How To Prepare For The Coding Interview? Exclusive Tips For Freshers!

You can crack the coding interviews like a pro with a few weeks of right practice. Sounds interesting? It is not just interesting but it is a fact, cracking the coding interview entirely depends on your mastery of coding topics. Get the mastery ideas and techniques for the query “How to prepare for the coding interview?” exclusively for the freshers and beginners!

Indian IT services, product companies, and other startups hired around 70000 people for 6 major tech roles with an average hike range of about 50 to 60% as per the 2021 year report from specialized staffing firm Xpheno.

If you are from a non-computer science background trying to get into the IT industry. No worries, there are many software training institutes in Chennai that are always there to guide you about technical skills such as coding and much more.

This article walks you through certain important aspects that you must focus on to pave your way through the coding interview. Read on to know more about the strategic study plan, timing, and resources that will help you to ace your coding interview.

Brush Up A Programming Language And CS Basics:

Pick Your Most Comfortable Programming Language

The first and most important thing that you must do while preparing for a coding interview is to choose one of the programming languages. Now, this should not be a random pick or somebody else’s suggestion or so because you must be well versed in that particular programming language that you pick. Choose a programming language with which you are comfortable and confident.

Most tech companies let the candidates choose any language to code. But Google is an exception, their candidates have to choose only from C++, Python, Java, Go, or JavaScript.

Software training and placement centers are emerging rapidly as the demand for technology professionals increased by 43% in 2021 according to the Naukri Job Speak report. They can even give the best guidance on how to get the software job as a fresher with the amazing salary packages.

Brush Up Computer Science Basics

Brushing up computer science basics is yet another essential thing to be done especially if you are fresher. Go through college notes, learn from Computer Science textbooks and work on basic algorithm problems. Learn even the most basic things like splitting strings, uses of 2D arrays, reading inputs, etc.

These can be practiced for about 2 weeks, but depending on your level of knowledge, if you are very well versed in your ideal programming language and sure about your Computer Science basics you can go ahead with moderate and core topics. 

Practice Prominent Coding Concepts:

Data Structure And Algorithms

Various concepts under data structure and algorithm would have been a part of your Computer Science syllabus if you are an undergrad in Computer Science. But basic data structure and algorithm questions are not likely to be asked in the coding interview although practicing these can ease out the process of solving complex questions. 

Under data structure you must be well versed in the following concepts:

• Arrays
• Stack
• Trees ( Binary tree, Binary search tree, heap)
• Link list
• Queue
• Graphs (DFS, BFS)

Under algorithm you must be well was of the following topics:

• Dynamic programming
• Recursion and backtracking
• Divide and conquer

These should be practiced for about 3 weeks to gain a good command over them.

Emphasize More On Interview Oriented Questions:

Core Topics Of Coding

Core topics involve a lengthy process of coding, these are usually the type of questions that are asked in the interview and these are to be studied thoroughly and mastered.

Devote as much as the time required to solve the interview-oriented complex questions. Some of the prominent problems that are worth practicing are :

• The solution to a boggle game
• Clone a directed graph
• Intersection points of linked lists
• Binary search implementation
• Determination of any three integers in an array that sum equal to the given value
• Reversing string
• How to get non-matching characters in a string
• Calculation of the number of vowels and consonants in a string
• Matching elements in an integer array

Practice these questions in pen and paper as most of the companies ask you to solve on whiteboards. Once you are very comfortable with solving in pen and paper it will be easy to solve in the system because unlike pen paper, the system will have auto-suggest, syntax checks, etc.

Learning about how to prepare for the coding interview along with the common pitfalls and caveats of around 2 to 3 coding languages will be helpful to impress the interviewer if you can point them out during the interview and prevent yourself from falling into the pitfalls. This will fetch bonus points for you to get place in major MNC’s like Infosys. If you’re wondering how to get a job in Infosys as a fresher, contact us @ +91-7504633633 for the software training and placement guidance.

Object-Oriented Design And System-Oriented Design Interviews

Object-oriented interview and system-oriented interview has become a very important part of the coding hiring process nowadays. In Particular, system design interviews determine the level of a senior role.

In object-oriented design, questions are shot to test your ability to convert the requirements into solutions, understanding of interphase, the interaction of the components with each other using interfaces.

The main objective of the system-oriented design interview is to test your ability about various scalable services like how the database is shared, how the load is balanced in web servers, and how large files are stored.

Following types of object/design-oriented questions are commonly asked :

• Parking lot
• Movie ticket booking system
• ATM programming
• Airline/Hotel management system
• Online stock brokerage system
• Designing any social network 

Multithreading And Concurrency 

Just like system design interview, multithreading and concurrency concepts are used to hire senior-level employees in the software sector, this would involve writing many complex codes and two or more tasks are simultaneous to be performed that requires a high level of understanding about coding and its process. 

The most common question types under this topic are :

• Asynchronous and parallel difference
• Binary and mutex difference
• Race Condition
• Threading safe 
• Starvation

Mastering each of these topics should ideally be around 6 weeks or more based on your capability. Each topic should be given due time and practiced as many questions as possible, it is best to solve at least 150 questions minimum.

Interview Process And Culture Fit:

• An interviewer will give a technical question to solve within 30 to 45 minutes.
• Do not jump into coding immediately, understand the question clearly, and ask questions about range value, size of input, values, inputs: storage, size, duplicate, an extreme case.
• Explain your approach to the interviewer before coding.
• Once you are done with coding, check from start to end. Bugs and syntax are usually present while coding. So make sure to correct it.
• State the space and time complexities of your code and explain it.
• Communication skills and culture fit is also tested in a coding interview. All that you have to do is communicate your code explanation. Speak out your thoughts and opinions for any general question asked by the interviewer cheerfully and confidently.

Best Resources & Books To Follow:

These books are a goldmine to cracking tech interviews easily:

• Programming interviews exposed by John Mongan, Noah Suojanen Kindler, Eric Giguère.
• Cracking the coding interview by Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell
• The algorithm design manual by Steven S Skiena

These websites are highly recommended to practice a recent and huge collection of coding questions:

• Geeks for geeks
• Leet code
• Hackerrank
• Code chef
• Codify 

Conclusion 

Coding plays a vital role in securing you a high ticket software tech job in the industry. Not only that, but a good knowledge of coding also helps in scaling up your IT career to higher levels. If you need proper best software training institute in Chennai and guidance for placement, we are here for you. At Infycle Technologies, we provide the best software training and placement guidance to our students and help them get placed in reputed companies. What are you waiting for? Contact us now and let your career flourish!