// Placement Prep · Class of 2026

The placement playbook nobody handed you in college.

A no-fluff, week-by-week blueprint for landing offers at TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Accenture, Amazon, Microsoft, Flipkart, and the startups everyone is racing to join. Built from the patterns of thousands of students who walked out of campus drives with offers in hand — from NITs and IIITs to state universities and tier-3 colleges.

Fully free Built for 2026 hiring cycle Used by 10,000+ students

How hiring actually works

Before you grind a single LeetCode problem, understand the machine you are about to be processed through. Companies fall into roughly four buckets, and each one wants something different from you.

Pick your runway

Time is your single biggest variable. Find your scenario below and plan backwards from your placement season.

You have 12+ months (2nd or 3rd year — the dream scenario)

You have 6 months (final year, pre-placement)

You have 3 months or less (season is here — execute, don't panic)

Pick a language. Go deep. Don't switch.

The single fastest way to waste three months is to jump between languages. Choose one, master it, and let everything else compound on top.

What to actually learn

• Data types, operators, conditionals, loops, functions
• Arrays and string manipulation until it's reflex
• OOP — classes, objects, inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction, encapsulation
• Exception handling and file I/O
• The standard library / built-in data structures

Free starting points

• Python for Beginners
• Java Tutorial — W3Schools
• C++ Tutorial — Learn-CPP
• JavaScript Tutorial — W3Schools

Data structures & algorithms

DSA is the single non-negotiable. There is no shortcut — but there is a correct order, and following it cuts months off your timeline.

The order that actually works

Level 01 — Foundations (Week 01–02)

• Arrays — traversal, searching, sorting, two pointers, sliding window
• Strings — manipulation, palindromes, anagrams, pattern matching
• Basic math — primes, GCD, LCM, modular arithmetic

Level 02 — Core data structures (Week 03–05)

• Linked lists — singly, doubly, circular, reversal, cycle detection
• Stacks — infix/postfix, next greater element, valid parentheses
• Queues — deque, circular queue, monotonic queue
• Hashing — frequency counting, two-sum variants, grouping

Level 03 — Non-linear (Week 06–09)

• Binary trees — traversals, height, diameter
• BSTs — insert, delete, search, LCA, kth smallest
• Heaps — min/max, top K problems, median of stream
• Tries — insert, search, prefix problems

Level 04 — Advanced (Week 10–14)

• Graphs — BFS, DFS, topological sort, Dijkstra, Bellman-Ford, Prim, Kruskal
• Dynamic programming — 0/1 knapsack, LCS, LIS, edit distance, partition DP
• Backtracking — N-Queens, sudoku, permutations and subsets
• Binary search — on answer, rotated arrays, 2D matrices
• Greedy — activity selection, fractional knapsack, Huffman coding
• Segment trees and Fenwick trees (for higher-tier roles)
• Divide and conquer — merge sort, quick sort, closest pair

Resources worth your time

Where to grind

• LeetCode — the gold standard for product-company interviews
• GeeksforGeeks — theory and practice in one place
• HackerRank — useful for language certifications
• CodeChef & Codeforces — competitive programming muscle

How to practice without wasting reps

• Don't just solve — name the pattern. Sliding window? Two pointers? DP on trees?
• Always read the editorial, even when your code passes. There is usually a cleaner approach.
• Group your solved problems by pattern. Patterns are what you actually carry into interviews.
• After two weeks, start timing yourself — 30 min for medium, 45 for hard.
• Stuck for 30 minutes? Take a hint. Not the full solution. A hint.

CS fundamentals

One bad OS round can kill an offer. Service companies grill you on these. Product companies are doing it more and more too.

Operating systems

• Processes vs threads — creation, states, context switching
• CPU scheduling — FCFS, SJF, Round Robin, Priority
• Deadlocks — conditions, prevention, Banker's algorithm, detection
• Memory management — paging, segmentation, virtual memory, page replacement (LRU, FIFO, Optimal)
• File systems — inodes, directory structures, allocation methods
• Synchronisation — mutex, semaphores, monitors, producer-consumer, readers-writers

Database management systems

• ER model — entities, relationships, attributes, cardinality
• Relational model — tables, keys (primary, foreign, candidate, super)
• SQL — SELECT, all JOINs, GROUP BY, HAVING, subqueries, views, stored procedures
• Normalisation — 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF with worked examples
• Transactions — ACID, commit, rollback, savepoint
• Concurrency control — locks, two-phase locking, timestamp ordering
• Indexing — B-tree, B+ tree, clustered vs non-clustered
• NoSQL — types, when each one earns its keep

Computer networks

• OSI model — all 7 layers, what each does, protocols at each
• TCP/IP — compared with OSI, protocols at each layer
• IP addressing — IPv4, IPv6, subnetting, CIDR
• Protocols — HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, DNS, DHCP, ARP
• TCP vs UDP — handshake, termination, when to use what
• Routing — static vs dynamic, RIP, OSPF, BGP basics
• Devices — hub, switch, router, gateway, firewall
• Application layer — DNS resolution end-to-end, how HTTPS actually works

Object-oriented programming

• Classes and objects — definitions, constructors, destructors
• Inheritance — single, multiple, multilevel, hierarchical, hybrid
• Polymorphism — compile-time and runtime
• Abstraction — abstract classes vs interfaces
• Encapsulation — access modifiers, getters and setters
• SOLID principles — all five with examples
• Design patterns — at minimum, Singleton, Factory, Observer

Build projects you can defend

Projects separate you from every other resume in the pile. Interviewers will dig into your decisions — your architecture, your trade-offs, what you'd do differently. Build for the conversation, not just the screenshot.

