Optum, Philips and Ericsson Fresher Interview Process in India: Mettl Tests, Healthcare Context and Telecom Basics

For students whose placement cell has an Optum, Philips or Ericsson drive coming up. If it lands in the same week as a service-company test, multiple placement drives covers how to split your time.

TL;DR: I read five pages: two Optum candidate posts (2021 and 2023), one Philips prep guide from 2026 plus one 2020 Philips candidate post, and GeeksforGeeks' Ericsson recruitment page (updated 2025). Optum's test ran on Mettl in the 2023 drive and was mostly MCQs with a single coding question. Philips and Ericsson sources are prep guides, not first-hand reports, so I mark them as that. I found no official page describing any of the three processes, and no first-hand fresher account newer than 2023.

These three companies hire for very different products: health insurance and care technology, medical devices, and telecom networks. What they share for a fresher is a test first, a fairly plain technical interview, and an HR round that asks why this company. That makes them a different group from the IT-services batches in Capgemini, Accenture and HCLTech and from the hardware vendors in Dell and HPE.

Optum (UnitedHealth Group): two posts, same shape

The 2023 on-campus drive (SDE, full time)

The author says Optum visited for a Software Development Engineer role, with locations in Gurgaon and Hyderabad, and the CGPA criterion was 7 and above.

• Online test on Mettl, 90 minutes: one coding question on graphs, 17 cognitive ability questions, 8 cognitive analytics questions and 25 technology-concept questions (CS fundamentals). Shortlisted candidates were told the same day that interviews were the next morning at 9:30.
• 41 students were shortlisted for interviews, and there were two of them.
• HR round first (15 to 20 minutes): what do you know about the company, did you attend the pre-placement talk, a team-project challenge, location preference, explain your work to someone new to technology, toughest decision of your life. Everyone moved on.
• Technical round (45 to 50 minutes): introduction and projects, then basic DBMS (normalisation, what kind of database MySQL is, table relationships). The interviewer asked for an SQL query in a notepad: list all classes with five or more students, from a student/class table. Then the Two Sum problem, where the author explained brute force and the optimised version and wrote the optimised one.
• 14 of 41 got an offer (11 girls, 3 boys), per the author.

The 2021 virtual drive (VIT Vellore, software engineer)

• Written test: aptitude, computer fundamentals and one coding question on strings and matrices. The author calls it easy. After the test it showed a percentage, and above 50% was shortlisted. Around 68 were called for interviews two days later.
• Technical interview (35 to 40 minutes): interview invites arrived eight hours before. Introduction, one project explained, a palindrome program, then Java and SQL questions.
• HR: a group meeting of the selected candidates with situational questions, such as handling a team member who isn't working, a difficulty in a project, and where you see yourself in five years.
• The author says 32 girls were selected for the full-time offer.

Both posts end the same way: no heavy DSA, a project-centred technical round, and an SQL question somewhere. They disagree on the order (HR before technical in 2023, after in 2021) and on whether the test platform is named (Mettl in 2023, not stated in 2021).

Philips: a 2026 guide and an older candidate post

The only 2026 source I could open is a FACE Prep guide, a prep site rather than a candidate. It says Philips hires freshers through an online aptitude test, a technical interview and an HR interview, with a group discussion in some drives.

• Eligibility in that guide: 70% in 10th and 12th, 60% aggregate across degree semesters, no active backlogs, full-time course only. Branches named: CSE, IT, ECE, EEE and Biomedical.
• Test: verbal ability, quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning and technical MCQs, with negative marking. The guide says the coding section is not in every drive.
• Technical interview: described as a free-form discussion with no fixed question bank. It names DSA, DBMS, OS, networks, OOP and your main programming language, and says ECE and EEE candidates should prepare two or three core branch subjects.
• HR: the guide lists tell me about yourself, why Philips, five-year plan, a team conflict, and what you know about Philips' products. It stresses that a generic "great MNC" answer to "why Philips" signals no research.

The other source is a 2021-dated post from a candidate who interviewed for a Software Engineer-2 role in Bangalore in 2020. That is an experienced hire, not a fresher drive: two coding rounds, a techno-managerial round on past projects, and HR with salary discussion. The author says questions came heavily from the resume, with trees, arrays and stacks, Java memory model and Java 8 concepts, ES6 and React for a full-stack role, and a lot of SQL.

