Happenings of the long past....a recap!

It was tough times, the entire hard work done was at stake and we were still not sure about the results! All the technical gyan and hard ships we faced were being measured against parameters like luck and CGPA. It was the time of placements and we were already 4 down (i.e. were not eligible or didn’t clear the written in first 4 companies) with a total loss of 25 lakhs!(The gross CTC offered by these companies) and then came the so called mighty ABB! It was a company which was on the PC (preferred companies) list of all the toppers for electrical branch and was surrounded by lot of hype! As it was kind of open campus, inviting students from all the NIT’s which were a league above our college! Nevertheless we waited for it. Soon the shortlist came for the students eligible to write the test and it was filled with shock, as lot of the toppers were not even selected for writing the written exam! That day we saw the first light of hopelessness!

It was September 6^th 2010, a day after the first  sessional had finished, we got ready and went to  attend the pre-placement talk for ABB. It was held in quite a grand way as students from NIT Surathkal and other colleges were present in the splendid hall of KMC tele centre. Right from the start-up it was quite high tech! A pre-placement talk over tele-conferencing with students giving exams in over 23 test centres at a time! It was announced that the total openings are around 120 and we have to clear 5 rounds of selection process for that and followed by 3 rounds of GATE evaluation for becoming permanent employees. The moment the country head HR uttered the selection process, the entire crowd became hopeless. It was too much of filtering process for a company offering a package of 4.31laks/annum. However the tag of ABB was extremely glamorous, being the biggest MNC for power sector! Completely justifying its vision of  “Power and Productivity for a better world”.

The judgement hour arrived and we all were sitting for writing the written tests which was 60 questions in 60 minutes! To all the students’ surprise, the questions were quite simple, we were expecting too-tough-to-crack questions, and on the contrary it turned out to be simple electrical sciences.  The tests were finished and we waited! Patiently for 4 hours, with some anxiety as most of us had the gut feeling that they will get through! Finally the results were shown! Initially it was a shock for all the mitians, as they accidentally showed the results for NIT surathkal! And after that the jolt came for me, as when the results for MIT were declared, I couldn’t find my name. everyone had their name in that excel sheet apart from me, then with some trembling voice I asked the coordinator to scroll down the excel page and to my great relief my name was there! And at that moment I realised! It will all be good!

Journey to Bangalore!

So the rules of the game were like, if you crack the written test, you have to arrange travel from your place to Bangalore on the next day itself, so we hurried to get the tickets, it was some decision to make as 2 days after the ABB, delloite was supposed to come and that too again was dream company for most of students. I and Jai decided to wait for one more day and chuck the chance to sit for delloite! In the meanwhile, it was mayuri and ashish who like true selfless supporters got the bus tickets for all 16 of us ( 15 electrical chaps + one jai) to Bangalore. We got a day break in between and jai and me sat and made some plans to prepare for the interview. We browsed through most of the subjects, although we both knew that our strong points lie within our projects and internships. The time came and we left for the next round of selection process that is the “the technical interviews”. Somehow I and jai both were confident about cracking it, but the story went quite different for my case!

The interviews started, it seemed like cakewalk for the electronics guy as they were just asked questions from their respective resumes, after hearing that I was sure that Jai would get through as I knew his resume speaks for itself! On the contrary for the electrical guy, It was like conceptual-banging! We were asked questions which no-one ever paid attention to! Soon the news spread like fire and people started referring books on power systems, I was nervous like hell, but kept calm as I knew whatever I do, I will have to crack the interview on the basis of my resume and nothing more! So the  time came and nakul, I and Rahul were called for the interview, all three of us went into three separate rooms and there I met Mr. Natesh Mayavel and my journey in ABB would revolve around those 50 minutes of technical interview.! To all my surprise and good luck Natesh was the power electronics specialist and he was very keen in knowing about my projects and he asked me no questions, rather listened to me through-out, on what I have to say about the  projects I have done, only interrupting me to narrate his own story of college days. Overall it was a kind of interview which would bring smiles to any candidate and after that my path became all clear as only the communication skills were left to be checked. Same results were with jai and we both cleared the interviews smoothly without any hick-ups. Next rounds was called as GAC tests( graduate assessment centre ) and were completely handled by the HR’s and turned out to be the most challenging one.!

