time. Data sufficiency- about 5 qs Venn diagram- easy, 5 qs. Problem was like- of 600 people,576 use credit cards (VISA,AMEX etc). Direction sense- 2 or 3 easy qs Some more qs were there. Follow any standard book & u can definitely do them.

Section 3 – Attention to details Eg: CBCBCCBBC CBCBCCBBC CBCBCCBBC –find who are alike or not. 4 or 5 qs like above. Then 4 or 5 qs like- if * represents +,- rep. * etc, find value of 12* 5-7….etc

Section 4 – Technical Qs from UNIX, DBMS etc. Eg: which normal form is only and completely key dependent? Which command to use for seeing detail of a command in UNIX (man,info,display,help). Essay topic- MONEY BRINGS IRRESPONSIBILITY Be fast but stay calm. Apti is the easiest round- trust me. 129 cleared it. GROUP DISCUSSION : 13 candidates in a group, 15 mins time, followed by 30 sec for summing up the GD for each candidate. Our topic was- “HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY”. Everyone, even who sat silent was specifically asked to speak. But it is better that u speak spontaneously. The round carries lot of marks. 94 cleared the round. (Usually GD isn’t elimination round but since too many had cleared apti, they eliminated some in GD in order to shorten the i/w round.)

INTERVIEW :
A panel of two was there, extremely polite, approachable and friendly. In technical, they asked about-C(call by value & ref. etc) UNIX,OS (shell, kernel etc) JAVA (exception handling, features of OOP) DS (linked list) NETWORKING (http, port etc) & some more qs on diff subjects. I answered well & confidently, tried to keep a smile on my face to make myself look confident and well-prepared. Then there were some HR qs like about myself, my results, a prize which I won for writing on cloning, why IBM, what’s the difference b/w IT & CSE and like that. ( JUST GO THROUGH THEIR WEBSITE & prepare standard qs like why IBM etc.) They looked satisfied with what I answered.

IBM PAPER ON 24th APRIL AT KOLKATA

Now there were 3 rounds of qualifying exams...
First round is the aptitude test.(55 marks total, cutoff 30 for boys)
So boys u have to be really good at what u do & girls u all can be almost be rest assured if u clear the aptitude test u will get through.
For aptitude test remember the first and most important thing is TIME MANAGEMENT.
Many good students don't make it through the aptitude because they lack this skill. Practice R.S.Aggarwal, it 's more than enough for the aptitude.

It has 4 sections in its paper: (1 hr test)
(i) verbal (10 mins)
This will consist of filling up prepositions in the blanks.
e.g. 1. he had been singing for a very long time, but until now he has never been seen ____ the opera house
options: (a)at (b)in (c)on (d)none
2. the sea food did not agree ____ him.
options: (a)with (b)on (c)for (d)in
There will be atleast 2 of these questions. Then there would be few other 'fill in the blanks'.
Then there is a comprehension. Our passage was from "Origin of Species".
It was fairly easy, but don't read the passage first, read the questions first and then find the answers from the passage.
They are mostly in sequential order from passage paragraphs.
This part is easy, u will get through if u have basic knowlege and skills of english. (ii) Quantitative (25 questions, 30 mins)
This part is fairly easy.
First question was on venn diagrams (credit card holder problem).
Its a bit lengthy but if u can manage it u get 4-5 questions right straight away.
then there are questions on direction, 4-5 questions on data sufficiency, 4-5 ques on replacing 0 and 1 by * & #, age problems etc
They r quite easy just remember the clock is ticking. (iii) Attention to details (10 mins)
This section be careful...this section is very easy but be attentive to details, I would suggest do this right after the verbal.
There will be 2-3 questions on similarity like
234222272451 23422272451 234222272451
find any dissimilarity.
then there will problem on relation- father, son like that
then replacing + by *, - by + and so on...
last question will be on case study.
they had given us a criteria list for admmission and few biodatas for considering whether their applications will be accepted. (iv) Technical (10 mins)
this portion will contain checking output, choosing correct answer etc.
It will be based on DBMS, C, unics commands and may few other topics... Essay writing:
They will provide 15 mins after aptitude test for writing this passage. About 300 words. Now don't think thats enough time, u hardly get any, trust me. Start writing the moment u get the signal, but don't beat around the bush, be clear in expressing ur ideas and their justifications. Ur aptitude marks most probably don't include essay marks. But they do pay importance to this. 128 were selected from 200-220 after aptitude test. Next is the GD round, now we were never prepared for GD as we thought there won't be any GD, but surprisingly we had and 94 were selected out of 128.
There were 12 in a group, and all the girls would be selected here, so boys u all have to open the zip of ur mouths and talk. Don't sit Dumb. U lose points for that. Don't wait for too long for others to finish.
They check ur communication skills and ur ideas. Just remember u have to talk. If u get through this u will face Tech+hr interview and mostly they will be conducted by the People who conducted ur GD.
Now, this is totally a matter of luck, in which panel u get...
If they ask u technical questions they are generally Not plain easy, so u have to be well prepared in technical, which I was not.
As I had already got a job offer from Cognizant, I wasn't looking forward to any job in IBM. So I hadn't taken any preparation at all.
But U guys don't do this, my interview was mainly on HR so it was easy, though they tried to crack me with stress questions,but they couldn't.

