Friday, September 01, 2006

My experience in the interview

Well.. to tell the truth, I was a bit nervous about it. It was not a matter of failure to consider, but a matter of honor! I really didn’t wanna go back home and say, “ I am sorry dad! I didn’t make it! But good news is rest of the class did! Yeh!!!” Of course this also involved the little thing involving everyone in college staring at me.. whispering, “hey look at that guy! A fucking looser!”. Didn’t really have the heart to go through that.

Actually I was off to a bad start, not only did I go through 6 strokes of bad luck (Which includes 4 writtens and one mishap interview) but added to the misery by getting dysentery. You can imagine how that goes!

Well.. they asked me to wait for my name to be called. Well they must have figured I have a hell of patience, coz they made me wait for 5-6 hours! Maybe they were trying my patience or just plain playing around, but I was really loosing my cool.

So finally they got me to go inside the office. Hell!! I thought that the waiting period was over! Man was I wrong! It seems that after you are out of the big queue, they set you up in the little queue. But still I maintained my composure. After an hour they called my name, I was put in this little seat right in front of the office door. I don’t know what others were thinking but it really did seem like I was off going to get a checkup, except I was wearing a tie which was so tight, I think it permanently damaged my larynx.

It was after 5 mins, I was called in. The first thing he asked me was “tell me about yourself”, the usual question. Which, I proceeded. I don’t know why but never do I get to completely tell any of the interviewers about myself. Someone always comes and interrupts. Then he started asking me all sorts of technical questions, hitting me one after the other. Good thing was I was well prepared for it. I had a couple of days to study for it. And after seeing my project all he did was ask me from my project. All in all, I don’t think he missed anything that an interviewer asks an interviewee. I must have impressed him because he asked me to grade myself! I was a bit put off by that. But I quickly regained my composure and said “Sir! That’s really your call!” Then he gave me the form to fill up. Actually, ladies and gents that’s not where it ends! It means that I have to go for a HR interview now.

Man I was so excited so excited that it got me nervous as well. Coz, after coming this far I really didn’t want to loose out. I hurriedly filled up the forms. They asked me to wait for my name to be called. Before I continue let me say I didn’t attend the Pre Placement Talks fully. I had to go to the bathroom.

The person who was taking my HR was a lady. I thought to myself “well looks like I am in for a treat”. Man was I wrong!

She started with the usual HR questions like tell me about yourself and everything else. Then she asked me if I knew anything about the bond. The bomb was dropped, I literally shit my pants. I told her I didn’t. She asked me if I attended the PPT. I wish I could have said that I went to the bathroom! I considered the moment, the time and the person I was talking to, all of this taking into hand didn’t give me a positive vibe for saying “I went to the bathroom”. I said I had to attend a personal call. She asked what type of personal call. I said “pretty personal”. She then asked me to go find out about the bond. I wasn’t the only one who was flabbergasted, coz no one else in their entire life had to go through this ever. To add to the pain, I asked some one who had no idea about it. I should have confirmed with other people, but I was so nervous that I just didn’t. When I came back in I was asked to tell what the bond was. She was pissed with the answer. She said “I ask you to do one thing and you don’t do it right! Go find out the bond again”. This time I went out and asked everyone about it and confirmed it! When I came back in again, she asked me what I had learnt from this. To which I said “I learnt not to rely on one person”. After this she asked me why their company should hire me. To which I said “I have a lot of good ideas”. She then said “what! All half baked ideas?”. I said “No maam! Sometimes I have full-baked ideas as well!”. I think I noticed a certain smile which conveyed “ok so you can think for yourself!”. She then asked me to leave, which was more like, “thank you and fuck off!”

Before leaving for the door, from the corner of my eye, I saw her hand holding the pen about to tick the reject box. I knew should have gone home and started preparing for the next company. But something held me back!

After a while all the names were called! I don’t know if it was divine intervention or something else, but I was among the selected as well. When all the selected were called in the office, I saw the HR maam again. She had the certain smile on her face which looked like she was playing with me all along. Meaning, she knew that I was looking from the corner of my eye!

After that I ran back to hostel, called my parents. Got pretty high, woke up next morning with a smile on my face.