A Job

Date: 7^th July, 2008

Boarded Super Luxury RTC bus to Kodada from Dilsukhnagar bus station along with 5 friends, which was around 4 hours away from Hyderabad. Mother gave me send off at the bus station. Checked into a hotel room at about 5 or 6 PM. This was the ‘best’ hotel in that town. We were the first batch to get into it and redirected other friends also, to check-in to the same place.  I remember that we had some snacks later in the evening. I forgot my cellphone charger and bought a duplicate in a local shop, which did not work. Walked for about 2 kms. in search of a dhaba to have dinner and returned to hotel for ‘combined’ studies for a while before dozing off.

Date: 8^th July, 2008

A friend of mine had a habit of visiting temple every Tuesday. So I accompanied him and had breakfast before returning to hotel. I remember wearing a maroon colored shirt.

  About 960 students from different colleges gathered in Madhira Institute of Technology & Science for a campus recruitment drive by a leading MNC. We reported at the college by 9 AM and registered at the reception. There was a presentation before the first round of screening about the company.  I remember my friend and myself exchanging glances during the presentation. During the screening exam, I thought, I wont get through this and would start preparing for my post graduation entrance seriously. I slept during the exam too. Lunch followed and each one of us was on the same page – we won’t get through the exam; if he cleared, he would be the luckiest person.

At around 3 PM, students gathered and were waiting for results. The HR was starting to announce the registered numbers. My heartbeat fastened with a small hope that my number would come out.

Surprise!

Mine was the first number to be read out. I gave a shout and ran towards the HR team. On the way, couple of my friends gave thumbs up and I waved them back. I was escorted to the interview room. I was asked if there is any need for refreshment and there would be an interview immediately. I said I was ok and ready to go. I called up my mother and broke the news that I cleared the first round of screening and now heading for a personal interview. My voice was shaking and hands were shivering. It was the first time to give a personal interview.

Left my bag at the door and entered the interview room which is a computer lab in the college. Two elderly persons were sitting at a table. They asked for my resume for which I had to go back and fetch it from my bag left outside. This could be seen as a negative point, I thought.

The questions I could recollect:

Tell us about yourself,

What activities have you taken up at your college

How did the coordination of the annual paper fest go?

Did you face any problem?

Do you admit that it is your failure in not foreseeing the problems?

Couple of situational questions

Hobbies.

Do you know about the author Salman Rushdie?

“Thanks for your time and you can wait outside now”

I came outside to see that my friends were waiting for me. I was confused when they asked me how did the interview go. I may not make it, was my answer. I was asked to take a seat along with 4 other candidates; one was a girl in a white dress with long hair.

HR came out with a form. After I submitted the form, filled in with my details, all 5 of us were called in a room. There was a brief intro and the HR announced 3 names and asked them to wait outside the room. HR congratulated the 2 of us for making into the company and will look forward to see us to join them soon after our engineering. She wished us all the best and asked us to keep up good grades in final year also.

I came out joyfully and informed my friends who were still waiting patiently for me.

The return journey to Hyderabad seemed to take days. By the time I reached Hyderabad, there was strong wind and no power in my house. I explained every thing in detail about all the activity happened.

I joined the company on 22^nd Feb, 2010 at their training campus. The rest is history.

Probably this was one of the earliest incidents where I was genuinely happy and enjoyed the nick of the moment.  For a lot of normal guys, like me, getting placed in a huge MNC with world-class training program is like a dream come true. It gave many things professionally and personally helping me to mature in every possible way.

I don’t know what would have happened if I was not selected on this day. You never know.

In Will Smith's words: "This little part is called happiness"

P.S: I still do not have the slightest clue if my answers were that accurate that I was one of the 5 out of 960 students to be clearing the first round of screening. I would say it was pure luck and predestined.