Life @ IT Company

For most of the time, life of a software engineer is typical. One or two years in a company, then a chance to go onsite and earn some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and one becomes a team lead. After 5-6 years, a manager.

When you go onsite, you can earn up to 1 Lakh Rupees a month if you are a software engineer and more if you are an analyst or a manager. Few companies like IBM, Accenture, Sapient have few or no onsite opportunities. If you are an analyst after 4 years you can expect an offshore pay of Rupees 45 K a month. But offshore pay is hardly anything. It’s what you earn onsite that counts.

Work that suits you

Your engineering branch or degree of study is the last thing that would matter here. Even if you have done PhD in Robotics they won’t bother to put you in the project that suits you. In big companies you do not get to select where you want to work.

Technical skills vs Communication skills?

If you have good speaking skills and can project yourself well to your managers, you will grow. When you code only a couple of lines in a year, you would need to talk the rest of the time. Relation with your boss is very important.

The work is basically simple which almost anybody can do. The work does not involve too much skill of programming. Most of the projects will be related to some business such as Retail or Financial service or Insurance etc. And your managers have no idea about what work you have done. No one is going to be look into your code you wrote or the bug that you fixed. So your salary hike depends upon how well you project yourself and how well you contribute to the project.

Hifi Programmer

Don’t be in thoughts that you are going to become a hi fundu programmer. The only time during which you do some serious programming is during the training period. If you thought Windows Vista code was written in India, you are wrong. The Help documentation was done in India. Remember Indian software industry is not about creating new things. It’s all about client giving you work. Work that their IT team is NOT interested in doing. But you get money, work experience and a life called “White collar job”.

If you are in Mainframe stuff, you’re going to dig into some code written in 1970 and wonder half the time “How could someone write such hopeless code?” You need to add one or two lines into that code. Not more than 20 lines.

The Bench

There are many fresh trainees kept on the bench or given some boring projects. All software companies have to show Resources to their clients. That’s why they hire so many people. And not everyone who joins as a fresher ends up with good work. While you are “On the bench”, you aren’t working for any client and you are an unbilled resource who doesn’t earn any money for the company. Being on the bench for 1-2 months would be “pleasurable.” But any period beyond that will get you frustrated.

The Appraisal

You will get trained in some X technology but will get a project in Y technology (if you are lucky enough to get one!) for which you will be trained again for a month. You slog for hours for an year in the office and at the end your boss will say that your performance was not outstanding and you get an average performance rating in appraisal.

Enjoy your stay!

Reference: pagalguy.com

This post categorizes the frequently asked questions in HR interviews. You can save these questions for later review by downloading the pdf of HR interview questions.

HR Questions:

Stability at work

1. How long would you expect to work for us if hired?
2. What are your career options right now?
3. What will this job give that your previous job doesn’t?
4. What is the profile that you are looking for, how will this company give you while previous doesn’t?
5. Why are you leaving your current position? (Or) Why are you looking for a job change? (Or) What is the reason you are leaving previous organization?
6. If another company offers you better salary than us, what will be your reaction?
7. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now? (Or) What are your short term goals?

Work ethic questions

1. What is more important to you: the money or the work?
2. If you won $10 million in lottery, would you still work?
3. Tell me about a time when you were accountable for a mistake you made. Did you take responsibility for the mistake?
4. Describe your work ethic.
5. What is your philosophy towards work?
6. Are you willing to put the interests of the organization ahead of your own?

Personality test questions

1. What are your greatest strengths?
2. What would your previous supervisor say your strongest point is?
3. What are your greatest weaknesses?
4. Do you have any blind spots?
5. What do your co-workers say about you?
6. Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized? (Or) How do you handle criticism?
7. What makes you angry at work?
8. Do you get angry with your team mates if they don’t cooperate?
9. What irritates you about co-workers?
10. Tell me about a time when you helped resolve a dispute between fellow team mates.
11. Tell me about the most fun you have had on the job.
12. Tell me honestly about your boss’s strengths and weaknesses.
13. Tell me about a problem you had with a supervisor.
14. Do you prefer to work alone or do you work better in groups?
15. Looking back, what would you differently in your life?
16. What was the toughest decision in your life you ever had to made?
17. What are your professional goals?
18. What have you done to improve your knowledge in the last year?
19. Do you consider yourself successful? Why?
20. Who has inspired you in life and why?

