5 Job Interview- iGATE

Hello everyone, this is my second blog and so its my humble duty to inform you that writing is not my cup of tea but since the experience is so enriching that i had to blog it down so as to keep it fresh in my memory at least!

This incident is basically about a job interview which I attended for an MNC called iGate on 9th May'10 at Bangalore.

The story goes like this,

I got up at 6 am on a cold Sunday morning, still half awake and searching for my slippers I somehow managed to find the way to the Bathroom, after getting refreshed I finally decided to take bath as it was already late and now it was 6:30, i was running almost 1 hour late as by now I imagined that the line of the freshers crowd must have become half a kilometer long though the official time of starting the drive was 8:30am.

Anyways leaving the scary thoughts behind I dressed up in the best of formals I had as if I was going to meet the Queen of England and it was no less than that to me as by the end of the day I might be richer by 3 lakhs a year!

After some sprays of deo and face cream applied on me I was finally ready to start my journey.

This day had lot of opportunities in store for me starting with M.Tech admission test in IIIT-Delhi, then a NASSCOM test called NAC Tech for which I had paid 300 and 600 bucks respectively about a month ago. And last of all was the sudden arrival of the iGATE Interview which was of course free of cost. But alas I was only a single person and could avail only one of the three options.

I had decided earlier that I would go for iGATE as clearing the IIIT-D entrance was like going to a Beer Bar and asking for Baba Ramdev's yoga classes because i know only the basics of Computer science and there I was required to pass a 2 hour programming/coding test so it was clearly a bad idea. About NAC test I thought that I can always pay again and attend it the next time it comes but it would be a risk as I cant be sure to get through iGate and losing a call for more than 30 companies to a single company was not a fair deal at all.

But there was a catch which pulled me to iGate. It was actually a friend of mine, my friend from college. Moreover she had just cleared the iGate exam last week and was to join the company on 20th May. So that thought pulled me to UVCE where the aptitude was going to be conducted.

Now that i had found the college by the long queue it had in front of it from 1 Km distance, I thought that being good wont help me here and starting from the end of line will do me no good and I might not even get a chance to attempt the written test as it had happened with me once before and I had to come back home without even being allowed to write the Aptitude test.

So with absolute shamelessness I took my bike into the college Parking area , parked it and went straight into the entrance of the exam hall. One guy asked me where I was going, but at that time I couldn't hear a word and walked straight. Thankfully no one else questioned and hence I was at the beginning of the now a 2km big line.

It was just 7:45am by now and soon I found that I was not the only one trying to get into the exam hall. There were around 6000 to 7000 Engineers trying out their best muscles to push others and get in. The nicely maintained line was now a humongous crowd which was shouting, pushing and pulling each other, time and again.

At 8am came the HR Managers shouting at top of their voices for people to get organized and come in line. They were totally freaked out and mad with the applicants as they never might have expected such a big crowd. In the mean time we the crowd pushed and broke the gate to enter the exam hall. Now around 1000 people were inside the exam hall and it was big so more people wanted to come in. The managers were now out of their minds and threatened to call off the recruitment drive if we didn't clear the area within 5 minutes. We then eventually cleared the place again in another 15 minutes after lot of pushing, pulling and persuasion .

By now I had injured my right leg at 3 places and the force of pushing and pulling had almost choked me for a minute or so. But people were not in a mood to listen and all wanted to get in and get the job so the pushing and pulling continued at its own pace. now even the girls joined and slowly it was more of fun than pain to be a part of the crowd . There were cries and screams all over the place and it was no more a decent place to be but a devils den preparing itself for a huge stampede.

Soon the situation went out of control completely and the HR had to call police support because stopping 6000 people from entering a place was not a 10 peoples job.

Finally the police came, they initially started with talks and slangs but gradually slaps and Lathis came into the scene. The crowd on the other hand was not allowing anyone to move and so the guys at the beginning of the crowd got a nice thrashing but still couldn't make it to the exam hall.

By now I had completely lost the idea of writing the test here and planned to attend NAC test as I still had half an hour to reach the place, but to my disappointment there was not even a single inch to move from ones place and going out of the campus with my bike was equally difficult as writing the aptitude inside. So I just left all the bad and unsuccessful plans behind and thought how could i get in.

Working according to my plan, I silently slipped to a corner near the entrance and pushed all others who came near to me. Slowly and slowly I inched forward to the entrance gate saving myself from the lathis and the policemen. Now I was at the gate and to my astonishment I found that people were being allowed inside in tiny batches and that the process had already started.

So I went in slowly without anyone noticing me slip in. And finally there I was ready to attend the Aptitude after clearing the Physical Round.

I found that there was a stark difference between the atmosphere of outside and inside. While outside the people who were shouting "Inkalab Zindabad" and all the slangs of Hindi, inside the same guys were checking their dress whether it was alright or not and whether the Resume was okay and if they still looked presentable to the Interviewer. I followed the cues and checked my personal status before going in any further. It was hell and heaven difference between outside and inside. Now I was called for document verification and all other routine stuffs continued, I completed all of them and cleared the aptitude test then 1st tech round then 2nd tech round too and finally HR was there. I gave all the rounds my best shots and submitted the application and could finally leave by 3:30pm. I was said that I would be contacted within 6 days if I was through.Though I didn't know my result I was happy that i could clear these many rounds and reach up to there among 6000 to 7000 odd candidates fighting for the same job.

When I returned home I found that back side of my shirt was completely soiled by the paint and distemper on the walls of the college which were the only things that were supporting me during the times of war. But still the soiling of a shirt was minuscule compared to the experience I gained during the 8 hours I was there.

So now I have my fingers crossed and can only pray to god that I don't need to fight again as a freshers like cat and dog to just get in and write an aptitude or attend the interview.

Lets hope for the best and moral of the story is that "we should do smart work rather than hard work at times when conditions are not in our favor otherwise we might not even have chance to showcase out talents ".

Thank you and hope you enjoyed reading the post