Low percentage...am I a goner?

Hi all,

I love coding and can code very well in C/C++/Java and to some extent in C#. I want to get into a career in Software Development, I really want to get into it. However, my average percentage is coming to about 57% (B.E. Comp. Engg.). My concepts of coding is clear and I can code almost any application, but I doubt if my percentage will jeopardize my plans. So, can I get any job as a Software Developer or am I a goner? Please tell me.

yeah with this percentage it is really difficult to get into a good s/w organization. I am sorry I do not want to dishearten you.

What I can suggest here is try to do as much certifications as you can. Java certified developers are still difficult (if not rare) to find. Market is full of .NET developers (I am one of them

) so leave C# and/or .NET. Lastly, you will need a good reference to get into a s/w company...or another method (which is actually not good) is to join a consultancy (bodyshops...which are abundant in B'lore)...they will initially take a tough technical test but will be able to put u up in a good organization (and will feed on a %age of your salary). But once you have exp, you can move on...

Percentage is like a gateway to enter. Most of the companies filter the candidates by % at first-level and then they have only handful of candidates to interview.

And sorry to say that, 60% is minimum for any company except few. So try to prepare for SCJP and SCWD and with much confident, u can attend the interviews. Rest is upon your performance. If you perform damn good, no one will go through your marks, but i stress the point, if you perform extremely well.

@DeSmOnD dAvId: Dont worry "ALL IZZ WELL".....

I agree dat 60% is minimum criteria.....for a campus placement...
but u can start off with a small company(in case u dnt get ne good Big company)..
then grow in experience & jump in good companies.....

ya u can get certifications from microsoft/sun java etc...to make a healthy resume....
& let me tell u dat...40% of companies perfer percentage...rest 60% prefers....
capability.....

hi mate .. i can understand ur situation .... u v toiled for 4 years n that 3% ... oh damn ...
but hold on.. dont lose hope in a hurry ... u mite not get a good company in campus placement. but since ur coding skills n concepts are good u will for sure be able to get into some company .... stick arnd for 6-8 months if u feel the company is giving you good exposure. Learn to speak and write correct english ... learn email etiquettes ... if u create an application, learn to write correct technical documentation for the same. take help of online forums or seniors in doing that....
along with ur coding, if ur gona code in java/.net, over time learn database concepts also. (Oracle/SQL).... if u make a roadmap instead of brooding on the 3% ...u will b in an excellent position 2 years down the line.
believe me ur in a much better position than those who jus got into that 60% bracket .. u v a challenge .. they dont ... so make the most of now!!

^^I agree with this reply. Even my friend who got really low marks in BE is now in a MNC after 1 year of working in a relatively obscure company.

It all depends upon the market conditions and your knowledge once you are experience enough.

T

I understand your frustrations , except I actually got kicked out of a Mahindra-Sathyam aptitude exam because my 10th standard percentage was 59.5%

(heart-breaking since the aptitude was damn easy and I was certain I could clear the technical rounds) . I asked for some consideration , saying my 12th score 90.6% and that I had 64% in my B.E , but no mercy

Anyway, try to work in a small company.. and the important thing here is to learn as much as you can in 1 year. After you've got that year's worth of experience, start looking for other jobs, you'll easily get them..since percentage is no longer an issue.

Thanks all for your advice...I am actually in final year now. Is it possible to prepare for SCJP by myself? Also, is it good to get both Sun and microsoft certificates? English is not a problem for me, its my mother tongue and I used to score good.

One more thing: Should I go for PG to improve my chances?

MBA is always a good option. Take a break of one year. Crack the CAT and then there will not be any looking behind.

Anyways, even if you start working now, you will have to do MBA later (to step up the hierarchy ladder faster)...so better early than late.

I want to be on the technical line. Will MBA be a change of field?

umm yeah...after MBA you will not be able to do coding. but more of managerial tasks..that's actually gross if you have to do in start of your career. e.g. if you go into sales, you will have to catch clients...listen to their excuses and abuses...if into finance you will have to deal with Access, Excel whole day long, make presentations etc., if you choose mba in technology, they will make you work with server teams etc...

It is not as bad as it sounds in above statement though

There could be some brighter sides also....thing is I can't think even one of them right now...

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Also, is it good to get both Sun and microsoft certificates?

