In(terror)view Strike ... # 247

Having been kicked off the venue at JCN (name has been tampered), I was heading towards this great banking firm. With low-confidence at its lifetime best, I was finding it difficult to locate the venue. Thanks to the kind hearted, ever helpful rickshaw-pullers at Gurgaon, they made sure that I never reach the destination unless I use their coveted over paid service. After 45 mins of tussle I reached the venue.

The tower was an awesome 16 floored building with lush green surroundings. Awed with the gigantic fish pond at the reception, my day dreams were broken by the shout from the security personnel. I was thoroughly examined with metal detectors, physical-assault-on-privacy check and it was only after the backpack was submitted at the reception and the mobile phone as well because it had a functional camera, that I was cleared off.

Finally I did manage to get to the introductory presentation though late by around half an hour. They were already discussing the salary and pay packages. 30 odd people (the candidates were already screened via telephonic rounds and resume short listing) accommodated in a small room with space for only 20 of us. By the time I got adjusted and was set to listen to the coordinator it was all over and the first round, a written aptitude test was announced.

Round 1: The Aptitude Test

Absolutely sure of my technical incapability, the immaculate doubt was hovering over the aptitude level as well now. The test was an OK level visual reasoning MCQ, time limit – 30 mins. 15 mins gone and I had only worked out some 9 odd problems of 30. The girl sitting next to me was already on the next sheet, solving 18th or 23rd or 25th or who knows the 30th question already. The well perfected examination jitters came in to aggravate the situation. I rushed through the remaining problems as the test commenced. We were asked to take a coffee break till the tests may get evaluated.  Good time to check out the competitors. Confident faces chatterbox, peacock shoed guys and sophisticated, mascara laden, painted girls a combination not very uncommon in the NCR region. The only thing I was sure of was that was a mismatch. Stained shoes and strained clothes because of the traveling under the beating sun of June. By the time I was low enough to run off the place without waiting for the results, the coordinator appeared and started calling the names. 3 gone, 5 gone, 10 gone, 15 gone .. 25 gone ….. I was not on the list. I knew it, I do not deserve to be here, it was a waste of time and I knew it.

‘All the names that were called just now can leave for the day. They have not cleared the written test. Rest of the people, please wait for the next round.’

Hmm  … Unexpected surprise.

Round 2: The Technical F2F

I was the third of the five people to be interviewed. The panel consists of an old man (OM), a not so old man (NSOM) and a young woman (YW) (women are always young, you bet).

OM: Please take a seat and tell us something about yourself.

Me: (Yaa, right. I am a loser by birth and absolutely a champion of my art, can mess up anything anywhere. Don’t ask me to talk about myself, coz I hate myself.) I am a computer science professional (whose utopian dream of getting into an MBA college of choice has been tattered and here I am, the great loser, seeking a little mercy from you all.) with a 3 years of experience (3 years, fish! Its actually not more than 3 days, I never worked in the office) on web application development, Microsoft technologies.  Completed my schools from Jaipur and (then lost my way and then) college from Noida. Father is a govt. official, mother a home maker and younger brother (who must hate to get associated with me) is pursuing engineering (from an actual college, not a gimmick, like I did).

NSOM: What is a private constructor in C#?

ME: (OMG, what is this? Never heard of this, let go attempting an answer for this) Yaa, private constructor is a constructor with a private access modifier.

NSOM: (‘very funny, even my driver has a better answer’ kind of look) That’s fine, what is the use of a private constructor?

ME: (Hang me!) I am not sure, never worked with them.

OM: What are the things one must keep in mind while writing an application with C#?

ME: (I never kept anything in mind; I just started coding … thats why? I always knew I was missing on something. ) Apart from the syntactical checks … (intercepted)

YW: The IntelliSence is there to take care of that, what else?  (Say something to prove that you have some gray matter up there.)

ME: Yaa, so we should make sure that the code is a managed code that is under control of the Common Language Runtine and …..

YW: You really need to brush up your technical skills, we will give you a call if something positive comes out, you can leave as of now. (Thanks for wasting our time, get the heck out of here and never come back. You loser, even my maid is technically stronger than you are. Get your face out of my sight!!)

ME: Thanks a lot.

Same old story and I was at my best as ever ….