Compatibility Questions

1. Technically, what kind of work would you prefer?
2. Would you lie for the company?
3. Briefly describe an ideal position for you?
4. Describe your ideal company, location and job?
5. What kind of person would you refuse to work with?
6. Why do you want to join this industry?
7. What makes you the best candidate for this position?
8. What motivates you to do your best at work?
9. What was the toughest part of your last job?
10. What have you learned from mistakes on the job?
11. What has disappointed you about a job?
12. What do you expect from this organization?
13. What has been your biggest professional disappointment?
14. What position do you prefer on a team working on a project?
15. How do you propose to compensate for your lack of experience?
16. Do you think you are overqualified for this position?
17. Would you be willing to relocate if required?
18. Are you willing to work overtime? Nights? Weekends?

Communication skills

1. Tell me about your hobbies and pastimes?
2. Which is the most unforgettable moment in your life?
3. How do you overcome stress at work?
4. What according to you, are the skills required to be successful in IT industry?
5. If you were hiring a person for this job, what would you look for?
6. Why should I hire you? (Or) Why do you think you are the best candidate?
7. Explain how you would be an asset to this organization.
8. Can you describe your previous company’s work culture?

Ego Questions

1. What is the main role of a HR in an organization?
2. Why do you want to work for this organization?
3. What do you know about this organization?
4. Can you list the clientèle of this organization?
5. On a scale of 10, rate me as an interviewer.

Salary Negotiation Questions

1. The Salary question – How much do you want?
2. What kind of salary do you need?

Tacit Questions

1. Is the candidate over qualified for this position?
2. Will this candidate be satisfied with the profile and nature of work offered to him?
3. If I offer a job, is there a chance this person will quit and start his own business?
4. Is this person too outspoken or too reticent?
5. The company where candidate is currently working seems to be an unpopular brand. Will this hire affect my company’s brand image?
6. Will this person be able to pick up the work assigned to him?
7. Is this person lacking any basic skills or manners?
8. Is there anything that this candidate is trying to hide from us?

Background check questions

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Questions related to passport and visa.
3. Questions related to previous month Salary slips.

Rationale behind asking these questions

Stability at Work The reason why the employee is quitting current job is of utmost importance for HR managers. They want to know why exactly the employee was motivated to quit the current job. They want to make sure that the employee doesn’t decide to quit the company before working for an year or two. So this category of questions are indirect ways of asking the question, “How long will you stay with us after hiring you?”

Work ethic questions are asked to check the whether the candidates posses values such as Loyalty to the company, reliability and accountability at work. Is work just another menial task that fetches you money or do you enjoy your work? Is money your only priority at work place?

Ego Questions. In interviews, some HRs ask a few irrelevant questions such as “What is the role and importance of HR Manager in an organization?”, to make themselves feel important and to satisfy their ego. Other questions that fall in this category are those that ask about their employer organization such as “What do you know about this company?”, “Why would you like to join this company”, to make themselves feel better from inside for working for that company. You should try to exaggerate and lift the interviewer’s ego by answering in a boasting and optimistic manner.

Communication skills. There are some questions that have no relation to the job position being offered, sometimes these questions are personal. They go something like “whom do you like more your mother or father and why?” Such questions are asked to get the candidate talking, to determine how good their speaking, persuasion and presentation skills are. These questions are especially important for the job positions that involve communication with customers.

Compatibility questions are asked by HRs to confirm if the candidate is a good fit into the corporate culture. For example, if the job requires the candidate to work in night shifts, and the candidate doesn’t have prior experience working in a night shift, this might become potential problem for the candidate in future which may result in employee’s frustration and eventually resignation from that job.

Personality test questions is a category of interview questions which includes all the questions that the interviewer asks to know about the candidate’s strengths & weaknesses, personal vision & goals, values , attitude towards work, people and organization. How good a candidate is who has no clarity about his/her professional goals? How good is a candidate who has problems working smoothly with people?

Aptitude questions are being asked by the interviewers to determine the smartness of the candidate. Since HR managers’ job role is often disconnected with technical stuff, they don’t and can’t ask technical questions to the interview candidate. They test people by asking puzzles or role play questions. Puzzles in general, because they indicate to certain extent, the problem solving ability of an individual. Role play questions are asked to check how you behave in a particular scenario that they are familiar with. For example, the hiring manager may ask you to pretend to be receiving a call from an angry customer and you are supposed to pacify him by assuring him that his issue would be looked into immediately.

