Interview Prep Strategies | PayPal

Key Takeaways

[Music] good evening everyone how are we all doing on this fine evening i'm sure all of us are very excited for this session because same here i am dhwani from geeksforgeeks and i will be your host for today's session type it type in the chat what are your expectations from today's session are there any questions that you've been asking every have been wanting to ask someone but you know like you haven't been able to just type it in the chat well i'm sure everyone out there has a lot of questions you know like there are some things that we just do not ask so many people so we have a special guest with us who will be taking up all those questions that you all might have and answering them i welcome you all to this interview preparation series by geeks for geeks and today we have a very eminent personality with us who will talk to us about the various do's and don'ts during the interview preparations and guide us through the right roadmap to jobs at a-list companies it gives me immense pleasure to welcome ms shivani reddy who is a software development engineer at paper hi shivani hi dvani hello everyone how are you i'm doing good thank you how are you i'm good too so i'll just give a brief introduction about today's guest uh miss chavani has worked on various technology stacks including java spring boot node.js express.js and angular the list of achievement goes on and on but without further ado let's dive into this info session with shibani so shivani will take up some questions that our team has already prepared which we have got from many people and that will take up some questions from the chat as well so the first question that we have is can you give us a brief intro about you and the company you are associated with sure hello everyone i am shivani i am currently working as software engineer 1 at paypal prior to that i worked as software engineer 1 at hashtag for a duration of like 6 months and i am a 20 21 graduate graduated from institute of aeronautical engineering hyderabad and the company i'm associated with right now is paypal i always wanted to work in a company with the good work-life balance and culture and hence paypal was stopped on that list i prepared for all the interviews and gave the interviews and finally i'm here at paypal so how is life at paypal um it is very good more than expected um people here are very helping senior fellows are really helping they clear each and every doubt that you ask them and they give enough time for you to learn any new new tech stack or so at our own pace it is so it is good so far i'm sure working at a list company is an amazing experience and most of us in the chats are here you know like to get to be able to get that experience so um my next question is how did you land your current role at paper uh sure i came to know about this opportunity through linkedin then i managed to get a referral for the same i applied for this role through linkedin so after applying say after some weeks i got a mail from recruiter saying that hey you know we have uh screen your profile and uh we feel like it would be fit for the current openings and we would like to proceed further with the interview rounds then i replied with the yes then later i got the online assessment link gave the online assessment then my technical interviews were scheduled followed by hiring managers down and my the results came back positive and hence i landed in my current role at paypal i'm sure you were very happy about the same so you were talking about linkedin how important is a well-groomed linkedin profile for a professional uh it is very important actually because if it is uh very well updated time to time with your skills or any kind of certifications or any kind of achievements that you have achieved there are high chances that recruiters directly contact you through linkedin and also i would say i've got to know about this through some linkedin post some employee has posted about this job openings and all it is also good to you know uh be in contact uh with the persons uh from a list companies if you want to work with them so that you will get to know about the updates uh about the job openings and all those things so yeah that's very important recruiters do actually recruit from linkedin right so like what are the kind of things that we look forward in the candidates like i see a lot of people post a lot of stuff on linkedin how do we ensure that our content is quality worthy like people will actually notice the content uh i would say if it is more aligned to its technical side uh that would really put a great impact on your profile you can also show your interest or any kind of work previous work that you have worked on any kind of new projects or new achievements in any technical hackathons all these things indirectly showcase your skills how well you are versed with all these technologies so time to time updating these things would uh definitely be a plus point right so the next question is how many interviews did you have to go through do you know like get the proper job at paypal and how did you prepare for them so in my case i would say there were like two technical interviews followed by a hiring manager's round the first technical interview was completely dsa and problem solving i was asked the four different problem solving questions uh i could give the solution to all of them but i have written the code for only three of them and gave the solution for fourth one he was he kind of seemed satisfied with it but due to time constraint uh we could not quote that further and later that second round was scheduled second round was one quoting question and lower level design and project discussion uh the coding question was like a hard level of difficulty and there was a very good project discussion it was a fruitful discussion i would say uh he was asking a lot of questions about the project that i worked on like how did you end up choosing this tech stack how did you learn this tech stack what were the challenges you faced and all those things you should be well prepared i would say when you are mentioning or talking about your projects and then he gave me some problem statement it was related to low level design only even there we had a very fruitful discussion i was giving him my inputs he was also very interactive that went well so later say like three to four days my hiring managers round was scheduled and the hiring managers round again there was a coding question this time the manager asked me to actually compile and run the code but for the previous rounds it was just like writing the code in the document and all these things and uh after that was done he asked me about the various sex tags i worked on and what i'm looking forward in this job and some of the theoretical questions some questions uh related to uh you know my project too so that was my hiring manager's round yeah so what kind of courses did you use for preparation of these interviews i would say most of my preparation was done during my uh fourth year placements only that is last year and i was good at uh you know dsa problem solving and all those things at that time only when it when i finally thought of switching the job uh and applied for paypal then my preparation