We waited, as our interviews were scheduled to happen after one day and were keeping a close eye on the group who went first. Nakul, Ishani, Swarna,Anup were few of them who went for the first rounds. They described the entire process after coming back and we were able to get lot of hints from what to expect the next day. Before sleeping we were discussing plans on how to tackle the questions asked on personal interview and also get some points on the possible case study about a toy factory! I and jai came up with a plan to call up arpit and sharad and discuss on points that we can write if the same topic (i.e  Toy factory) came to us for case study. We made sure that both  of us don’t have same points to write and then waited with anxiety for the coming day! Finally we were facing the last round of this exhausting selection process which started on 6^th September and the GAC was scheduled on 9^th September for us. In the meanwhile while we were starting with our interviews, we got the news that ishani, anup and swarna have been selected and it literally sent shivers to all of us! They were the first to open the placements for electrical branch. Before the procedure started, there was an emotional moment for me, when I remembered all my friends, family and teachers and promised to myself that I have to clear these interviews and will give my best whatever be the case!

The process started; first we were divided into groups of 8-10 and sent to different rooms, in the huge splendid halls we were given sheets to fill up and to our surprise, we got the same case study as the previous day! About the toy factory and every one of us started making charts and graphs showing the solutions we had in our minds. One by one each one of us were called up for personal interviews and were grilled to the core. It was my turn and the previous day I was struggling with my coughing and therefore took three tablets of stepsils with me to relive my aching throat. I entered the room and was greeted by one of the most pleasant HR I have ever met Ms Lata, assistant vice president of human resources. She asked me to sit and relax and started asking questions. Her first question was “tell me an example from your life when you showed leadership skills” I was expecting this question and started narrating about my GE Edison project and trip to Thailand where I had the experience of meeting so many foreign students, she kept on digging about my Thailand experience and asked questions which were just to check whether I was telling the truth. She asked about my biggest failures, my dreams and my home town. All in all, it was a good experience, telling everything you have done to a complete stranger and that too for your own selfish motive (that is to get a job). It all went well, but just for one thing, I coughed badly during the interview and had to drink lot of water in the process. The entire personal interview was the most important part of the entire process and it went on for about 1 hour for most of us.

I came back and started preparing the chart on the toy factory, writing everything I had in my mind and it was time to present the things I had written. I was called again to the room “nalanda” and asked to present what all ideas I had. In front of me, again Ms Lata and Ms Suchitra Mahesh (head of talent management team) were sitting, they listened to me peacefully without asking any questions and it was all a suave process. Finally the time came for the group discussions, the most challenging of all, as in our group of 8 members, 6 were from MIT and Mitians are known for their communication skills. I and Lokesh decided to pair up and support each other during the whole process, so the topic was given “global warming” a simple one and time allotted was around 20 minutes, in which we had to arrive at some common conclusion. To the horror of all members, there were 8 HR’s sitting behind each one of us to monitor every word we speak! The discussion started, Mr. Anurag Dubey, from Nit Calicut was the first to utter some words in broken English and it was basically complete junk and irrelevant to the topic. We all understood his condition and it was like everyone wanted to counter attack him, but somehow I opened my mouth and everyone listened. All in all it was the best GD I had ever given, I never fumbled with anything, came up with some good points and supported lokesh quite well. It was all over in 20 minutes and the time went slow, extremely slow as we waited for the results which were to be announced the next day!

We boarded the bus to Manipal, a Non AC-sleeper bus, with me and jai  taking the same berth, and then the discussions started, with both of us remembering every second of the entire process, to think of what all points we missed and what all things we could have spoken. We had atul and upasna on board in the same bus and all of us had similar thoughts running in our minds. The night passed with brain clogged with anxiety and finally we were about to reach Manipal. On the way from Mangalore to Manipal, we tried calling up Mr. Umesh the HR who was responsible for giving out the results, we couldn’t reach him. But the moment we reached Manipal, stepped out from the bus at Tiger circle, we called him up again! And he said the golden words! I,jai, upasna and atul were selected and we rejoiced! A silent one! but yes the smell of victory is always sweet! Jai called him again to confirm the news and we were placed in a huge multinational company, a dream job for many! ABB. I called up my papa, mummy, some old school friends and silently went back to our hostels with huge relief! Everything that we did in college life was paid for and it was peace, silence of satisfaction covered the mind, and we relaxed.

It was 10^th September 2010, Friday with 3 days of holiday to follow, a new life started for me, jai and everyone around us. I had my own story with mayuri coming into the entire picture of college life on that very day.

September the 10^th, 2010! When it all started…..