Salary negotiation questions are of utmost importance for the candidates who appear for the interview. 90% of time, the reason for job change is for a better pay check. So the candidate is most eager to answer these questions. From HR perspective, these questions are asked to find out whether the company can match the financial requirements of the job candidate.

Tacit questions are the most dangerous of all these categories of interview questions. They are usually the unspoken concerns of the interviewer that lead to rejection of candidates. They are also few of the most frequent causes for a job rejection.

Background check questions are being asked to avoid hiring the spurious professionals, to check misrepresentation of facts, to check whether the candidate is not faking any details on his resume – such as fake degree or fake experience or fake salary slips etc. And in some places, where there are region specific things to ensure that the candidate legally qualifies to be hired. Issues such as citizenship, visa status etc.

HR interview questions can be broadly classified into the following categories.

HR Question Categories:

• Stability at work
• Work ethic test questions
  • Loyalty
  • Ownership
  • Dedication
  • Money mindedness
• Personality test questions
  • Strengths and Weaknesses
  • Honesty
  • Personal vision & values
  • Attitude towards work
  • Attitude towards people
  • Attitude towards organization
• Compatibility Questions
  • Compatibility with company culture
  • Compatibility with job role or project
• Aptitude questions
  • Puzzles
  • Case studies
• Communication skills
  • Speaking skills
  • Presentation skills
  • Persuasive skills
  • Customer handling skills
• Ego questions
  • Praise the HR
  • Praise the Company
• Salary Negotiation Questions
• Tacit Questions
• Background check questions
  • Check previous work history
  • Check authenticity of work experience
  • Clarify other region-specific issues

Human Resource Managers have simple concerns on behalf their employer organization. Their interviews are usually much easier to generalize than the technical ones. That’s because HR managers have very simple objectives — they want to check whether the candidate is loyal, honest, convincing, smart and sane. In simple words, a HR manager wants to avoid a bad hire. From their previous experiences, they knows what kind of people they don’t want to hire.

Hiring new candidates is very responsible task for the Hiring Managers and Human Resource Managers. Their decision whether to hire or not to hire a candidate, can add value to the company, shape its future, bring new energy and enthusiasm to the existing work force.

A bad hire can prove very expensive to the company. If the candidate that they hire is not capable enough to perform his/her daily activities at work, the team for which he/she works will have to suffer working with that non-performing resource until new hiring takes place. At times, it gets very difficult for the companies to fire people based on employee’s poor performance, owing to many factors such as the company policies, loss of morale among the fellow employees, etc.

Even though the company takes a bold step to fire the unwanted resource, replacing this poorly performing resource is tough, as fresh hiring means additional costs to the company and wastage of time of the hiring managers for conducting interviews. Not only that, the hiring managers would be held accountable for the bad hire that took place. Which could mean that if the hiring managers do a bad hire, they may lose their reputation among their superiors which may lead to a bad performance review in their annual appraisal.

To avoid all these complications, a responsible hiring manager asks himself/herself the following questions before confirming a candidate with an job offer.

• Is this person authentic?
• Will this person work for the company at least for the next few years?
• Will the company be able to recover the costs incurred to him by the company?
• Does this person have ethics at work?
• Is this person sane?
• Does this person fit into our company culture?
• Is this person smart?
• Can this person speak well?
• Why should I care to hire this person?
• Can we financially afford to hire this person?
• Do we have any concerns related to this person’s profile?

References:

HR question & answers

Techpreparation.com

Coolinterview.com

Download HR questions in this article as PDF

Comment , if you would like to add a question to this list.

In websites such as coolinterview.com, geekinterview.com, you will find plethora of technical interview questions. But all the questions there are posted and answered by the users. You might have found that some questions mentioned there are of any use. Also you will most of the answers not much reliable. We at interviewmantra, extensively research for good interview questions, categorize them according to difficulty, answer each of them in detail, make sure that the answers are correct to the best of our knowledge. Here is the last 5 questions in this series of C++ interview questions. Hope these are of use to you for interview preparation.

6. What’s the knack with vector<bool>?

The std::vector<bool> is a specialization of the std::vector<> class template, i.e., when an object of vector<bool> is created, it uses a specialized and highly optimized version of the vector<> template, instead of instantiating the template for the bool type. The vector<bool> stores boolean data as bits and not as bool variables (which could take a whole byte to store a single true or a false).

