Two different hiring worlds
The large IT services employers — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, Accenture, Cognizant, Capgemini — run structured, high-volume, largely standardised processes: an online test, one or two interview rounds, and formal document verification. Product companies and startups run something closer, but rarely identical, to each other, usually built around a take-home task or a portfolio review instead of a written exam. Neither is strictly better; they select for different things and are worth pursuing at the same time, not instead of each other.
TCS NQT (National Qualifier Test) is the standard entry route into the main fresher programmes (Ninja / Digital / Prime bands), alongside direct campus drives at partnered colleges.
Typical process
- Online aptitude and technical test (verbal, quantitative, reasoning, plus a coding/technical section for the higher bands).
- Technical interview, focused on fundamentals — data structures, DBMS, OOP concepts, and your final-year project.
- HR / managerial round, covering relocation, notice period after joining, and communication.
- Document verification — academic marksheets from 10th through final year, provisional/original degree certificate, ID proof, and any experience letters if applicable.
What they look for
Consistency across academic scores rather than a single high mark, clear explanations of your own project (they probe depth, not breadth), and flexibility on location and band.
How intakes have tightened
The band you are offered (Ninja vs Digital vs Prime) has become a bigger differentiator than in the past, and it is set by the test score, not by choice — worth confirming what each band pays and requires before accepting.
InfyTQ / Infosys Certification exam feeds the main Systems Engineer / Digital Specialist Engineer tracks, alongside campus drives.
Typical process
- Online test — quantitative, logical, verbal, and a pseudocode/coding section.
- Technical interview covering core CS fundamentals and, for the Digital track, a specific technology stack.
- HR interview on background, family, relocation and reasons for choosing Infosys.
- Document verification, similar academic and identity documents as above, plus a background-check consent form.
What they look for
Genuine familiarity with whatever you list as a skill — a listed technology you cannot discuss in the interview is treated as a red flag, not a neutral gap.
How intakes have tightened
Onboarding timelines between offer and joining have stretched in recent cycles for some batches, and candidates have needed to actively track their status rather than assume a fixed start date — check your own offer letter's wording rather than a peer's experience.
WILP (Wipro's external hiring test) and Elite / Turbo campus tracks, split by CGPA and stream at the campus stage.
Typical process
- Online assessment — aptitude plus a coding round for the Turbo (tech-heavier) track.
- Technical interview on fundamentals and, often, a puzzle or logical-reasoning discussion.
- HR round on relocation, the mandatory service agreement (see below), and availability to join.
- Document verification, including the service agreement / bond paperwork specifically.
What they look for
Problem-solving approach over a memorised answer — interviewers commonly follow up a correct answer with "why", so being able to reason through the logic matters more than the final number.
How intakes have tightened
The gap between the Elite and Turbo tracks in role and expectations has widened, so confirm at offer stage which track you are actually being hired into rather than assuming from the interview alone.
HCL TechBee (a 12th-pass entry programme, different eligibility from a degree hire) runs alongside standard graduate campus and off-campus drives.
Typical process
- Online test — aptitude and, for TechBee, a foundational reasoning assessment rather than a coding round.
- Technical/HR interview, often combined into a single panel for entry-level roles.
- Document verification, plus TechBee applicants specifically need 12th-grade marksheets and parental consent if a minor.
What they look for
For TechBee specifically: willingness to commit to the programme's structured training-plus-work format over a multi-year period, since it is explicitly designed as an earn-while-you-learn track, not a standard grad hire.
How intakes have tightened
TechBee and the standard graduate track have increasingly separate application pages and criteria — check which one you are actually applying to, since the eligibility, stipend structure and commitment length differ.
Accenture Smart Recruit / campus drives, roles split broadly into Advanced App Engineering (development-heavy) and Application Testing / Support tracks.
Typical process
- Cognitive and technical assessment — aptitude, English, and a coding round for engineering roles.
- Technical interview specific to the track applied for.
- HR / communication round.
- Document verification and a background-check consent step.
What they look for
Clarity on which track you are suited to and interested in — candidates who can articulate why they want App Engineering versus Testing tend to interview better than those treating it as one generic "IT job".
How intakes have tightened
Track selection has become more deliberate at the interview stage rather than assigned afterward, so research the specific track's day-to-day work before the interview, not after the offer.
GenC (Graduate Engineer Trainee programme, split into GenC, GenC Next and GenC Elevate by skill depth) via campus and off-campus applications.
Typical process
- Online assessment — aptitude, logical reasoning, and coding (weighting depends on which GenC tier you're applying for).
- Technical interview, and for GenC Elevate a deeper project/technical discussion.
- HR round covering relocation and the training period structure.
- Document verification, including original and photocopies of all academic records.
What they look for
For GenC Next / Elevate specifically, demonstrated coding practice (a GitHub profile or a completed online course) is treated as a genuine differentiator over a resume line alone.
How intakes have tightened
The multi-tier GenC structure means two candidates from the same campus can get meaningfully different offers depending on which tier they clear, which was less pronounced in earlier cycles — do not compare your outcome to a batchmate's without checking which tier each of you cleared.
Capgemini campus and off-campus test, roles typically split into Analyst (application/testing) and Consultant (development) tracks depending on score band.
Typical process
- Online test — pseudocode, quantitative and verbal ability, game-based or gamified assessment sections in some drives.
- Technical interview, weighted toward fundamentals for Analyst track and toward a specific stack for Consultant track.
- HR interview on relocation and availability.
- Document verification.
What they look for
Comfort with a structured, sometimes gamified test format — candidates unfamiliar with that style benefit from a practice run before the real assessment, since the format itself trips people up more than the difficulty.
How intakes have tightened
The gap between the Analyst and Consultant offer bands has become more visible to candidates before joining than it used to be — ask directly at offer stage which band you have been placed in.
Product companies and startups
There is no single shared pipeline here the way NQT-style testing is shared across most of the services majors above. What follows is the pattern that recurs most often, not a fixed sequence every company follows in order.
Typical process
- Resume and/or take-home assignment screen. Many skip the written test entirely and go straight to a project or problem set relevant to the role.
- One or more technical rounds — for engineering roles this is usually DSA/problem-solving plus a discussion of something you have actually built; for non-engineering roles it is a case study or task specific to the function.
- A "culture" or founder/hiring-manager round, more conversational and less scripted than a services-company HR round.
- Reference checks are more common here than at the services majors, and offers are frequently made and expected to be answered within days, not weeks.
What they look for
- A portfolio or shipped project over a marksheet — a public GitHub repo, a deployed side project, or a documented case study carries real weight here in a way it usually doesn't at a services major.
- Ability to talk through trade-offs in something you built, not just describe what it does.
- Comfort with ambiguity — smaller teams mean the role description is looser and interviewers often probe how you would figure out an unclear problem.
How intakes have tightened
Hiring volume at any individual early-stage startup is small and unpredictable — a handful of roles, not a batch — and can pause entirely between funding rounds. Fresher-specific openings (as opposed to any-experience openings a fresher happens to be competitive for) are less common here than at the IT services majors, so treat this as a track to run in parallel, not the primary one.
