The real me

I did not want to write on anything even remotely connected with the interviews as I felt it was already an over-dose of it. But the exigency of the situation warrants me to break this resolution!! The situation is this – after reading that series on interviews, and getting some tips over phone and emails some of my friends have concluded that I’m some kind of a superman of interviews. They think I have mastered some secret techniques to crack any interview. Initially I was happy with this image, but when I actually dug deep into my memories of interviews, what I saw was just ridiculous episodes full of naïve replies and brainless reactions. And thus was born this post.

I should have appeared in a little over thirty interviews till now, including the mock interviews I had taken for last year’s exams. Out of these a major portion – thirteen! – went in getting me a campus placement some four years back when I was about to passout of b-school. I should have been in the group of students having the poorest strike rate.

During those days Infosys, and BPCL were my dream companies. After sitting through the routine of PPT (Pre-Placement Talk) of Infy I was quite happy to hear that I was short listed for the interview. In fact there was no GD (Group Discussion) component; it was direct interview for some twenty five of us. After floundering with some basic info on my summer project the last question I faced was “Which career path you would like to take in Infosys?”. I was totally blank as I did not remember distinctly the two career paths these guys had explained during their PPT. Without finding a better answer, with a confused yet confident look, I just said “Sir, the consulting..er..the second career path that was shown in your presentation, I mean the analyst…mmm..yes sir”. “Okay, thank you Rajan”! Infosys dream shattered.

To make us (the MBA students) more sellable to the companies our institute had organised some mock interviews. These mocks were shot with video cameras and were then played in the classrooms – to practically show us where we failed and how to improve, how to refine body language etc. My mock went on well and I was as usual very confident inside the room. I was very happy that I handled well but there was just one thing that went off the mark, and this was shown to the whole class when the video was played. The panel was asking me something like this “Okay Mr.Sundar, tell us what kind of programming you would choose if you are heading a media organisation?” Here is where the innocence (brilliance?) of Mr.Sundar comes to play, beaming at the panel, “Sir it is actually a very difficult question to answer”. Laughter all over the classroom. The best part is that some even congratulated me for that smart answer.

A major debacle that refuses to go away from my memory is the interview with SRF, during my last semester of engineering. To put it briefly – irrespective of the branch of engineering, most of us were aiming to get into software companies. And companies too did not have problems picking a chemical engineer for java programming. The aptitude tests as well the interviews were aimed at checking only the logical/analytical thinking/programming knowledge of the students. Nothing connected to their actual branch of studies. As luck would have it was severe recession in the year we passed out, 2002. Software companies did not turn up.

I landed in the interview room of SRF ltd. The very first question “How was your apti?”, “Sir, the gen apti was okay. The technical apti was not that okay”. (The gen apti has mathematical/logical questions; the tech apti had questions on chemical engineering subjects) There was a sarcastic smile on the gentleman’s face. I got the signal that it is going to be a tough time recollecting those chemical fundas that are about to prop up now. Those stuff that I had learnt for a week the last week, those I should have learnt for a year, a year back. What happened for the next 10-15 mins was something like ragging. It started off with the basic question that one sees in the Std.VI science books “What happens when a ship enters a river, upstream from a sea?” I remembered the school book answer and gave it, quite excited that I could crack this fluid mechanics problem; forgetting I was expected to answer like a chemical engineer and not like a school kid. A battery of questions followed, just to re-establish the by-then-well-established fact that I knew just the spelling of chemical (is it not chemikal?) engineering and nothing beyond it. The difficulty level of the questions took an inverted-U shaped curve and ended somewhere close to the X axis. It was “Ok, at least tell us the author of your mass transfer book”. Having been through the roller coaster ride till now I was still feeling dizzy. “Sir….mass transfer..Treybal..Smith..Mm..sir..,TP1…sir..” Those gentlemen went mad. The next two minutes are censored here. I emerged out of the interview room with a nod and a sheepish smiling. Life is bigger than chemical engineering, I told myself.

My WIPRO interview during the MBA campus placements is a landmark episode in itself. After having cracked the GD – it was in fact one of my best GDs. (the other one was for BPCL) I as quite confident as if already I had made the job. To fuel my confidence level, there was no panel as such to interview me – it was only one interviewer. Can’t I convince just one soul to offer me the job? Of course, I can. Full of confidence and a little arrogance I happily took the Marie biscuit this person offered me during the interview. “Why do you want to join us?” By now I was very sure that I was already a WIPROite. Nothing that I had prepared for this question came to my mind, as an instant answer I just told him “..because WIPRO does not have any training programme for its fresh MBA recruits. I would like to start working rightaway..” I remembered hearing in the PPT that the training session was not conducted the previous year. But looks like it was a case of selective perception. He shot back, a little disoriented, “What! It was an aberration last year. In fact we are known for our training programme”. Needless to say what happened with my tryst with WIPRO.

Serendipity can kill. It was the summer placement season in the b-school campus and I, the smart engineer, was short-listed for one of the promising companies that also offered to pay us well– the same old SRF!! It is not over here. After the basic Hello, introduction etc of the telephonic interview, the caller asked “Do you remember me?” Within a second, though I hated to do so, I realised it was the same person who ragged..sorry, interviewed me in BITS some months back! He added “How is your chemical engineering now?” I said “Not any better than some months back sir, but my management is good”. He did not seem to bother about the second part of the statement. Anyway, I was not in a great mood to care for it. After all, life has more than chemical engineering.