The vector<bool> is optimized on space, rather than on speed, unlike the vector<> template. Moreover, this optimization has been forced upon the users because of the specialization. Also, the vector<bool> items are not addressable and the specialization defines the iterator in a form different than that of vector<> which is not random-access. For more info, check here

7. What is the difference between assignment operator and a copy constructor?

As the names suggest, the copy constructor is used to “construct an object”. The new object is an exact copy of another object that is already constructed. The assignment operator is used to “assign an object” with the value(s) of some other object. Hence, the assignment operator is something that comes into action when we have an object to the LHS of the ‘=’ operator and some expression to the RHS.

For Example:
For some type T and “params” for the object’s constructor,

{
   T x (params1, ...);
   T y (params2, ...);

   T z = x; /* Copy : z created with the value of x */
   y = x+z; /* Assignment : y gets the value equivalent to x+z */
}

If a programmer doesn’t write a copy constructor or an assignment operator, then the compiler provides one. The copy constructor provided by the compiler does a shallow-copy of the objects and, hence, could lead to problems. And, when the programmer overloads the assignment operator for a particular class, s/he must take care of self-assignment and free the resources before the assignment is done.

8. Why we would use exception handling rather than different return values to signal an error?

The probability of a program failing is never zero and, when when such conditions arise, different steps shall be taken. Two options are – Returning an Error code and using Exception Handling.
Returning an error-code is fine but has some problems associated with it:

1. The error-code returned is generally of type “int”. The problem here is that if certain integer values are associated with error-codes, then the function would have to exclude those from the valid return values, which isn’t feasible in all situations.
2. Even if the above is feasible, the code would require code to check the return value for each call and this would cause code bloat.
3. Some error codes are used to signal that the system is in non-recoverable state and needs to exit. This might not be a good thing to be done at all times, for example, if the code that generates the error and terminates the program is part of a library and is being run as a part of a system that can’t be terminated.

The above problems are not seen while using Exception handling because it separates the error-handling code from the program logic. This also makes the code clean and readable.

9. What is RAII?

Resource Acquisition Is Initialization or RAII is a design pattern that helps in creating objects, on the heap, that are safely destructed. The RAII technique requires a wrapper to be used to hold the resource so that when the wrapper object goes out of scope or an exception is thrown, the resource is freed.

For Example:

#include<exception>
#include<iostream>
#include<string>

struct someClass{};

class Wrap
{
   someClass* ptr;
public:
   Wrap() : ptr(0){}
   Wrap(someClass* obptr): ptr(obptr){}

   void setNull()
   {
      if(ptr)
         delete ptr;
      ptr=0;
   }

   void changeRsrc(someClass* obptr)
   {
      if(ptr)
         delete ptr;
      ptr=obptr;
   }

 someClass& operator*()   { return *ptr;}
 someClass* operator->()  { return ptr;}
 ~Wrap(){ std::cout<<"Destructor\n";delete ptr; ptr=0;}
};

void  Foo()
{
 /* someClass *somePtr = new someClass; */

 Wrap wObj(new someClass);
 /* Some Operations on someClass object using wObj */

 throw std::exception();
}

int main()
{
 try
 {
    Foo();
 }catch(std::exception&){std::cout<<"Exception caught\n";}
}

Here, the class Wrap implements the RAII. When Foo() throws an exception, the wObj, being on the stack, invokes its destructor which frees the memory space taken up by the object of someClass. If the somePtr would have been used, then the space allocated by it would not have been freed.
The auto_ptr is a class template, available in C++, that implements the RAII.

10. What is RTTI? What are its uses?

The RTTI or Run-Time Type Identification is a feature of C++ that helps in storing and retrieving type information of the objects at runtime. This information can be used for safely typecasting objects, and to fetch and utilize the type information to set the flow of the program at runtime.

The RTTI requires the classes in use to be “polymorphic” in nature, which means that there should be at least one virtual function defined in it. The system is used with the help of dynamic_cast<> and the typeid operator.