focus entirely shifted to paypal paypal interview preparation only i would say how uh i you know search for the paypal interview experiences you can find many of them in geeksforgeeks also and also some people post it on lead code too and other platforms also their paypal interview experience then i used to make a list of all these questions and so all those questions on a daily basis and also i used to read the entire interview experience like uh what were the questions they were asked and how this candidate has given the answers and also there are some behavioral questions also that people mentioned what were asked there i would also make a list of those questions and prepare for them mostly this time preparation was specific to paypal only because most of the preparation was done before only in my case right so you mentioned that you refer to a lot of interviews you know like a lot of lot of people's interviews so how has the recruitment procedure changed over all these years i'm sure you would have referred to a lot of old interviews and you yourself gave an interview so how has the recruitment process changed over all these years i would say there were some changes in a number of interview rounds also and i would say there used to be some space entire specific rounds for behavioral questions also now i think it was not there at least in my case and yeah these were the different patterns that i saw and even i expected that i would be having a separate behavioral round also altogether but it was not that in my case mostly i would say it would change from role to role and also to a person's experience to experience and all those things does matter right so the next question is a resume sure does play an important role by landing a job like because people actually see your cv before they see you so how is your resume different from that of your colleagues and you know like how do we make sure that our resumes are up to the mark as well sure uh resume does play an important role it is like the first screening for the candidate so i would like to share some of my tips that i followed in my resume preparation i would say mostly go for one page resumes always keep in mind for resumes that less is more for this i mean don't be more descriptive use keywords and highlight those keywords mention technical skills which you've worked on and do not mention those things which you're not completely aware of because the interviewer may pick that point and ask start asking questions on it and you'll be in big trouble do not do that such things and mention projects that you've worked on when it comes to project i would say mention only those projects that you own by own i mean that you have worked on by yourself so that you can have a very great discussion about them in the interviews like you can see in my case uh there was a very uh big big not big very you know good discussion about my projects in the interviews so if the interview is asking you any kind of questions related to projects you should not be in a state that you are not able to answer you can only answer them when it is done by you so make sure you are doing it by your own and um then i would say do mention your achievements anything that you've participated in secured any good rank in them anything like a coding contest or i would say hackathons mention those things yeah that was mostly what i followed right so the next question is are they two separate processes for graduates and interns you know like getting a job at paypal okay i am not so sure on this but when it comes to interview processes i would say it would be in similar lines only for graduates and for interns there i don't think there'll be much difference in that well i'm not the correct person to comment on it i guess and also even when you have joined the company as an intern i would say you'll be given a mentor there at paypal and you'll be working and then they'll be guiding you they'll be you know solving your questions and all those things but when you join as a full-time employee i would say you'll be working in a proper team uh you know under your manager and all those things yeah so how important is an internship to be like added to your cv not just for the part of cv but is it actually important you like get work experience before actually going into the company yes it is very important i would say even i had one done one internship from ashton what we feel from college about the corporate world is actually different when we actually work in it so i think before joining any company internships will give you that very good experience you will get to know a lot of things that you didn't know existed in college there are a lot of things going on in the companies you can get a gist of all those things you can understand the systems you can understand how to write a industry level code and all those things and attending calls meetings or it's all together a very different world i would say from college so uh doing an internship will give you a very good experience and it will also add a very good you know plus in plus point in your resume i would say yeah [Music] so we have a question from the chat like uh how do you prepare for an internship interview because when honestly when you apply for internship you don't have a lot of work experience so but still companies ask for work experience so how do you prepare for that interview and you like go on with that okay i would say when it comes to inter internship interviews also uh mostly for product based companies they would expect problem solving skills data structures and algorithms from you only mostly and some of the questions too related to the uh work you are going to do as an intern like if there's any opening for a company say it is for an intern you'll definitely have the you know job description there basic qualifications there by that you'll get to know what kind of work you're going to do in the company let's say you're going to work on java related technologies or ios or android and all those things so talking very specifically for that particular internship i would say repair well with your dsm problem solving skills and also go to the job description if you feel that you are interested in it and you know anything for it do prepare for all those questions because that is what you're going to work as an intern right i guess that helps a lot so uh the next question is what do you think paypal is exactly looking for whether it comes to interns or the people who apply for jobs i would say paypal is looking for people passionate about coding i have a very good understandings of the technical skills text tags and is good at problem solving and data structures i would not say complex complex data structures are all those things but to a certain level you should be good at them you should have a very clear understanding of how things and why things are working and if you're someone good at java or java related technologies i would say that would add a plus point uh because as most of you all know paypal works mostly in java and even if you are not good at it it is not going to be a very big big differentiator but i would say these points would add right so there is a question in the chat you have there is two part there is a two-part