Hmm...so u wanna be a allrounder...

what gagan has commented above is absolutely ryt.....
MBA is to get the Big Bucks....

@Desmond: buddy...if you are that good in coding...trust me ..getting in a big company will get no good except for good sal package....i would rather suggest you to join startup companies if you want to become an all rounder....coz in big companies...there are teams for each and every step of product life cycle....so there is not much scope of learning new things....
whereas in startups....you are the owner of your code and there are lot more opportunities to learn and grow.

I am working in a startup company...and you wont believe...the entire team is full of IITians.

abhidev said:
@Desmond: buddy...if you are that good in coding...trust me ..getting in a big company will get no good except for good sal package....i would rather suggest you to join startup companies if you want to become an all rounder....coz in big companies...there are teams for each and every step of product life cycle....so there is not much scope of learning new things....
whereas in startups....you are the owner of your code and there are lot more opportunities to learn and grow.

I am working in a startup company...and you wont believe...the entire team is full of IITians.

But isn't it preferable to start in a big company and then further your career with start up companies if you wish?
'coz I know people working in some small pvt. ltd. companies with low salaries and doing nothing special.

T

I agree with all the people above except for Goten(coz no meaningful reply!) and the MBA idea. Do the certifications-enter in a mid to small size company-learn unlimited amount of things-if you see the prospect is good then stay despite small pakage or move to a reputed company with exp.
The best idea really is a startup company!!!

So plz dont loose heart and look forward.

J

If you are good in programming, then nobody and nothing can stop you from succeeding in career and jobs.

I am sure that you will reach the deserved position in no time.

Jerin said:
If you are good in programming, then nobody and nothing can stop you from succeeding in career and jobs.

I am sure that you will reach the deserved position in no time.

It is always nice to hear such a thing, but not practical. Most companies' HR do not process CVs if applicant has lower percentages than their criteria (and be informed that I have not seen any company bend their rules for any specific case also). But this applies for freshers only.

There is one saying here in B'lore, "If you throw a stone randomly in air, 99% chances are it will hit a s/w engineer (B.E. passout)". In other words, there is stiff competition here. If you will ever get to see the percentages colleges in southern India award to their students, you jaw will drop and touch your feet! 80% is what I have seen been given to above average students. Toppers score 95% and above. I am from MP and I have not seen RGPV giving such marks to any of their students.

gagan007 said:
There is one saying here in B'lore, "If you throw a stone randomly in air, 99% chances are it will hit a s/w engineer (B.E. passout)". In other words, there is stiff competition here. If you will ever get to see the percentages colleges in southern India award to their students, you jaw will drop and touch your feet! 80% is what I have seen been given to above average students. Toppers score 95% and above. I am from MP and I have not seen RGPV giving such marks to any of their students.

Thats not true.

But apart from that percentage is the entry point for any interview. Have you seen any big company asking for below 60%? No one will. So better go with a start-up company, do the certification and work hard, if you think there is some growth in the company. Otherwise leave the company w/o any second thought.

A

gagan007 said:
If you will ever get to see the percentages colleges in southern India award to their students, you jaw will drop and touch your feet! 80% is what I have seen been given to above average students. Toppers score 95% and above. I am from MP and I have not seen RGPV giving such marks to any of their students.

furious_gamer said:
Thats not true.

It is 100% true. Some universities/colleges in South India (esp. Tamil Nadu) give exorbitant percentages to their B.E. graduates. I have many relatives studying and even the worst student gets 60% there. The toppers do get 95% and this is true even for some autonomous institutes in south and middle India (I am not going to name any but there are some fairly big names involved where I've seen the bare minimum GPA is 7.0. It is ridiculous and impossible simply because the best students of the state colleges are fairly comparable to mediocre/lower students of these universities, yet the marks are nowhere near comparable).

Whereas in universities like Mumbai and Pune, getting 60% is quite an uphill battle. I have had the previlege of knowing about selection processes in several research labs and everyone agrees that getting 60% in south India is simple as nuts. The problem is that setting the bar any lower will lead to an avalanche of candidates.

However, most scientific organizations (even private ones) will always prefer a North Indian university candidate with 60% over a South Indian university candidate with the same marks. Also, in my experience, the north Indian university candidates generally perform much better on the interviews than the south Indian ones (that's because of the lenient marking in some of the south Indian universities).