The typeid operator is available under the “typeinfo” header and can be used to find out the class to which a particular object belongs to, at runtime. The value returned by the operator is implementation-defined and hence, can be different across compilers. Thus, for portability sake, the operator can be used in the following manner:

#include<iostream>
#include<typeinfo>

struct dummyBase
{virtual ~dummyBase(){}};

struct dummyDer: dummyBase{};

void check(dummyBase* a)
{
   if(typeid(*a)==typeid(dummyBase))
      std::cout<<"It is a dummyBase object\n";

   else if(typeid(*a)==typeid(dummyDer))
      std::cout<<"It is a dummyDer object\n";
}

int main()
{
   dummyDer d;
   dummyBase b;
   dummyBase*ptr;

   ptr=&d;
   check(ptr);

   ptr=&b;
   check(ptr);
}

If only the object information is required and no cast is to be done, then one must use the typeid operator and not the dynamic_cast because the former takes constant-time to return the value.

The dynamic_cast<> operator is what actually utilizes the RTTI system. The dynamic_cast<> is safe because if the cast is not possible, it sets the pointer to NULL instead of returning a bad pointer and in case of a reference, it throws the std::bad_cast exception. The cast knows about the hierarchy of the particular object that helps it do its work correctly and can be used to cast up, down or laterally.

For Example:

#include<iostream>

struct ITop
{
   virtual void funcTop()=0;
   virtual ~ITop(){}
};

struct ILeft: ITop
{
   void funcTop(){ std::cout<<"ILeft funcTop\n";}
   virtual void funcLeft()=0;
};

struct IRight: ITop
{
   void funcTop(){ std::cout<<"IRight funcTop\n";}
   virtual void funcRight()=0;
};

struct Left: ILeft
{
   void funcLeft(){ std::cout<<"Left heir\n";}
};

struct Right: IRight
{
   void funcRight(){ std::cout<<"Right heir\n";}
};

void Foo(ITop* elem)
{
   elem->funcTop();

   if(ILeft* ptrL = dynamic_cast<ILeft*>(elem))
      ptrL->funcLeft();
   else if(IRight* ptrR = dynamic_cast<IRight*>(elem))
      ptrR->funcRight();
}

int main()
{
   ITop* ptr[]={new Left, new Right};

   Foo(ptr[0]);
   Foo(ptr[1]);

   delete ptr[0];
   delete ptr[1];
}

In the above code, the function Foo() checks the type of ‘elem’ and finds out where does the object lie in the hierarchy and accordingly, invokes either the funcLeft() or the funcRight().

Here is one good use of RTTI.

1. Can you explain the OOPS concepts – Encapsulation, Abstraction, Inheritance and Polymorphism?
2. How can you achieve Polymorphism using Java?
3. What are access modifiers?
4. What does the access modifier ‘protected’ signify?
5. What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface?
6. Can you describe a business scenario where you will have to choose between an abstract class and an interface?
7. What are Collections in Java?
8. Can you name few Collection classes in Java?
9. What is the difference between an ArrayList and a Vector?
10. What is the difference between HashMap and a HashTable?
11. What is the use of Properties class in Java?
12. Explain how to use Java class StringTokenizer
13. What is the difference between .equals and == operator?
14. Can we declare a try block with a finally block and without a catch?
15. How does the order of exceptions in catch block matter?
16. How to write a user defined Exception?
17. What is the difference between an Error and an Exception?

These questions were compiled by Rakesh Kumar Vashisht

This questions was asked in interview for position of internship position in a company. Imagine that below question was put to you in an interview.

Are you a leader or a follower?

What would be your answer to this question?

I invite readers to post their answers with justification in comments. I will choose the top 3 good answers among the readers’ comments and mention it along with the reader’s name and their website(if any) in this post.

Here are the questions asked in an interview with the company Amdocs, calling for Java developers with 2 to 5 years of IT experience.

Java Questions:

1. Where and why do we use the synchronized keyword?
2. Give an example of polymorphism in java with code?
3. What are the classes and interfaces used in Collection framework, briefly explain them?
4. What are inner classes and why do we need them?
5. Do we name the java file using the Outer class’s name?
6. How to access the inner class?
7. Why do we need an abstract class from design perspective?
8. Difference between keywords and variables?
9. What is the deployment process of your application?
10. Explain MVC?
11. What are the components in your application that correspond to Model View and Controller components?
12. Which application server do you use to deploy your app?
13. What database do you use and how do you connect your java application to the database?
14. What is JNDI?
15. What is EJB?
16. What do u mean by serialization? How do we achieve it in java?

