I recently interviewed at Zoho as fresher in Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu, IND. The form was circulated from other college students. The requirements where all batches from 2020 to 2024 can attend this. So many experienced people working at Service-based companies also were present leading to tough competition.

About 2000+ people appeared and where waiting at the parking lot. [Got info from the security]

• L1 - MCQs [Aptitude - 10 | C Program Output - 10 ] - 75min
  After 40 minutes they declared the people qualified for next round. They calculated the passing mark based on the overall marks scored by all applicants, I came to know about the passing mark by overseeing the corrected paper [10.5 Marks and above].
  1. Keypoints: the aptitude was medium to difficult with a single easy question.
  2. They started timer after distributing question papers to the people in front. So most people received papers 5-10 min late. Luckily the test was held in batch. So there were only 300 people in our floor . There was total 2 floor, and 3 batches 9:00 AM, 12:30 PM, 3:30 PM.
     After a good, tasty lunch, only provided for people passing first round, we proceeded on L2.
• L2 - I am too lazy so, I will attach the photo of the question. Since the rounds were conducted in batches, each batch had different questions, 2 Medium questions or 4 Easy questions. The timing are mistake they gave only 1 hour, but gave extra hours for people who have done, but extreme cases didn't pass. Started at 4:XX PM. Ended at 6 PM. Took some snacks on the way. Mentally drained.

1. Batch 1 :
   
   

2. Batch 2:

   • https://leetcode.com/problems/best-time-to-buy-and-sell-stock/description/
     
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   People who have completed more than one question in batch 1 and all questions in batch 2 are qualified for next round. After completing the second round, it was dark and most parents were waiting for their children, from morning to dusk. Hurted so much, to see failed students, and their parents comforting them.

• L3 - The next day. Thought it was L3, but again L2, But renamed to L2(Advanced)
  1. Sudoku: They will give all info like NxN, and all values needed. It takes hours to feed input for 9x9 test case.
  2. MaximumFinder: The will give a integer list input and N value. We should find N elements in the list that makes maximum sum, with constraints:
     • If you consider an even element in sum other than 2, you should include the immediate next element to sum.
     • If you consider an prime number other than 1, you should skip the next element.
     • You should print the combination the makes the maxium sum maintaining insertion order.
       If you complete anyone problem you are onto next round. The test was about 2+ hours. Take invigilators seriously, befriendly with them, they will give you some tips to move on. Also they will check your code, how you have implemented and also, Undo and check whether you have copied from some source. If they find you cheating you are blacklisted for life. They will test your code rigorously with various inputs, they had like 10+ test cases in their hands and should pass every test case.
• Actual L3 - Tax calculator Console App, Machine Coding Round,
  Here we go, at this point there were no other freshers than 2-3 and 4-5 experienced people, with big beards and chain around necks. Being fresher admist bunch of veterans. I talked with them and collected info like they will attend all zoho interviews, even go to other states like Kerala. I am not against them, they just want convert from service to product based company.
  This round was difficult, the invigilators where not clear, on how to calculate the taxes, so they couldn't guide us properly, after sometime they cleared their mind, and came to a conclusion and gave some extra time so the round extended with extra time. The round timing was from 2:15 PM to 5:30 PM.
  1. Part 1 was to implement, Admin dashboard, tax payer dashboard, tax slabs storing how much tax should be calculated for each income bracket. The functionalities required were:
     • Admin
     • Tax Payer
     • Main Menu
     • Regsiter new user/admin
     • Create update existing tax slabs
     • Check tax calculation for user
     • All details like credentials and tax slabs should be stored in non-volatile storage[should be retained between each runs of program]
     • They will give all sorts of unnecessary inputs to check all cases, like string value inplace of income amount and many more. should handle everything.

They won't even check your code for programming practices or design patterns. Should give output for the required input.
A invigilator gone through my code, and said you didnt implement the tax calculation part and said to leave.
I even implemented major things like encrption of stored password using hashcode of TaxPayer object, singleton for Tax Slabs to maintain single instace for both tax payer and admin. I was nervous and messed in tax calculation part using unwanted calculations.

There were another two parts to implement. I came to know that it was about adding insurance, something like that.

• L4 - Technical - Dont know what/when etc
• L5 - HR - Don't know what/when etc

I would suggest that there should be a even playground, by calling anyone batch. It seems they were hiring for Zoho Books product, and rounds will be very tough based on the teams. And finally came to know that they selected 1 person, dont know who is that "Chosen One".

Many parent were waiting for their children to come with good news, but is was hard to see their face filled with regrets. They should have atleast filtered people based on Online Assessment, which they won't because they hate to use third party products.

Thats all I can remember, took me 2 weeks to come back from that depression. Hope this will help others.

I will definetly give another try. I am not even close to giving up.

Quote that made me, get back to normal life: People’s lives don’t end when they die, it ends when they lose faith.