Facing the Interviews

Internship was such a refreshing and memorable experience for me and I so wanted to carry on the same energy into job interviews. Well I already had a job offer under my belt from Aricent and the software giants were yet to come.

Microsoft Interview call was actually a surprise for me because I hadn't even put my 50% into the written exam. Sometimes when you already know the end you don't even care to explore the leading path. Anyways I told Bhajji a night before that i didn't deserve this. He also said something similar but he had a real chance. So after the selections, which Bhajji obviously got through and Wardy didn't, everybody was forced to consider the 'Luck' factor.

Then comes Adobe, and history gets repeated. I get a surprise interview call, but this time I was much enthusiastic about the company. So here I am in the formal dress ready with all the technical tid-bits I could stuff into my skull, ready to answer every detail of my projects and my beloved summer internship, but the god damnit question that I got from him had nothing to do with any of these! He asks me a puzzle and I am totally puzzled!

At this time I could only remember 'Society Cricket'. When I am keeping wickets for my team and fumble one of the chances, nobody even cares what my previous efforts have been. All people care is, that have you grabbed the one opportunity that came your way right there right at present. And if you haven't you'll be utterly ridiculed. Anyhow, interview results this time were even more surprising and such a big luck factor could have led to a few suicides!!

Next big thing to happen was NetApp. Best Company to work for, according to many surveys and Sandy. And I get an interview call again. This time I get to look this 'luck factor' in the eye. And is it scary! I just have no idea, what went wrong with my interview. I answered everything, told him every minute detail, coded for over an hour but still get a negative. That was almost the end of my patience. Guys had started calling me 'written specialist'! Results this time broke all time records of surprising us!

A couple of days later, in comes Oracle. 11 dream jobs in the branch so far and Oracle could contribute 3 at max. I have had enough interview experience and this was the most troubling thing for me. Such a sarcastic thing to say. Interviews were conducted late at night, and after our turn, me, Shakti, Amaresh, Godda and Wardy were discussing our chances at the hostel center stage. How could anyone sleep when surprise results were still awaited. Then someone said that Moni had 4 rounds of interview whereas we all got 3! Now, apart from Luck factor there's another thing that works a good deal called as Girl factor!

That was the longest night of my life! All of us had impressed the interviewers pretty much and all of us were given the same hint by Collete. None of us could sleep and the results were just not coming. There we were sitting under the open sky where those stars that supposedly hold our fate were looking down upon us. and we were trying to laugh, make fun of each other, hide our frustration over previous results and could just hope for a pleasant surprise this time. Then I looked above and remembered a quote saying "Do not trust your stars, trust the one who made them!" I don't know how it came to me but then I got up and left for my room. It was almost 4 am and i just went to sleep not caring about the results anymore.

The next thing I know was that Amaresh came to my room at 5 am to tell me that I was selected along with 6 others!!