There were 2 men in my panel,
It was as follows:
me: good afternoon, sir.
sir: good afternoon take ur seat.
me: thank u, sir.
sir: i didn't get time to read ur essay, tell me about it in brief.
me: explained (they were satisfied)
sir: tell us something about urself
me: told (stress on ur extracurricular activities if u have good ones, now I was in news reading and also some simple research work)
sir: u said u did researchwork, would like to do research in IBM?
me: right now I would like join, learn and grow with the industry and in future I might think about switching to that. BLAH BLAH
sir: have u got any other job offer?
me: yes sir, from cognizant.
sir: why do u want to join IBM, cognizant is the fatest growing company now?
me: explained(<
Trust me always go through the press releases or news of the company u r sitting for, because if u talk about those they really get impressed,
Just visit The Company's Home Site, U can get all details there>>)
sir: Ok, what is ur favourite subject?
me: Principles of programming language
sir: tell me diff b/w structure in C and C++?
me: told
sir: tell me a func where u don't have to define a body?
me: pure virtual func
sir: explain that.
me: (that was the only thing I couldn't recall)
sir: anyway, tell me about header files
me: BLAH BLAH
< >
sir: Ok, lets say I give u a job Not challenging, a job that class 12 boy can do, would u do it?
me: well a job is only as challenging as u make it, and i think there 's no harm in starting with a class 12 job, I can surely work my way up.
sir: tell me a phase of ur life where u went through a big change.
me: from my school to college..BLAH BLAH
sir: are u mobile?
me: absolutely
sir: ok, lets say I send u to jungle rural place and tell u set up an IT workshop, what will the 3 most important challenges u will be facing?
me:<>
(i) requirement analysis: planning, gathering info on what is necessary to get the job done, framework etc
(ii) man power= local technically ignorant people + technically experienced people --> Managing them Together
(iii) handling unexpected events that r bound to occur in any large scale job
They were totally impressed with this answer.
sir: u have any question for me?
me: sir can u tell me about the training program in ur company?
sir: BLAH BLAH, any more questions?
me: yes sir, can u tell me more about 10 yr pact made b/w IBM and Idea cellular and Aditya birla?
sir: BLAH BLAH, anymore?
me: no sir.
sir: thank u
me: thank u


Only thing u got to remember is that be confident at all times during ur interview, even if u have said something wrong or couldn't answer something don't lose ur confidence... atleast don't show that in ur attitude. Keep ur head cool, body language calm and be confident and if u have good communication skills u will get through. The interviewers are always friendly and smiling so u be the same way.

IBM PAPER ON 15th APRIL AT BANGALORE

test conducted by MERIT TRACK ..... 55 questions it consists of 4 parts ......

