How to get an internship at Oracle

Most likely, you may have stumbled upon this article while searching for Oracle India internships. One of the largest computer technology corporation, Oracle is known for its dedicated internship programs.

Who are eligible to apply?
Undergraduate and postgraduate students of computer science, IT, electronics and related fields can apply for Oracle summer internships. Oracle also encourages final year B.Tech students to apply for 6 months internship.

How to apply?
Interested students can apply through following ways:
1. Online Application:
You need to register on the company website after which you can apply for available internships.

2. Through a referral:
If you know someone who works at Oracle, ask her to provide you a referral. You can even find Oracle employees through LinkedIn for this.

3. Mailing the HR executive:
Find a previous/current Oracle intern/employee and ask her for the HR’s email address. Mail the HR directly clearly stating your purpose, with a strong cover letter and resume.

4. Campus recruitment:
Oracle visits selected colleges for hiring interns. Get in touch with your college placement coordinator for arranging a campus visit.

What after applying?
After getting the referral or after applying online, the talent acquisition team goes through your profile and if you are shortlisted, you will receive an email from the HR department for an online test. During campus recruitment, the initial screening is done on the basis of your resume and CGPA.

The online assessment test has four sections on general and arithmetic aptitude, verbal communication, computer science knowledge, and programming. The duration of the test is 120-150 minutes and each section has a specific time limit. MCQs are of a moderate level and are mostly asked on the basics of DBMS, OS etc.

This is followed by a series of face to face interviews. These are normally divided into 2 rounds of technical interviews where a panel of interviewers analyze your technical and behavioral skills. The first round generally lasts for 30 minutes. Some sample questions are:
• For a given linked list, detect if there is a loop in it.
• Given a list of numbers, sort it using your favorite sorting algorithm. Also, explain the reasons behind using Merge Sort and Quick Sort.
• What is De-Normalization? Why is it required?

The second round is more stringent and lasts for 1-1.5 hours. The focus is mostly on puzzles and your past projects. Some common questions and puzzles include:
• Write a working code for converting a number from digit-form to words (for ex. 1374 to one thousand three hundred seventy-four) using OOP.
• You have 25 horses and you want to pick the fastest 3 horses among them. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time because there are only 5 tracks. What is the minimum number of races required to find the three fastest horses without using a stopwatch?
• Three persons A, B, and C are standing at the vertices of an equilateral triangle inscribed inside a triangle. When the bell goes, all three start running on the track at the same speeds in directions we don’t know. What is the probability that none of them will collide?
• Find a path between two given nodes in a binary tree. Write a proper code and also check if any node is actually present inside a tree.

Sometimes, in the end, there is small HR interview which consists of basic questions like:
• Questions about past projects and internships
• Why Oracle?
• Where do you see yourself in 5 years? How will this internship help you in that journey?

Once the internship starts, interns are assigned to specific teams and mentors. Oracle gives a stipend of 25-30K/month to interns. Other perks include transport facilities, food coupons, flexible work hours, and work from home options.

Word of advice from ex-interns:
Valuable mentorship: Mentors are very keen to teach you technical stuff if approached with proper intent. The team members and HR managers go out of their way to help you transition from college to Oracle. You also get hands-on experience of many important projects and developments in the industry.

Open work culture: The work culture at Oracle is pretty open and interns are encouraged to come up with new ideas and innovations. Also, since it’s a large company, not all interns get the ideal teams or projects. So, if you are not satisfied with the (lack of) work that you are getting, communicate it properly to your mentors and you will be assigned a new project.

A couple of pro-tips:
• Practice a lot of coding quizzes. Interviewers want to check whether you can apply your coding skills to real-world scenarios.
• Be proficient in at least one programming language (C++ preferred over Java) and basic concepts like OOP, DBMS, Trees, and Arrays etc. to clear the screening test
• Don’t spend too much time on a question as there is a specified time limit for each section.
• Resources: Practice these coding quizzes to prepare for the interviews. You can get various sample tests and questions on different computer science, arithmetic, and, programming concepts here. To prepare for the online screening tests, you can also use this Q&A site.

Is software industry your calling? Check out these cool computer science internships and register here to take the first step towards your dream career. If you have done an internship at Oracle India, we would love to hear; please comment below.

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