Applied Materials came to our campus for placement. The first round was a one-hour online written test. All questions were objective.

25 questions covered aptitude (number series, probability, time and work, etc.) and 25 questions covered technical topics (a wide range of subjects from physics to optics to electronics to image processing).

This was followed by an interview for shortlisted candidates. This was a negative experience because of the interviewers' attitude. I am not sure whether it was a strategy to test candidates' reactions to criticism or that they were in a bad mood.

The interview lasted around half an hour. They started by asking me to tell them something about myself. Then they began asking questions about my thesis. They asked me why I thought I would be a good fit for the application engineering job profile. They repeatedly pointed out areas in my thesis that had nothing to do with the advertised job profile, stating that these skills were useless for this job.

One of the interviewers questioned a simple notation I had used to describe a structure in my thesis. Although I politely pointed out that this notation is correct and widely used, he told me to look at the literature and insisted that my notation and nomenclature (which had been approved by both my advisors and the entire thesis committee) was wrong.

I had listed four projects I worked on during my thesis. They pointed this out and said it looked like two to three master's level projects, not PhD thesis work.

It is fine if this was just an interview strategy to test a candidate's reactions. Otherwise, some of the questions were in poor taste and demonstrated the interviewers' negative attitude.

What is process optimization?

Give an example.

Have you ever worked in a team before?

What was your contribution in that teamwork?