@AcceleratorX

Dont drag me into this issue of South v North. I am from Madurai(South India) and i know how hard it is to get passed in all subjects.

And leave the Autonomous institutions here. They always prefer to show-off their value. So no wonder they gave such high marks to them.

A

furious_gamer said:
@AcceleratorX

Dont drag me into this issue of South v North. I am from Madurai(South India) and i know how hard it is to get passed in all subjects.

And leave the Autonomous institutions here. They always prefer to show-off their value. So no wonder they gave such high marks to them.

I think my post came across a little wrongly, since I never wanted to incite some South vs. North debate. And yes, it's mostly the autonomous institutes and some lesser known ones that hand out such high marks (also some deemed univs. etc), and it's not limited to TN though I heard (and saw) of it happening more there (obv. because I have more relatives studying there

).

But independent of all these universities vs. marks debate, ultimately I felt that scoring marks is a separate skill which seems to be (somewhat) independent from your knowledge and study.....

furious_gamer said:
Thats not true.

But apart from that percentage is the entry point for any interview. Have you seen any big company asking for below 60%? No one will. So better go with a start-up company, do the certification and work hard, if you think there is some growth in the company. Otherwise leave the company w/o any second thought.

for ur info too.. many giant companies are asking for min 70% no back logs or GPA of 7.5.. and for a trainee it is 75% minimum..

70% above for an experienced candidate? No back logs + 75%+ for a fresher? WTF
Name those "giant" companies please, so that I can :lol:

at them

70% or 7.5GPA for freshers.. and for a trainee its 75%.. eg are cadence,ST,LG,ericsson,HCL in few colg, HP... n dere r many more too..

A

Liverpool_fan said:
70% above for an experienced candidate? No back logs + 75%+ for a fresher? WTF
Name those "giant" companies please, so that I can at them

Basically, those companies recruiting from the deemed univs and autonomous colleges who give out pretty good marks anyway (see previous posts). For example:

Freshers Jobs in Tundra Corporation hiring ASIC Design - Freshers - BE/ BTech/ MTech/ MSc/ BSc - Hyderabad/ Secunderabad

I've spoken to a few HR guys in my days and a lot of them really don't work hard enough or don't want to interview many candidates. In certain places with high number of graduates, a lot of them will set the entry requirements high only to keep the number of applicants to a limit (regardless of small company or big company). Basically they feel that once the marks are there, training can be done for the rest (It's not a wrong mentality but honestly I feel the real talent does not always lie in high marks).

I guess those companies just want cheap professionals in India who do what they are told, and I guess they don't really look for knowledge in the subject or innovation in the candidate (usually who get good marks in university level are "following-the-path-as-told" kind of people and good with people(teachers)), so I guess they select by marks.

pulkitpopli2004 said:
70% or 7.5GPA for freshers.. and for a trainee its 75%.. eg are cadence,ST,LG,ericsson,HCL in few colg, HP... n dere r many more too..

You are talking of placements in colleges, aren't you?
In case of out of campus selections, I haven't observed any 70/75%+ and no backs type of qualifications (particularly the no backs criteria), then again, have barely researched on this matter.

no.. the companies which i have mentioned like ST,cadence,freescale,, they havent gone for placements in collg from last few year..

and they are hiring every month and following the same criteria of %age or GPA,,,

AcceleratorX said:
I think my post came across a little wrongly, since I never wanted to incite some South vs. North debate. And yes, it's mostly the autonomous institutes and some lesser known ones that hand out such high marks (also some deemed univs. etc), and it's not limited to TN though I heard (and saw) of it happening more there (obv. because I have more relatives studying there ).

But independent of all these universities vs. marks debate, ultimately I felt that scoring marks is a separate skill which seems to be (somewhat) independent from your knowledge and study.....

Thats global truth, bu getting marks anywhere (other than those deemed and etc univs) its real pain.

Liverpool_fan said:
70% above for an experienced candidate? No back logs + 75%+ for a fresher? WTF
Name those "giant" companies please, so that I can at them

lulz.... If thats the criteria to enter into big companies. i wonder any of my friends would have joined there.

pulkitpopli2004 said:
no.. the companies which i have mentioned like ST,cadence,freescale,, they havent gone for placements in collg from last few year..

and they are hiring every month and following the same criteria of %age or GPA,,,

As i said earlier, all my friends who got placed in SE, RBI, IBM, Dell were below 70%. So its not true at all the time, may be for your college.