SECTION1(10 que)
too easy
5 articles and then 1 easy passage
5 questions from tat .......

SECTION 2(25 que) (QUANTITATIVE) ....
1 to 5 questions on venn diagram
5 to 10 on decesion making
11 to 15 data sufficiency
16 to 19 mathematical operation
19 to 25 simple apti friends u can do it easily

SECTION 3(10 que) (LOGICAL)
1 TO 5 on binary conversion like $=1,*=0 , whats the value of 1)566
2)LCM(16,8,10)
3)AVG(3,6,9)
4)16-AVG(2,4,6)
5) $*$ - *$$
just divide by 2 u can get the ans friends refer quick mathematics by TYRA for binary
que 6 to 10 one puzzle on that 5 questions

SECTION 4(10 que) (TECHNICAL)
que from C,C++,DATA STRUCTURES..... friends my suggestion is to manage time do fast cut off will be 35 and above as i think for written verbal and non verbal reasoning book helped me lot friends
then 15 min essay writing
then GD friends just they will check ur interaction and way u talk

then (TECH+HR INTERVIEW)
friends 3 HR persons interviewed me really its challenging moment to face them .....just i told everything positively with confidence ........i was smiling bit
first they asked me que from C i answered some que... later they went deeply to ask
C then i told sir i m from MECH ENGG i know only basics then he stopped C que
then they start asking HR questions really its challange to face those que ........always they tried to take me into -VE side
but i ans every que in a +VE way and i impressed all ...............

IBM PAPER ON 11th APRIL

72 got selected out of 340 aspirants.

There were 4 rounds…
1 . Written
2 . Essay round
3 . GD
4 . Tech + HR Interview

340 sat for the interview and 166 got selected. The cut off for every department was variable but for the ECE, CSE and IT ppl it was very high. There were 55 ques and 47 was the cut-off. Yes, believe me, tht’s the fact. 47 was the cutoff and for Non-IT depts. Like mechanical, EE, Meta, Chem.. the cut off ranged from 35 to 40. Let me brief you about the written test. There were 4 sections…

1st Verbal Section: 10 questions 2 ques on filling appropriate words..like
[1] The money was shared ______ the two.
(a) Among
(b) Between
(c) a & b
(d) None
[2] _______ preparing for the exams, she had also prepared a presentation.
(a) Beside
(b) Besides
(c) a & b
(d) None 1 ques on a synonym based sentence
[3] The phone number was incorporated into the directory.
(a) Exclude
(b) Include
(c) Condemned
(d) None

Then the next 2 were on articles, very easy ones.
Then there was a RC… on embedded systems.
Basically, read the 1st para, answer the 1st ques… the ques were set according to the paras… very easy, try to do it in the end. Do the ones you are comfortable with.

2nd Aptitude Section:
25 questions Believe me this was a good section. There were easy ques but you had to be patient and not excited. Try to keep your adrenaline flow under control….
Q on Venn Diagram…
There are 32 tables in a room. 9 tables have salt bottles on them. 1 table has salt and pepper only, 1 table has salt and sugar only and 1 table has pepper and sugar only. 3 tables have all of them. The difference between the tables containing pepper and sugar is 2. Find the following.. [1] No. of tables containing sugar. [Ans: 17]
[2] No. of tables containing sugar only. [Ans: 12]
[3] No. of tables containing pepper. [Ans: 15]
[4] No. of tables containing pepper only [Ans: 10]
[5] No. of tables containing salt only. [Ans: 4]

