My subject is
electronics, so I intend to provide guidance to the job seekers in electronics
and allied industries. The freshers from other disciplines (e.g. Civil, Electrical,
Mechanical and Computer Science engineering) also are supposed to be benefited
by this article.
Before anything, please keep it in mind
that Electronics is a very fast
developing branch of engineering where the technology of today may get obsolete
tomorrow! Thus, you must have sound knowledge about the current
technologies, of course, that does not mean that the lack of knowledge about
classical electronics will be accepted by your employers. Here are some
concrete examples of abysmal poor performance of majority of the students of
several polytechnics of rural areas.
The questions were on very basic segments
of electronics and were very much related to the needs of contemporary
industry, unfortunately enough, most of the students failed to answer the
following basic questions:
1.
Draw a simple
full wave unregulated power supply circuit (Less than 1% of the group could
answer it!).
2.
If AC mains
voltage is 230V AC- Is it RMS or PEAK Voltage? (Some 40% said this to be RMS
only 10% of them could calculate the Peak value! Some multiplied the RMS by √3
while others divided the same by √2!)
3.
What is power
factor? What are the problems of low power loads? (Majority about 70% answered
it by saying “This is cosĪ¦” Some wrote the equation P = I V cosĪ¦. A tiny
minority about 5% could answer both the above questions because most of them
had very little idea about the physical significance of the term-power factor).
4.
Draw the diagram
of an OP-Amp based voltage comparator circuit and show at least one example of
a comparator circuit application (Approximately 30% could not draw the symbol
of OP-Amp correctly, 40% did not know what was the voltage comparator and 95%
could not site a single example of “Application of comparator circuit”!).
5.
Draw a voltage
regulator circuit with a specification of 5V, 500mA (Surprisingly 60% of the
students could not understand the proper meaning of the term “Voltage
Regulator”, rest struggled hard to draw something with zener diode, resistors,
etc but attempts failed due to incomplete knowledge. None of them knew that the
easiest modern solution was the three terminal regulator 7805 I.C.!).
6.
What could be
the electric bill per day in INR of a 1 ton AC operated for 8 hours, assuming 7
INR/unit? (This question was asked to final year electrical, electronics &
mechanical engineering (diploma) students).
Approximate
right answer is something like 67 Rupees/day.
Out of 95
participants of the interview, only 2 delivered the nearest correct answer!
Others quoted the figures ranging from Rs 400 to Rs 2000 per day!!!
Upon investigation, the
following points came out:
The interview participants did not know
the following simple facts:-
v What is the power needed by the 1ton air conditioner
(Approx 3.504 Kilo Watt, 12000 Btu.)
v Many of them simply forgot that 1 unit = 1KWh of
electrical energy!
About 30% of the
students appeared have almost zero knowledge about the basic physics (work,
power & energy). They could not calculate at all or offered absurd answer.
1.
What is the “energy
star” rating of modern air conditioners and other electrical appliances mean?
(This question was asked by a leading consumer electrical appliance OEM in an
interview participated by hundreds of diploma & degree electrical,
mechanical engineers. Surprisingly & unfortunately enough, only 1% of the
participants of the interview could offer answer that could make sense! Many of
them said “energy star indicates those appliances which consume huge amount of
energy”! They did not know that “energy star” has very much to do with the efficiency
of electrical appliances).
2.
What are the problems
of fossil fuel generated power? What are alternate energy sources? A solar (PV)
panel generates AC or DC Voltage? What is the normal electrical energy storage
device used in solar electricity generation system? What are the unit of
Battery capacity and solar panels? What is the typical (rough figure) energy
efficiency of a solar panel? What is MPPT solar charging system? What are stand
alone & grid tied renewable energy system? What are the role of a solar
charge controller?
While the above mentioned
questions appear unfamiliar to the participants of many traditional campus
interview programmes, such types of questions will be asked increasingly by
many upcoming alternate energy companies (including WEBEL solar, Suzolon
Energy, EMC, and GP Tronics).
Such giant companies execute turnkey
projects on solar/wind power generation (up to 500MW capacity) employing
hundreds of electronics, electrical and mechanical engineers both diploma and
degree level.
Thus,
above discussion clearly shows that in most of the engineering interviews, very
fundamental knowledge of the respective subject are needed to be successful.
Hence, it
is strongly advised that before appearing in technical interviews, candidates
should refresh their knowledge about basic aspects of their disciplines. The
basic knowledge includes also the smatter of physics, chemistry and
mathematics.
Best wishes to all the
students who are appearing in the upcoming interviews.
