my first interview.. :(

It was the second day of campus recruitment ... It was the turn of a huge company, with BIG market credentials, to woo the students on that day.... everyone was visibly excited... there were hazzaar rumours...

"Oye, i heard that they are coming for mass recruitment da...."
"no da... they will pick a few but they are paying big.. really big ..."
"hey heard they are setting up a new fab in Timbuktoo… they need people …. Might even pick a hundred…"

The pre placement talk was scheduled for 2 pm.. Everyone was slogging since the previous three days preparing for all possible questions the freaks may ask…
Some resourceful fellows even managed the qualifying papers from their friends in IITM where the company had just been before they landed in Surathkal. The typical Krecian Jugaad was to be seen everywhere… the zerox shops had queues of guys tryin to get a copy each of the probable questions… while back in the blocks the control c and control v keys were being used overtime…
When I stepped into to the mess for lunch,it was surprisingly empty… hardly anyone was there… everyone was apparently studying for the qualifiers…. I was wondering if I stood a chance at all…

At 2 pm I found myself sitting in the front row in the ATB…. I was listening attentively to all the crap they had to say..
"We are world leaders in….we can do that … this and the other… we are the best… "
[so??]

After all the ranting about their company, they decided half an hour of bragging was good enough…They finally revealed the package… it was a pretty huge pay-pack by all standards… so we were kinda excited about the entire thing…

Immedaitely after, they announced the rather high cut off which I barely cleared and then they started distributing the papers….
The paper was not the one that everyone had got from IITM… The company had lived up to its name… the faces of the students clearly lost a shade or two… all their efforts had gone waste…. Even I was a little flustered as it was only my second apti [thats what we called it]

Although I cleared the apti paper with ease… the technical section was a total bomb… it was hopeless trying to answer that paper… it was near impossible for anyone to crack that paper…

After an hour and a half I slowly trudged out of the hall.. everyone was clearly disappointed… the long faces said it all…[log long faces... some sight..]

The results were scheduled to be out round about 5 pm… and I had no hope whatsoever of qualifying for the interviews … so I decided to go to the adda… our very own “Krishnas” for my cup of tea…. I didn’t realise how time flew by and before I realised one of my friends came running towards me…

“Abbe tera naam list main hain…”
For a moment I did not undrstand what was going on…
“abbe jaldi chal yaar… tera interview bees minute main hain….”

I was in a state of shock… I had not expected in the least to have qualified…
I got up and ran towards the hostel… somehow I felt that having cleared the difficult test,I would sail through the interview ... [hopes...]

I dressed up hurriedly yet immaculately in my new pair of formals et al… I hurried towards the Placement centre… the light drizzle which was so common during those placement days slowly turned into a heavy shower… when I reached the placement centre I was wet … I did not even have a minute to breathe easy… Before I could gather by breath I realised I was in a small room , wet and panting before a young man who did not look too pleased with my presentation skills…
After briefly introducing myself I told him a little about my interests and my favourite subjetcs… He listened very patiently and then said…
“You are an electronics student eh… hmm… I do not know much of electronics but I will try to ask you something… ”
with this he started my technical interview… he asked me a couple of questions on electronics and then “What are the programming languages you know???”
“C sir”
“only C??”
“yes sir… we had only C in our syllabus”
“no C++ also??”
“no sir”
“hmmm… fine il give you a piece of code … tell me… " blah blah
“ ok sir”… blah blah..
[but I managed to give him the correct answers… and i was feelin really really good now]
“ tell me something about OOPS..”
“Object Oriented Programming sir”,I said with a gleam in my eye…
“what is that???”
“well I don’t know … but …”[WTF?? how am I suppposed to know??]
“u don’t know object oriented programming???”
“no… we dint have that in…”
“ok.. do u know a bit of Java??” [yeah rt!!!! ]
“No sir..”
“PL/SQL… data base management???”
“No sir…” [oye... dude im an electronics engineer]
“What else do u know in computers??”
“I know how to work on matlab , pspice VHDL n verilog…”
“what is that????? But u do not know OOPS concepts eh??”
[not again... ]
“No sir…”
“hmmm……. Where are you actually from??”
I realised that my interview ended there… I did not know what to do… I was so shaken up by the whole experience…
“ sir .. from Bangalore..”
“I am sorry Elwin but we are looking for highly technical computer guys”
I was about to scream, “Do I look like a friggin imbecile to you??”… but I managed to keep it down to a mumble…
“Thank you” I said and walked out….
That was my first interview… the results,negative and the after effects,still showing…