What makes a project actually strong

• It solves a real problem — not a tutorial you renamed
• It has a live deployment or a demo people can poke at
• The stack matches the role you are targeting
• The GitHub repo is clean, commented, and has a real README
• You can defend every architectural choice you made

Ideas by domain

Full-stack web

• Job board with company profiles and application tracking
• Real-time collaborative notes app — a Notion lite
• E-commerce platform with a working payment gateway
• Community Q&A platform — your own mini Stack Overflow

Backend & APIs

• URL shortener with an analytics dashboard
• Social feed REST API with rate limiting
• Auth system with JWT, OAuth2, refresh tokens
• File storage service with upload, download, sharing

Machine learning & AI

• Resume parser and job matcher
• Sentiment analysis on product reviews
• Image classification web app
• Chatbot powered by a fine-tuned LLM

Mobile & other

• Expense tracker with smart budget alerts
• Real-time location sharing app
• Health and fitness tracker with proper data viz

Aptitude & reasoning

Most students lose the first round because they treat aptitude as an afterthought. A brilliant coder who fails aptitude never gets to write a line of code in the interview.

What to cover

Quantitative aptitude

• Number systems, HCF/LCM, remainders
• Percentages, profit and loss, simple and compound interest
• Ratio, proportion, averages, mixtures
• Time, speed, distance — trains, boats, streams
• Time and work, pipes and cisterns
• Permutations, combinations, probability
• Data interpretation — bar graphs, pie charts, tables

Logical reasoning

• Coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense
• Puzzles and seating arrangements
• Syllogisms, cause and effect
• Statement-assumption, statement-conclusion

Verbal ability

• Reading comprehension
• Sentence correction, para-jumbles
• Synonyms, antonyms, vocabulary
• Cloze test, one-word substitutions

Resume & LinkedIn

An ATS reads your resume before a human ever does. If your resume can't get past the bot, your projects don't matter.

The non-negotiables

• Single column. No tables, no fancy columns, no graphics
• One page if you have under two years of experience
• Lead with skills, then projects, then education
• Action verbs only — built, designed, reduced, improved, led
• Quantify everything you can — "reduced API response time by 40%", "shipped a feature used by 500+ users"
• GitHub links for every project
• Zero spelling mistakes — run Grammarly before you export
• Export as PDF with your name in the filename

LinkedIn that actually works

• Professional headshot — not a selfie, not a blur
• Headline beyond "Student at X College". Try: "Full Stack Developer · DSA · React · Node.js · SDE 2026"
• About section — 3 to 5 lines: what you do, what you're looking for
• Every project listed with a description and a GitHub link
• Connect with seniors at your target companies. Then politely ask for a referral

Interview preparation

The technical interview

Interviewers aren't really grading code. They're grading the way you think.

• Can you think out loud through a problem?
• Do you spot edge cases without being asked?
• Can you improve your first solution?
• Do you actually know your own projects, or did you just clone them?

How to train for it

• Practice speaking while solving — narrate your approach before writing a line
• Solve 5 to 10 problems daily in interview conditions — timed, no hints
• For every project, prep answers to: Why this tech? What would you change? How would you scale?
• Build a personal question bank from real interview reports

System design (for dream roles)

If you're chasing top product companies, basic system design is no longer optional — even as a fresher.

• Scaling — vertical vs horizontal, load balancers
• Databases — SQL vs NoSQL, sharding, replication
• Caching — Redis, CDNs, invalidation strategies
• Message queues — Kafka, RabbitMQ basics
• Microservices vs monolith — the real trade-offs
• Designing the classics — URL shortener, Twitter feed, chat app, notification service

The HR round

Underestimated. Eliminative at most companies. Prep for it like a coding round.

Mock tests & mock interviews

Mock tests

Take at least 20 full-length mock tests before placement season opens. Simulate the real thing — no phone, no music, no second windows.

Mock interviews

Non-negotiable. Students who do mock interviews consistently — out-perform students who only grind problems. Every single time.

• Pair up with peers. Take turns being the interviewer
• Pramp — free peer-to-peer technical mocks
• Ask placed seniors to run a mock with you — most will say yes
• Record yourself. Watch it back. You'll spot what to fix instantly

Company-specific preparation

Each company has its own pattern. Generic prep gets generic results. Target the companies on your shortlist.

The habits that quietly separate placed students from the rest

Every free resource, in one place