My Placement Story : Part 1

At the end of 3^rd year, I was surrounded by a sense of excitement from all corners. We had actually become THE seniors of the college. All the inhibitions we earlier had just vanished. Somehow we began to feel like we were the bosses of the college.  But we had to come to terms with one thing. We only had a year in college. So people wanted to live life to the fullest and do things that they would cherish for the rest of their lives. As if this excitement wasn’t enough, there was one more thing which was the icing on the cake. And that’s one of the most powerful weapons a man (or a woman. I’m not a sexist) can have – A  JOB.  Yes, Placement season had just started.

We never realized that we would be going for placements so early. We have a portal where you get all the information about the placement activities. After all the registration processes were done, we were asked to check the portal daily to see if any notification popped up. Used to check the portal daily to see if any company was visiting the college for recruitments. There were a few companies but we weren’t eligible. I wondered why and then after 4 days 13 hours and 19 minutes, I realized I was a student of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. For a few days I was busy cursing myself for choosing Mechanical over ECE and CSE. But very soon, it came to an end. We had Maruti the coming week. Finished the written round and then there was a cloud of ambiguity over us. We had no clue when the results would be out so we decided to shift our focus to the next company in line – ITC

Everyone was busy preparing for it. People were actually bunking college one week prior to the recruitment process. Reason – The package was 8.23 lpa. At that point of time it seemed like if people were given awards based on what they were doing I’d win the award for “The Most Jobless Guy in College” with a huge majority of votes. I even laughed at people who were working so hard. I had this opinion – If you haven’t learnt anything in 3 years what are you gonna learn in 3 days. My friends told me my attitude was wrong and it would be great if I started preparing for it. I retorted by saying I knew what I had to do.

Then came the D-Day. After a long yet impressive Pre-Placement Talk, we had the written test and I got through the first round. I went to all those who told me to change my attitude and mocked them for things they had said to me. (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my BFF Mr. Sri Chandra who told me that formals were mandatory that day and made me look like a clown :P). We had GDs and Interviews the next day. People were preparing for the technical round and then there’s me.  I was whiling away my time around the Placement Office doing more “important things” like adding the numbers on the number plates of all the bikes parked in front of PO, counting the number of steps in PO, trying to understand the language of pigeons etc. The GD round went well and around 10 guys were selected for the next round and I was one of them. I instantly found myself surrounded by two kinds of people. People who said “I always knew you’d get through it. All the best.” The second kind of people – my favorite kind – said “ How in the world, out of all the people, did you get through?” I love you guys :P

My friends told me to prepare something at least for the Technical Round. I opened a book and in an instant I found myself sleepy. I realized I had an interview and so I went back to doing the same “important things” until my turn came. This is a gist of how the interview went.

Interviewer: You’ve a big name. What do people call you?

After memorizing all the fantastic names my friends had given me,

Me:  Most people call me CK, Sir.

I:  Do you there’s a brand called CK?

Me: Calvin Klein, Sir.

I: Tell me the similarities between you and Calvin Klein apart from your initials

Me: Sir….(  Nice question )

They gave me that evil grin and continued asking me some regular stuff. And then it was “Enter the Dragon” time for me. They were gonna molest me with technical stuff. A drop of sweat dripped down my cheek.

I: Don’t get nervous. We’ll ask you questions from your favorite subjects. So, what are they?

Me: Thermodynamics

I: And?

Me: Material Science

I: And?

Me: Design of Machine Elements

I: And?

Me: (What the ..) Fluid Mechanics

I: And?

Me: Automobile Engineering

I: And?

Me: Sir…..

I: Fine. Subjects that you hate?

Me:  (I wasted no time in answering) Heat Transfer, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, Hydraulic Machinery, Manufacturing Processes, Applied Elec..

I: That’s enough. Have you realized that your “love lists” and “hate lists” have many things in common?

Me: Sir?

I:  You said you hate HT and RAC which implies you hate more than half of your favorite subject Thermodynamics

Me: …..

I: Why beta, are you bad at Math?

Me: (I’m bad at Engineering ) No, Sir.

I: You’ve got a rank of 72 in EAMCET. Why did you choose Mechanical?

Me: I was interested in Automobile Engineering, Sir.

I: Then why isn’t it on top of your favorite subjects list?

Me:  It didn’t turn out to be as exciting as I perceived it to be, Sir.

I: Why? What went wrong?

Me: Sir, I hate Mechanical Engineering. It isn’t my cup of tea.

I: What if you’re given a chance to live your life again, which stream would you choose?

Me: (After a 9 sec pause) I’d still choose Mechanical, Sir.

I: Why not CSE?

Me: I can’t see myself sitting at one place all day long, Sir.

I: Do you play games?

Me: Yes, Sir.

I: Gamers have this tendency of not resting until they finish a game. Is it the same with you?

Me: Yes, Sir. I’m no exception to that

I: You just contradicted your own statement. You said you can’t imagine yourself at one place all day but still you do that.

It was my moment of glory

Me: Sir, I said I play games. I never said I play games on a PC. I’ve a PSP. I don’t need to sit at one place all day. I can play games wherever I want.

My moment of glory didn’t last long. I guess I had ignited a spark somewhere. For the next 10-15 minutes I was raped. And then the final question of the day.

I: How would you survive in a remote area given the fact that you’ve never moved out of Hyderabad?

Me: Sir, you’ve said there will be a lot of extracurricular activities. Apart from that, you have parties quite often and also theatres for the employees. You’re providing me entertainment along with my salary. What else do I need?

That was the final nail in the coffin. My interview ended with a “Thank You” , which seemed like “Please get the hell out of here” , from the interviewers.

That was how it went. I knew it was a bit foolish but I was hopeful that my extracurricular activities would fetch me the job. I had literally taken them for granted. Then very soon the results were out and it was no surprise I didn’t make it. I knew I had failed. I had failed miserably. Thoughts like what if this happens again, what if I never get a job, what if I’ll never get married, what if …… constantly pricked me. I felt there was no point in crying over spilt milk and it was time for some retrospection. I knew the mistakes that I made and improved myself in the areas where I was weak. And then came PCRD. It was an overwhelming experience. All the tests and interviews were great. At the end of PCRD I found myself with job offers from Accenture, Wipro and Infosys. Thank you, Uma Maheshwar Sir for the surprise. The idea of keeping a few things under the wraps was just fantastic, Sir.

Failures, after all, are stepping stones to success.

The lessons I learnt from my failure are:

1.       Never take things for granted

2.       It’s always better if you are prepared

3.       One bad day doesn’t mean it’s the end of the journey

4.       Instead of feeling bad about having failed, it’d be great if we understand what went wrong and improve the areas where you feel you’re weak.

Of course the credit would definitely go to our Placement Officer Mr. Uma Maheshwar Sir and Shiva Sir for all the work they’re doing. We’re lucky to have you. Well that’s my story.

Some wise man once said, “Having a job doesn’t mean you’ve become successful. It means you’ve become responsible”