question first was how to prepare for a particular mnc interview but you have already answered that so do you have any specific project tips that you would like to you know give to the audience so you know like we can get a streamlined path to it okay sure um as i've also already mentioned the importance of project i would say most of the candidates these days are aligned towards problem solving and dsa most of the people are cp guys than project guys even i was one of them i used to do a lot of coding but i didn't know what to do when it came to project so i would say if you're someone struggling to choose a tech stack or choose the problem statement for your project i would say go on internet and search for the things uh search for those things and if you still do not feel confident i would say group up with your friends come together form a team and you all say you are a team of four people uh make a team and then um choose one problem statement start working on it this way you do not feel that you are alone you will work with the people and also through this you can show your teamwork skills too to the interviewer yeah firstly yeah firstly understand which tech stack you're comfortable with then filter out the projects then form a team still if you're not comfortable then i think you're good to go right i actually agree on this point that teamwork is very important when it comes to project building because you know once you get into the companies i'm sure you like you need to understand how delegating works i mean i personally am working on a project and i understand that being able to coordinate a team is actually one of the skill set that is required so we have one more question from the chart that from which year did you start preparing for your job interview i would say when the corbett hit i was in my sixth semester then so i started preparing from that time even college was not there i got a good amount of time there i started preparing for them um i have started from basic things first because i wanted my basics to be clear and crisp first i started with all the data structures understood them then algorithms then solved some bunch of questions from each of the topic then uh you know there are some set of standard questions for each and every topic when you solve them then for practice i used to do more and more questions then you will start observing a pattern like say you have solved some standard questions from a topic say dp dynamic programming then whatever questions you solve further you'll start understanding like these this is just a new version or different version of the old problem that i've already solved i think you should be able to get at that stage where you should have a clear understanding of okay this problem can be solved with this data structure this algorithm or this is the same algorithm but this different variation this is the slight different version of that i think that this is possible only when you do a very good amount of practice and then start giving contests to so that you you are well versed with the time-bound environments yeah and all those things then start focusing on your projects i would say then start focusing on cs core subjects yeah and from which here you said i would say third year ending sixth time right so you know like you're talking about how important dsa is i mean i personally have been doing the essays or linked lists tax cues you know like you see the same set of problems everywhere like insert in a link list delete from a linked list seems like what kind of problems what kind of websites should we refer to you know like to get a proper hold of the type of questions that can be asked well i have uh you know practiced in multiple websites i would say starting from hacker rank only hacker rank then hacker then code forces then read code then geeks for gigs i have worked i have you know practiced in multiple but now settled finally in lead code i would say lead code is a good platform um it is more specific to dsa only than competitive i that's my personal opinion so you can go for that website yeah right so the next question is does paypal hire through a referral yes it does i am an example for it i would say i have applied to referral only but the thing here is though you have applied through referral or directly from the career portal there's going to be another screening after that from the recruiter's end only if the recruiter feels you are fit for the current openings then they are going to you know communicate with you or consider you there's going to be another screening there it doesn't matter it's through referral or directly from the career portal right so uh there is one question like it is more of a personal question like what was your first job and like which company did you first work in before paypal okay it was hashtag hashtag by deloitte i um i interned there in my final semester um in my eighth semester then got converted to full-time employee there right so uh like i can understand a lot of campuses do not get a lot of good companies so there is one question that if your campus does not you know get in a lot of good companies how should we go about with the off-campus placements yeah uh i think i'm a very good example all the companies visit to my college were service based only so but i would like to work for project product based ones even did not visit my company i applied for it through referral and paypal also i've applied off-campus all the jobs that that i got were off-campus only uh i would say be more active on platforms that do post job postings then uh you know start applying for them start applying aggressively for them if you want to you know get into a good product based company and um do not get do not put this thing in mind like good companies do not visit my college i'll put that thing aside we are not going to change it anyway so let's try focusing on applying off compass more and more uh better get a referral or also if you did not get a referral you can apply through the career portal also all the things all the thing that matters is your resume because that is going to help you in getting the online assessment or any such things so yeah whenever you see whenever i mean whichever platform that pose this job more be active in those things and apply for them right so what are the don'ts that a person needs to make sure that they don't do like what are the things that a student should not do in a paypal interview okay i would say first thing i would say do not turn your interview session into a simple q a or viva session like do not just wait for the interview to ask you a question then you immediately start solving it on your own um i would say make it more interactive as interactive as possible if you are given a question uh ask him any follow-up questions on it make sure you are very clear with the question then you jump into the solution and whenever you are trying to give the solution do not jump into the most optimal one first tell him the basic knife or brute force one then go to the next optimal then finally the most optimal one and at each solution make sure uh to explain how you're changing the time or space complexities there and which data structure you're going to use and all those things why it is fit