Complete guide for campus interviews: Step by step preparation for Internships and Full-time jobs

By Prof. Vinod Aravindakshan, Prof.Vibin Aravindakshan | IIT Palakkad

Learners enrolled: 4733 | Exam registration: 50

ABOUT THE COURSE:

This is a course intended to help students find jobs in industry. We will help students with the basics of understanding the different types of skills, the nature of the labor markets, the issues in recruiting, how to write a good resume, how to network and how to prepare for interviews. We will close by providing the right framework to evaluate careers.

The activities will be hands on, where each student is expected to work on their resume, Linkedin profile and interviews along with a bunch of other assessments.

We are working on part 2 of this course about domain specific interview preparation, which will be delivered in July 2024 along with industry experts and Professors from IIT Madras and IIT Tirupati.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students of undergraduate programs interested in internships and full-time jobs. 1^st and 2^nd year of Masters degree programs. Pre- final year students of PhD programs.

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: MNC recruiters coming to campus, especially those in Data Analytics, Software, Consulting and Core Engineering.

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	4 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points :	1
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	17 Feb 2025
End Date :	14 Mar 2025
Enrollment Ends :	17 Feb 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	24 Feb 2025
Exam Date :	03 May 2025 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1:

Introduction to hiring and jobs:

Understanding the hiring process
How to identify the right sector and company
Understanding the economics of labor markets
Understanding the tradeoff between salaries, skills and work life balance
The issues with chasing high compensation

Industry, sector and company differences

Pros and Cons: Startups vs established companies,Core jobs vs software jobs, stable jobs vs high growth,
Why core engineering jobs should be taken more seriously
Choosing startups and entrepreneurship careers

Week 2:

Resume preparation:

Skill identification
Customizing resume
Recruiter expectations.
Tips to a perfect resume
Honesty & Integrity in creating resume, why exaggeration and manipulation backfires

Networking:

Importance of networking
Improving Linkedin profile
Connecting with industry prospects and how to pitch yourself
Using employee referrals & how it works
Good and bad practices during networking

Week 3:

Pre-Interview preparation:

Skill identification
STAR interview preparation
How to impress HR recruiters

Interview preparation:

Skill identification
STAR interview preparation
Best practices & tips to answer screening questions
Communication skills
Best practices after job offer or rejection by company
How to decline offers gracefully

Week 4:

Communication skills and body language:

How to improve communication skills
How to communicate effectively
Body language and presentation skills

Post interviews

Best practices after job offer or rejection by company
How to decline offers gracefully
How to handle failure
Why early success and failure has little correlation with long term career success
The business and people skills that you will need in the future and how to gain them
A better framework to view careers, how to measure career success
How to pass your knowledge and legacy forward

Higher studies:

Higher education from a skill perspective
Pros and Cons of MS, PhD, MBA programs
Life in academia
How you can optimize careers uniquely

Books and references

Required:
1) Vinod Aravindakshan, Careerbolt guide to Campus Interviews, eBook, Paperback
2) Vinod Aravindakshan, Careerbolt guide to Careers, eBook, Paperback

Free resources:
1) “Careerbolt for Students” YouTube Channel to watch previous sessions at IITs and FAQ answers

Instructor bio

Prof. Vinod Aravindakshan

IIT Palakkad

Vinod Aravindakshan is Teaching Faculty at IIT Palakkad, and founder of Careerbolt.app. He earlier worked as a HR Director in the Silicon Valley across companies like CDK Global and Cisco. He has 15 years of work experience in HR and recruiting. He is a graduate of IIT Bombay with a Masters degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also has an honorary PhD. He has handled career workshops at 10 IITs.

Prof.Vibin Aravindakshan

Vibin Aravindakshan is the CTO of Careerbolt.app. He is an instructor at IIT Palakkad. He earlier worked as a Director, Product Management at Salesforce, San Francisco and at Amazon Web Services in Sunnyvale. He is a graduate of IIT Madras with a MS degree from MIT and an MBA from Georgia Tech. He has handled career workshops at 10 IITs.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: May 3, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 3 assignments out of the total 4 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Palakkad .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team