IMO...u should start ur career from startups and then slowly move on to the biggies...coz initially u need to accumulate knowledge and skills which will help u in the long term...whereas limited learning scope in big companies will hinder ur growth later....personally and professionally.

Alright, so, which should I opt for first: SCJP or MCSD?

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Alright, so, which should I opt for first: SCJP or MCSD?

SCJP and go with MCSD

But study hard and attend SCJP or whatever exams. Once you're so strong with the bascis, you will get a good paying job very easily (Ofcourse after a few years of exp in small company...

)

wow, this has become one heck of an informative thread....
and I too am facing a very similar situation....

@Desmond - since I am a junior to you, pretty much the only advice I can give you is to try to milk some marks out of the last semester, even though it may not increase your overall %/CGPA much, it will help you show a higher core %/CGPA.

Hehe, looks like most of us are in same boat. I'm a good coder with strong foundations in coding and get top notch scores in practicals and internals but the finals have some different checking pattern - write everything about the keyword in question regardless what is being asked. I've been a CBSE student and thus find difficult to write more than one page for an answer. That one page equals many pages of other answers but the amount of content is all that matters to the examining eyes.

All in all, excuse me for putting up my Ram Katha over here

I'm interested in internship in Google, should I be learning Python and getting my concepts strong in Data Structures and Algorithms ?

I got placed in Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd. Its a really overwhelming experience. Since, Its the first company I tried, cleared my first apti, cleared my first TI and cleared my first PI and now I am placed.

Is it a good company to start??

yes i-flex is a good company .. office is in goregaon rite? if ur in bombay...
stick arnd for atleast a year if you feel ur learning something ... then make a self assessment ...

You can safely stay there for a year or two. In the meantime, why don't you look for other better offers? It always feels nice to have more offers in hand

You say you are good in programming. Why don't you develop and app and share it in some code sharing sites like SourceForge? You can spice up your CV if you do that.

Trust me, as an interviewer I would rather interview someone who can showcase what he/she has done rather than someone with high percentage who may or may not know how to code.

Your point is strong webgenius. I'll strongly consider it.

@iinfi, I have not got the offer letter yet. Does any one know how long does it take?

did u get placed thru ur college? or u went to a walk-in in the company directly?
do you have any letter to state that u cleared their interview and were given an offer?
if its ur college get in touch with ur rep in college and tell them u dont have an offer letter yet
if u had been to a walk-in, get in touch with the HR in the company (with whom you had interacted) and let them know you dont have an offer letter yet..
at any point IMO u sud have a written/email (from company email a/c) proof that u v been given an offer

I received an indent letter from them. But, no info on place of work. Said they will inform later. Got placed through college, btw.

Look's like I've hit another roadblock. My degree percentage is coming to be 58%, hence making me a 2nd division guy. But, OFSS specified that "the offer is contingent to the candidate receiving 1st class in the highest degree". They are now asking for the mark sheets.

Do you guys think that there is any chance that I might be rejected? If so, what do you suggest I do?

wassup man .. unable to sleep? its past 2.30 am in India!!
honestly I have no idea how the HR will take this. speaking to the HR directly will help. Speak to your college recruitment rep and ask them to get in touch with the company HR and get a clarification.
did you get an offer anywhere else .. did u attend any other interview?

Nope

I got Pune. I've joined on 5th Spertember. Looks like everything has worked out. Thank you guys for all the help and support :razz:

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I got Pune. I've joined on 5th Spertember. Looks like everything has worked out. Thank you guys for all the help and support

good congratulations ... now u got to be good at work .. always show a positive attitude and set right expectations about timelines .... make sure 6 months down the line ur boss says ... "Hez a triffic guy with a triffic attitude ... "

all the best

R

congos buddy, which company?

^^Mentioned in post 34 - Oracle Financial Services Software!!

Once again, thank you iinfi and everyone for the support.

Congrats...I don't think the thread title is correct now...

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I got placed in Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd. Its a really overwhelming experience. Since, Its the first company I tried, cleared my first apti, cleared my first TI and cleared my first PI and now I am placed.

Is it a good company to start??

Oracle Financial is a very good company after all its Oracle...
& its office is in goregoan near HUB Mall in Mumbai.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Once again, thank you iinfi and everyone for the support.

you are welcome ...