"What are the typical expectations from product-based companies regarding QA automation testing, and is there a perception among product company professionals that individuals from MNC backgrounds lack relevant knowledge

In general product based companies expectation falls under any of the below two categories:

1. They expect you to know test automation properly given your total and/or relevant experience.

They would also try to get a candidate whose total and relevant experience difference is not much.

For Example, If a 10 YOE person appears for the interview they would expect the person to have at least 8 YOE in Test Automation and accordingly capabilities like creating a framework from scratch & more.

2. They expect you to have T shaped skills for test automation (vertical) along with other testing types (horizontal).

For Example,
In addition to the previous example, they would want the person to have some knowledge or experience in Functional Testing, Performance Testing, Security Testing, etc.

Now coming to the perception part.

Some companies might be having it, but there can be other reasons like:

1. High notice period (3 months)

2. Faking automation experience (happens a lot)

For high notice period there are only 2 ways to handle (either resign without offer or get any offer to resign then apply wherever you want when notice period is lesser to serve).

To build the trust you are not faking your automation experience you can build a strong public profile (contribute to open source, write articles or create videos, conduct webinars or give talks at conferences, build a good GitHub profile, build a good leetcode profile, etc).

Wishing you the best!

Thankyou very much for your detailed answer