Amdocs, Pune is doing a lot of hiring these days. In case you have attended an interview with Amdocs recently, please post the questions that were asked in comments. Let’s share interview questions, experiences and make our lives easier.

Feel free to comment the answers to these questions.

In the past, numerous articles on frequently asked C Interview Questions had been posted. All those questions were accompanied with clear answers and supporting code examples wherever appropriate.

An ebook named “Favourite 50 – C Question Bank” had been created and posted to the downloads page of Interview Mantra. That ebook was a result of aggregation of all the C Interview questions and answers posted in Interview Mantra. That was the first edition of this ebook. The ebook was downloaded 8756 times till the date this post had been written.

Inspired by the success of first edition, we have come up with the second edition that includes few corrections, additions and major formatting changes. This book is available for free download exclusively for the readers of Interview Mantra.

Click here to download the second edition of the ebook “Favourite 50 – C Question Bank“

1. Why don’t we have virtual constructors?

The virtual mechanism, though used without the knowledge of the complete type of the object, works only on fully-constructed objects. But, in order to create an object, the user is required to provide the complete information about the object. Thus, it is not possible for a constructor to be virtual.

2. What is virtual destructor?

Consider a class “Base” that is inherited by another class “Derived” and there exists a pointer-to-base referring to a heap-allocated derived object, then a virtual destructor would be required in the base class for the proper clean-up of the object. If the destructor is not virtual, then the destructor for the derived sub-object won’t be called and hence, the resources will not be freed.

For Example:

#include<iostream>

struct Base
{
      Base(){std::cout<<"Base object constructed\n";}
      ~Base(){std::cout<<"Base object destructed\n";}
};

struct Derived: Base
{
      Derived(){std::cout<<"Derived object constructed\n";}
      ~Derived(){std::cout<<"Derived object destructed\n";}
};

int main()
{
      {
            Base b_Obj;
            Derived d_obj;
      }
      {
            Base *p_b = new Derived();
            delete p_b;
      }
}

In the above code, the b_obj and d_obj would be destructed properly but the object referred-to by the pointer p_b won’t be destructed properly until the base class’ destructor is made virtual.

This is because when p_b is delete-ed, it calls the destructor of the static type of the pointer, which is Base, instead of the Dynamic type.

Thus, whenever it is possible that your class might be inherited by another class, it is safe to make the destructor virtual.

3. What is Self-Assignment? Does it have any bugs/problems associated with it?

Assignment of an object to itself is known as self-assignment.

For example:

int func(int &x, int &y)
{
      x=x;   /* Self Assignment */

      x=y;   /* Self-Assignment, because x and y both refer to "data" [defined in main() ] */
}

int main()
{
      int data=10;
      fun(data, data);
}

One potential problem associated with self-assignment arises in the following code:

class dummy
{
      int n;
      int *ptr;

public:
      dummy() : ptr(new int){ *ptr = 0; }
      ~dummy() {delete ptr;}

      dummy& operator= (const dummy& D)
      {
            delete ptr; /* #1 */
            ptr= D.ptr; /* #2 */
      }

      int* operator*()
      {
            return ptr;
      }
};

int main()
{
      dummy mObj(10);
      mObj = mObj;
}

Here, Line #1, delete-s the pointer ptr, which is then invalidated. Line #2 assigns that freed memory back to ptr. If the pointer is now used, it will invoke Undefined Behavior.

To prevent this, the = operator should first check for self-assignment.

dummy& operator= (const dummy& D)
{
      if(*this==D)
            return *this;
      else
      {
            delete ptr;
            ptr = D.ptr;
            return *this;
      }
}

4. What do you mean by Shallow copy and Deep copy?

Shallow copy and Deep copy are two ways of copying an object.
Consider the following code

class Dummy
{
      string d_str;
      int* d_ptr;
public:
      Dummy(string xstr, int* dptr) : d_str(xstr), d_ptr(pstr) {}
      ~Dummy() { delete d_ptr;}
};

int main()
{
      Dummy Xobj("Test_Object", new int);
      {
            Dummy Yobj = Xobj;
      }
}

A shallow copy of an object copies it bit-by-bit. This is what happens in the implicitly-defined assignment operator and copy constructor.

