(My placement experience - an article I wrote for my college magazine, Communique 2012)
That feeling you experience when you see your name in the selected list of candidates, cannot be described in words. Unless you actually go through all that struggle, pain, torture, nervousness, restlessness, you will not be able to relish the goose bumps you get when you stare at your name in that list. That feeling beats everything else. And I'm glad and consider myself lucky to be one of the very few who felt it not once, not twice, but thrice in a span of just 3 minutes.
I'll be eternally grateful to the MJCET Alumni Association for conducting such an eventful learning experience through the Campus Recruitment Training programme. The esteemed, excellent and the experienced faculty that we were blessed with for that one week changed the life of so many students.
Spending the days and the nights with the RS Aggarwal books and all that training and hard work doesn't matter if you can't execute it when the moment demands it. Clearing the aptitude is not really a huge feat. It's all about competition. The company never decides the cut-off marks before the exam. They set it after the results are out. All you need to do is, be in the top 150 or 200 among those 500 students who participate in the placements. How hard is that? Not at all, if you make it your priority to get into all the companies that you're eligible for. You just need to prepare for 2 weeks like you've never done before.
Writing the aptitude and waiting in the Ghulam Ahmed Hall for the results to be announced is one of the most testing phases of my life. Neither that impatience nor the euphoria you feel when you actually clear the test, can be described in mere words.
Aptitude is just the start. The real horror arrives with the commencement of interview sessions. Whoever said that "The anticipation of the event is much more threatening than the event itself" couldn't have been more right. Especially the CSE and the IT department students are grilled in the technical interview. An idle mind is a devil's workshop. When you're waiting there for your call, you imagine a zillion possibilities of getting yourself kicked out of the interview. I still remember how my legs wouldn't stop quivering and my friend who was sitting beside me just couldn't get his hands to remain steady. After all that torture, I was sitting outside the room and I had just 2 more minutes to convince my mind to remain optimistic and my heart to stop thundering like a hailstorm.
That moment when I was waiting outside the interview room, nerve-racking emotions running through my body, imagining all sorts of psychotic questions that I might have to face, right that moment, I suddenly noticed my three best friends standing at the other end of the corridor. I couldn't see their faces clearly but I guessed that they must've been done with their interviews. I wanted to forget everything and go meet them. Then I thought, I just need to maintain my decorum for 10 more minutes. I just have to go into the room, say whatever I know and then get out of it so that I can go meet my friends and then discuss how horribly we embarrassed ourselves during the interview and laugh it off. That moment, I felt no fear, no inhibitions, no misgivings. All I could think of is, get into the room and nail it. And I did.I came out smiling widely and then the hilarious anecdotes of my friends drove HR off my mind.
I felt so confident after the tech interview, that I could have conquered the world. Accenture has been my dream company since even before I joined MJCET. I didn't want to lose this golden opportunity. HR is basically to convince them of two things. One - You are worthy of their company. Two - You won't ditch them and join some other company or go for higher studies. And I didn't need to fake on both the fronts. Convincing him needed only one sentence "It’s my dream to experience life at Accy, and if not today, no matter what, someday I'll make it." Frankly, those words weren't hollow. I truly meant them.
Victory might make you over-confident. It’s human tendency. And when it was time for Infosys HR, I was advising people around me and didn't bother to prepare anything. And rightfully so, the HR interviewer brought me back to earth. He had a counter for every single sentence I uttered in that room. I never felt so disgusted with myself. I thought, I'm nothing of an engineer, and I don't deserve this job. But later when I came to know I was selected, I realized, maybe he was just trying to test my patience. Never did I show him any signs of annoyance or irritation. I maintained my temper and my smile. I guess, that was the winning mantra.
Wipro was a back up option for me (no offense). I was 90% confident that I'll get into Accy. But when your career and your future is at stake, it's always wise to not take any chances.
Getting placed after 3 years of an amazingly bitter sweet ordeal called Engineering, is really an accomplishment, but more than that, it's the moment when you tell your parents after all the hardships and all the trials they went through just to keep you happy and get you educated, that you're actually gonna stand on your own legs very soon, the pride on their faces truly completes your victory.
Some might argue that they got placed even without any prior preparation. It's at times like that, that you need to ask yourself - are you willing to take that chance? No one who is serious about their career would answer in the affirmative. So the dilemma is solved. Now pull up your socks and go chase your dreams. And while you're at it, my sincere advice, don't forget to enjoy every moment of that struggle and tension. ‘Coz trust me, those are the moments you're gonna remember mostly and cherish all your life.
