TCS Interview Questions (2026): NQT, Technical and HR Rounds

NQT details come from TCS iON’s National Qualifier Test page, checked in October 2026. The interview rounds below are based on what candidates commonly report; TCS’s current process may differ, so follow the instructions in your invitation.

Step 1: TCS NQT

The National Qualifier Test (NQT) is an ability test run by TCS iON. The key facts from its official page:

• Where and when: held every two to four weeks, in person at TCS iON authorised exam centres, in English only.
• No negative marking.
• Sections depend on the test variant:
  • Cognitive: verbal ability, reasoning ability and numerical ability.
  • IT: advanced coding, basic and advanced aptitude, and a psychometric assessment.
  • BFSI: financial markets and services knowledge, basic aptitude, and a psychometric assessment.
  • Non-tech: general quantitative, verbal and general mental ability.
• Who can take it: pre-final and final-year UG, PG and diploma students; graduates passing out between 2022 and 2028; and freshers with less than two years of experience. The age range is 17 to 30.
• How the score works: there’s no pass or fail cut-off. The score is valid for two years, you can retake the test, and your highest score counts. You apply separately on each company’s own portal.

Step 2: The interviews

Candidates commonly report a technical round, a managerial round and an HR round, sometimes combined into a single panel interview.

Technical questions to practise

• Explain the four pillars of object-oriented programming with an example from your project.
• What’s the difference between a process and a thread?
• What is normalization? Explain 1NF, 2NF and 3NF.
• Write a SQL query to find the second-highest salary in a table.
• What’s the difference between a primary key and a unique key?
• Explain inner join and left join with an example.
• What’s the difference between a stack and a queue, and where would you use each?
• What happens when you type a URL into a browser and press Enter?
• Walk me through your final-year project: what you built, your part in it, and one problem you solved.

Coding questions to practise

• Reverse a string without using built-in functions.
• Check whether a string or number is a palindrome.
• Print all prime numbers in a range.
• Print the Fibonacci series, iteratively and recursively.
• Find the second-largest element in an array.
• Check whether two strings are anagrams.
• Rotate an array by k positions.
• Find the missing number in an array containing 1 to n.

Write these in the language you’ve listed on your resume, and be ready to explain your code line by line.

Managerial questions

• Tell me about a time someone in your team wasn’t contributing. What did you do?
• How would you handle a deadline you know you can’t meet?
• What would you do if a client asked for something outside the agreed scope?
• Are you comfortable working in shifts?

HR questions

• Tell me about yourself.
• Why TCS?
• Are you willing to relocate anywhere in India?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• Do you have any questions for us?

How to prepare

• For the NQT: practise timed aptitude sets. With no negative marking, answer every question, even when you have to guess.
• For the technical round: know everything on your resume. Interviewers often build their questions from your project and the skills you’ve listed.
• For coding: practise the problems above until you can write them without help and explain each line.
• For HR: prepare a 60 to 90 second answer to “Tell me about yourself”: what you’re studying or doing now, one thing you built that you’re proud of, and why this role is your next step.