In the above example, the Xobj will be copied bit-by-bit into Yobj. Here, the copy constructor of Xobj.d_str will be first invoked to copy its contents into Yobj.d_str and then the Xobj.d_ptr would be copied  into Yobj.d_str and Yobj.d_ptr. The copy constructor of std::string has been defined to perform a Deep copy but the Xobj.d_ptr would be shallow-copied which means that Xobj.d_ptr and Yobj.d_ptr will both point to the same memory location and any change to one pointer will cause a change to the other.

The main problem occurs when an object goes out of scope or a pointer element is freed/invalidated. In the above example, Yobj will go out of scope and the memory pointed would be freed, causing both Xobj.d_ptr and Yobj.d_ptr to be invalidated and, thus, the user is not allowed to use Xobj.d_ptr any further.

A deep copy of Xobj into Yobj would cause the member Yobj.d_ptr to get hold of a new memory location and the contents of the memory be same as of those referred by the member Xobj.d_ptr. Now, as the memory location referred by Xobj.d_ptr and that by Yobj.d_ptr are different, deletion/invalidation of the memory causes no trouble to Xobj.

5. What is the Placement new? Where would you use it? What are your responsibilities?

The Placement new operator is used in case you want the object to be placed at a particular pre-allocated memory.

For Example:

class test
{
      /* members and methods */
};

int main()
{
      char memory[sizeof(test)];
      char* position = memory;
      test* object = new(position) test;
}

Some situations where placement new can be used are :

1. When writing your memory allocation unit and you want memory to be allocated from only a pre-allocated section of memory.
2. Used when it is required that I/O devices be mapped to specific memory addresses.
3. To create a shared memory region (for Inter-process Communication)

There are a lot of other uses of placement new. Check here

When using placement new, the following points need to be kept in mind:

1. Don’t use placement new unless you really need it and it is important that the object be places at some particular location in memory
2. It is the programmer’s job to check that the memory being used has enough space for the object and the memory is aligned properly.
3. The programmer is responsible for destruction the placed object, i.e., the programmer needs to call the destructor explicitly.

I discovered a great website that comprehensively covers puzzles and questions in C language.

Gowrikumar.com – C Puzzles

What’s special about these puzzles and questions is that some of these questions are asked in interviews of experienced C programmers at Multi National Companies. The standard of the questions and answers at the above site is pretty high, usually suits programmers with prior experience or expertise in C.

The man behind this website is CH. Gowri Kumar. He is from Hyderabad-India. He is a masters graduate from Indian Institute of science and has over 7 years of Software development experience with top IT companies such as HP, Motorola, Microsoft etc.

If you are a C lover, be sure to subscribe to the Google group, Programming Puzzles maintained by Gowrikumar himself. You can get all your C programming questions solved by the vibrant and active community there.

Comment below if you know sites similar to these which cover C programs.

Watch below an interesting video recording of an interview for a marketing position.

Here are few important dos and donts that can be drawn from this video.  Make a mental note of these points before appearing for a job interview.

Dos

• Convert negative to positive
  The lady being interviewed in the video hails from a farm. In the second version of her interview where she does well, she puts across a point that she earned the qualities of being a straight talker, knows to work in a team and has the ability to plan rough conditions ahead owing to have grown up in a farm. This is how you convert a weak point into a strength.
• Ask interesting questions
  Come prepared with a list of questions to be asked at the end of the interview. Ask questions that make you sound interested in the job rather than asking about paid leaves or other allowances. You could ask about career opportunities, growth and responsibilities.

Donts

• Don’t be desperate
  Don’t show verbally or in actions that you are desperately looking for a job. Remember that recruiters avoid candidates who show desperateness to get a job. They tend to attribute the candidate’s over-interest to unfitness for securing a job elsewhere.
• Don’t complain
  The lady in the interview introduces herself with a complaint. She tries to rationalize her delay in turning up to the interview by blaming the unclear instructions given by the employer to her. Later in the video, she blames her previous employer for not valuing her work. Don’t talk such things. It gives a really bad feeling about you to the interviewer.
• Don’t tell your negatives
  Know your negative points yourself first before doing the interview. It could be anything ranging from a gap in career to scoring poor grades in college to not having relevant experience. Avoid speaking about your weak points yourself. Would you buy a cola drink if they had advertised that their product contained pesticides and fats?
• Don’t assert without evidence
  You should be able to reason out why you are the best candidate for the job. Simply asserting statements that you are “a committed person with excellent work ethic” does not help. Try to give evidences from your previous experiences when you excelled at work. Support your statements with proofs.