Five things to remember during placement session

Most of the freshers consider package/C.T.C as the only parameter of selecting a job.I was one among them back in college. But as it is said that an intelligent person not only learns from its own mistake but also from the mistakes of other. The truth is that C.T.C should be the last parameter used to chose a job. In this post I am going to discuss 5 key elements which students or even professionals generally overlook or in fact don't even care about in their placement sessions.

1.) YOUR PROFILE 

I can not emphasize more on this point. In case of tech companies students usually assume that their are just three types of profiles software developer, software tester and User Interface designing.  But that is not it. There are a lot designation which you can join in as a fresher itself like deployment engineer, release/build engineer, data scientist(MongoDB/python/Hadoop are the prerequisite) etc but you need to be sure of these profiles and the job responsibilities which come along them.

Even if the company is not offering these profile in your college and if you feel that you can really can do better in some other profile then the offered ones, you can take a chance and talk to the H.R for the same - but this will be bold step. Be absolutely sure and know what you want to do. Just don't take this step to stand out from the crowd. 

Coming back to the three profiles which companies usually offer - developer, tester and User Interface/web programmer. Since these days companies have merged the two designations of developer and tester so most of the engineers are now Software Engineers rather than Software developer or Software tester. So be sure that for which profile are you getting interviewed for.

2.) DON'T TRY TO KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE AT LAST MINUTE

Most of the students are not sure whether they wan't a carrier in tech industry or non-tech one, even till the day of placement or even if they are sure, the anxiety of placements has the potential to confuse even the most confident candidates.
Be absolutely sure which placement do you want to crack tech or non-tech. Even though if you are in doubts or have left the decision on destiny, do attend the pre-placement presentations of the companies which interest you because you get to learn a lot from them. But if you are absolutely sure that you want to make your carrier in a tech based company don't waste your time in preparing for GDs or  case studies and same goes for students interested in non-tech jobs don't even think of Codechef competitions at last minute.
If you still want to go for both such companies and go with the flow of time then you must start early. Prepare for GDs as well as participate in tech competition but give ample time to yourself so that you don't get apprehensive about your decision last minute.

3.) SHOW YOUR INTEREST-ASK QUESTIONS
No matter how upset you are with the placement session.Whenever you go for an interview or pre-placement session always spend a little time in understanding the domain of the company even if it is a company like Google. Know some terms/technologies mentioned on their site and if that seems to much then at least go through the Wikipedia page of that firm.
Most of the companies - established ones like Facebook, Google or even not so big companies offer APIs. If you can build something using those APIs nothing like that and make sure to highlight that point in your resume or try to form a question out of it and ask during the Pre-placement session. For ex ask something like 'I used Google's Youtube API to get info of a video but is there an API to get common info of the playlist  no matter which video of that playlist is buffering.' You can even use StackOverflow and tags to search latest questions.
Don't be afraid of asking questions.
When I appeared for my campus placement session somebody asked what does (inwards pointing) arrow in the logo of RBS means. Even the presenter of the PPT didn't know but their team was really impressed. If you don't get a chance to ask question in the PPT session do ask it during your interview. But don't ask just for the sake of asking make sure that you ask something relevant, sound inquisitive for the answer.

4.) DON'T  CHOOSE C.T.C NUMBER OVER YOUR DESIGNATION

In my opinion a candidate should just emphasise on designation and the roles and responsibilities with the company but not all fingers are of same length. Some student may have the pressure to repay the student loan etc. Even in that case never ever get carried away by the C.T.C numbers they are just Cost to Company for example if you company offers you cab facility or discounted lunch/buffet all these costs are included in the C.T.C. Another example could be that some companies give you gratuity that is amount you receive once you complete a certain defined years with the company. So say the gratuity agreement says that you will get Rs 3 lakh after you serve for 4 years in the company. So you CTC will also include these 3 lakh irrespective of the fact whether you serve them for 1 or 4 years.
Your basic salary of the CTC is what you get and that is taxable too.

5.) ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU JOIN A COMPANY BUT YOU LEAVE A BOSS
Companies are nothing but a cluster of numerous teams. Your association and the impression that the company has on you is merely based on your team. Therefore, never emphasise on just the name of the company, also take into consideration the team you are being interviewed for. Most of the times even if you ask the HR or your interviewer that for which team are you being interviewed for most likely they will not tell you. Because sometimes even they are not sure. But if they tell you the name of the team try to get in touch with seniors/alumni already working in that team about the feedback of manager. If you don't know anyone you can give a shot on Linkedin too since some people not only add their company name and designation but also add the team's name.
The following picture might help you make your decision.