Then there were few symbol based ques.. Like if + is /, / is -, - is * and * is + then evaluate.. there were 4 expressions.. There was a q on odd one out… there were 4 expressions and 3 of them evaluated to 36, the answer was the one which didn’t evaluate to 36. These comprised of
ques [6],[7],[8],[9], [10]… The next 5 were data sufficiency ones. Very easy… CAT aspirants would sail through this portion.. Very easy ones…
The next five were general questions on aptitude…like
[16] If 5 cakes takes 1 hr 30 mins to bake in an oven when kept together, then how much will it take 10 cakes to bake in an oven when kept together. [ Ans: Same time ]
[17] P and Q can write 135 pages in 27 hrs. P can write 3 pages in 1 hour. How much time will it take Q to write 42 pages. [ Ans: 21]
[18] A beats B in a 100 race by 10m . B beats C in the same race by 10m. Then by how much does A beat C in the same race. [Ans: 20m]
[19] A class took an exam and each scored either 80 or 100 marks. If 10 students gave the exam and 100 was the max score one could get, then find out how many got 100 marks if the average of the class was 94. [Ans : 7]
The last one I don’t exactly remember but that was very easy. Anyone could do it. The next, the final 5 of this section was a concentrative portion. If $ represents 1 and * represents 0, then find the following in this code… There were 5 expressions. One had to find the value of each of the expression and then convert it to binary form and then encode it according to the 1st line. This was a little cautious portion, but keep your cool and don’t make a mistake in finding the binary. One thing, normally IBM gives q’s on cubes but there were none in our paper.

So future aspirants should be knowing how to do the sums of cubes. Just think upon it with a group of frnds and then it wil be fine. Also know the octal, hexadecimal systems and how to find the equivalents of numbers with decimals, like 0.4375

3rd Attention to Detail Section: 10 ques
This was the easiest section. Some patterns were given and you had tell wich patterns were same according to the options. So be calm and keep your eyes open. There were some symbol based questions also. There were 5 questions which were based on a small passage. It was a passage about a club with some membership criteria to be fulfilled. Don’t read it. Start with the questions and relate the options with a criteria because it was a section named Attention to Detail not Reading Comprehension. So work with the options. This is where maximum students lost the time when they started reading the criteria. Play with the options.

4th Technical Section: 10 ques This was a tough section especially for the Non IT branches. 4 ques on C/C++, 3 on DBMS, 3 on Unix. Just brush up your C concepts ans do some intelligent guess work. But the crux lies that you are expected to have all the 1st 3 sections right if want to guarantee a place. When I went to the Interview Room, the interviewer told me that I only made 3 mistakes in the Technical Section, the rest all were right… ie, my score was 52 out of 55… So try to have a very high score in written.

Before the Interview there was the Essay round of 15 mins and GD. Essay was a general topic… Primary Education is more important than Higher Studies… There was a GD round and the GD round carried a lot of marks. There were no eliminations after the GD round but it carried a lot of marks in the final score. When I entered the interview room, it appeared that I was already selected before it. I had a 5 mins interview session. All was HR, they were asking as if it was a formality. They told me about my written test which I mentioned earlier and also my GD and essay, which was very gud as they said. They didn’t see my file neither my CV. They asked me general ques about family background, place of birth, and about extra-currics. Try to mention things which will shift the interview towards your way. Like they asked me whether I had written any complex programs in C or C++. I said that yes I had written few like the 15 puzzle program, Tic-Tac-Toe, Spiral and I purposely mentioned that I didn’t use any A.I. or some high concept but applied my basic knowledge about C like arrays, pointers…
From here he asked me what is an array and a vector, Diff between Call by value and Call by reference, diff. between return() and exit() .. that’t it… Then they commented on my high C.G.P.A. and asked me my standing in the department. Time was smoothly moving and all my answers were spontaneous. Finally they asked me why a manhole is round. I answered it almost. They shook my hand with an assured face tht I was selected and said: It was very nice meeting you.
The interview was over even before I could realize.

Other panels also asked many on IBM info…
CEO and Chairman ::: Samuel J. Palmisano
Headquarters ::: Newyork (Main)
IBM India President::: Shankar Annaswamy
Bangalore(India) IBM India VC ::: Rajesh Nambiar and Amitava Ray..

Visit the IBM site for further details… and one for those who have spectacles… I have one but I wasn’t asked this one. Other panels had asked what kind of lens does the specs have and draw the ray diagram showing the defect and the effect after the lens. So be confident and try to score high in written, essay and GD… interview will shorten automatically… Ppl with higher C.G.P.A. have great chance in IBM…