So the two disagree in every way that matters for a fresher. The guide says free-form technical discussion and an optional GD; the older post describes coding rounds. I would not read either as "the Philips process". Read the invite from your own college.

Ericsson: a prep page, not a candidate report

GeeksforGeeks' Ericsson recruitment page, updated July 2025, describes Graduate Engineer Trainee hiring in three to four steps, and it says "3 rounds" while listing four.

• Academic criteria: 60% or above in B.Tech, Class X and XII, no backlogs at the time of the interview.
• Online round: a general aptitude test (quantitative and logical), a verbal ability test, and a coding test of three problems. The page says the coding round is pen and paper, which is unusual enough that I'd check it against your own invite.
• Group discussion: the page says many times they don't conduct it.
• Technical round: no fixed question list. Expect DSA, DBMS, OS, networking, OOP and a language of your choice. CS students are expected to write code. ECE candidates should prepare communications subjects: telecom, networking, analog and digital communication, mobile communication. Puzzles may come up.
• HR: tell me about yourself, family, location preference, why should we recruit you, and "are you sure you will be able to sustain yourself at Ericsson?"
• Sample questions listed: deadlock, TCP/IP, semaphores, virtual memory.

I also found Glassdoor and Naukri Code360 reports for Ericsson mentioning CoCubes aptitude tests and telecom topics such as GSM and CDMA, but those were old or short snippets I couldn't open in full, so I'm not building on them.

Where these sources disagree

• Test platform. Mettl for Optum 2023, an unnamed platform for Optum 2021, unnamed for Philips and Ericsson. Don't prepare for a specific interface without seeing your invite.
• Coding in the test. One easy question in both Optum posts, optional for Philips per the guide, three problems on paper per the Ericsson page.
• Order of rounds. HR before technical in Optum 2023, after in Optum 2021.
• Cut-offs. 7 CGPA for Optum 2023, 70/70/60 for Philips per the 2026 guide, 60% across the board for Ericsson per GeeksforGeeks. All are thresholds to apply, not guarantees. Optum 2023 shortlisted 41 candidates for interviews and 14 got offers.
• How recent. Optum 2021 and 2023, Philips guide 2026 but its sample questions undated, Ericsson page 2025 but written as a general description. None is a first-hand 2025 or 2026 drive report.

What to do with this

1. Revise SQL first. It appears in both Optum posts (a grouping query on paper in 2023, SQL questions in 2021) and in the Philips guide's DBMS list and the older Philips post.
2. Practise one clean Two Sum or palindrome-level answer. The Optum coding asks were that simple. Explain brute force before the optimised version, as the 2023 author did.
3. Know your projects, not just your DSA. Every source here has a project-based technical round.
4. Prepare "why this company" with real content. Optum HR asked what you know about the company and whether you attended the pre-placement talk. Philips' guide singles out "why Philips". Spend an evening on what each company actually builds.
5. If you are ECE or EEE, prepare two or three branch subjects. Both the Philips guide and the Ericsson page say so.
6. Check what your drive allows. Mettl-style tests are normally proctored; read the rules in your invite. Where a tool is permitted for online assessments, OA Copilot supports HackerRank and CodeSignal style tests, and for live technical and HR interviews on video, AceRound's Interview Copilot gives you structured talking points as you answer. Whether either is allowed is up to your drive's rules, not us. For platform context see CoCubes and Cisco and Intuit.

FAQ

What is the Optum campus interview process for freshers in India?

Online test, technical interview and HR round in both posts I read. The 2023 post ran HR first.

Is there coding in the Optum online test?

One coding question: graphs in 2023, strings and matrices in 2021. The rest was MCQs.

What is the Philips fresher recruitment process?

Per a 2026 FACE Prep guide, an aptitude test, a technical interview and HR, with GD in some drives. Older posts differ.

What is the Philips eligibility criteria for freshers?

The 2026 guide says 70% in 10th and 12th, 60% aggregate and no backlogs. A 2018 account mentions 7.0 CGPA.

How does Ericsson hire freshers in India?

An online test, an often-skipped GD, a technical round and HR, per GeeksforGeeks, with 60% and no backlogs.

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Author · Alex Chen. Career consultant and former tech recruiter. Spent 5 years on the hiring side before switching to help candidates instead. Writes about real interview dynamics, not textbook advice.