for that solution and all those things yeah next thing i would say uh uh do not ignore any behavioral questions these are very important uh because behavioral questions seem very generic or common in nature but they are not when it comes to interviews uh and also most of the behavior questions uh are better to answer from your past experiences so and do not make up any questions there do not fake any answers there for what they are asking make sure they are from your past experiences and because when you are when you answer something that is not from your past experience or you're just faking that answer the high chances that the interview courts you and because the next question is going to be on your present answer also sometimes so you can be in trouble there so make sure you are well uh you know prepared with this behavioral questions beforehand and third thing i would say do not use any technical jargons that you are not completely aware of when uh the interview asks you a question make sure you're telling it in simple terms short clear and crisp do not use any complex terms that may get you in trouble because the interview is again going to uh you know ask question on that term then you will be completely dead silent so do not end up in such situations uh make sure you are answering in simple terms so short answer honesty is the best policy make sure you don't fake anything sure yeah that's actually true you know so there is one question that is there an eligibility criteria to apply like some gpa score or something like that um i honestly don't know about this uh but i feel it is somewhere uh the cgpa should be seven or seven point five above you can find this easily in the qualifications in the job description uh they'll post about the qualifications and all yeah right so uh another question is personally which technology stack do you prefer for front-end coding like javascript or typescript um i feel like it depends on the framework that i'm using uh uh actually i would say both are similar only typescript is just javascript with the type type you know mentioning types and all those things so i think i think i prefer both of them yeah i when i worked on angular especially for some project i used typescript there um yeah right so there is one question that i also wanted to ask like how do you get a referral like not from linkedin if you do not connect to an individual how do you generally get a referral okay so in my case uh i would say i have sent some connection requests to the fellow employees working there in those companies through linkedin and keep this in mind not everyone accepts your request not everyone can reply after you you know send the message so try pinging multiple people and uh you know do not simply ask hey i just want i just want to refer please give me the referral so but be more descriptive why you want that job what are the experience you have and do share your resume there and do share the job id there do not ask them directly are there any openings in paypal and all those things so send them the job id that you are interested in and send them your resume and ask for ask for them i think most of the times you can get referrals only when your resume is a fit for the job role that you're looking forward for right so as i am also a college student i also have this question that there are a lot of subjects that we study throughout the four years like osd bms computer networks and so many more so how important are all these subjects when it comes to actually you know like dealing with the interviews they definitely uh are important i would say most of the times you will get questions from a dbms only make sure you're very good at it and also you're good at some of the sql queries writing and os also is very important i would say cn is also there make sure you are having good knowledge about it and most of these questions are asked in you know fresher interviews only so i think most of you all here are looking for our college students only looking for fresher jobs only so i would say dedicate very good amount of time in these things understand the concepts be good at dbms writing some sql queries also [Music] right so we under like i understood that everything from the technology stack is very important you're like you need to choose a domain and then you need to work hard in it so what do you think like are the co-curricular activities like throughout the college the co-curricular activities that you do are they important when it comes to like getting a professional um i i definitely think they are important but they are not in my case at least they are not much stressed in the actual interviews because in the actual interviews most of the time they ask you about your technical skills only questions related to technical skills some of the times they ask about they you know look into your co-curricular activities list in the resume and start asking questions in them i would say in my college career i used to you know host or organize some of the technical events i don't know how much that impacted in getting the role because there was no discussion about it in the interview but i would say uh when the recruiter or the when the person uh you know trying to give you referral or when the recruiter feels that you should move forward with this uh interview process and all will definitely put an eye on that i would say that that is very important also not just for interviews i would say uh but to develop some of your soft soft skills too yeah right i actually required to mention if you have some yeah yeah i actually believe that you know like once you do co-curricular activities once you start managing stuff you actually get some confidence out of it so yes uh this question has been very like popping in the chat again and again what kind of projects should we work on um i would say it will completely it is completely dependent on an individual like what he or she is interested in let's say someone is interested in back in front and and there are a lot of technologies so based on your interests you can uh you know work on them you can build a good project on them and uh yeah that because i'm saying this whatever you're interested work on it because you will be confident on it then you will be able to answer any kind of question that is being asked to you uh in the interview very truly said i mean you should do the work you're excited about there's no going around it so i guess that's it for the questions that we have from the chat and the questions that i had so that really explained a lot shivani i really like enjoyed the session and thank you so much for such an informative session and for answering all of our questions so for the people in the chat you can connect to shavani on her linkedin and i'm sure you know like she you can get inspired but by her profile and you like get into the things as well so thank you all so much for joining and if you wish to be a part of the other sessions or you know like webinars or interview preparation series you can check the links in the description and i guess that's that thank you so much everyone take care have a great day ahead thank you thank you thank you dwani thank you everyone thank you to the whole team of gfg have a great evening thank you