Buds has never been sure what he wants to do in life. He entered IIT because IITs are a gateway for an Indian to economic prosperity. His parents, like most other Bihari parents, were more concerned with the dowry element. An IIT graduate can bring in as much as thirty lac rupees to the house with a bonus bride to do the chores.
No doubt, Buds has always been the confused self all under-graduation days at IIT. He saw people aspiring for management schools and started preparing for same. After a fortnight he realised his English is beyond redemption and so dropped the plan. At a point of time he wanted to give GRE and go abroad for higher studies and this time all was going well. Alas, he messed up with his graduation project and the project guide made it clear Buds shouldn’t expect any recommendation from him.
Very soon Buds got fascinated with civil services. His family encouraged him with the hope of getting an enhanced dowry package (as much as a crore rupees plus accessories). He got incensed with the facilities and powers of a civil servant; the biggest attraction, however, was the under-table transactions.
No lunch is free lunch; very much the same way no job is waiting for you. It took a long time for Buds to realise aspiring is easier than actually clearing civils. A three-staged recruitment process ranging a year and with an average success rate of around one per tens of thousand wasn’t Buds’ cup of tea. He dumped the dreams of being a civil servant for the good.
But no! Buds’ story isn’t over yet. In fact it starts now, now that campus placement has just started. Buds hates software jobs –I will be made to work like a hog for every penny I get –to quote Buds. Buds had many favourable elements in his CV. He had a good grade point average and was from electronics department. He had a conviction that companies are waiting just for him and so resolved that he would enter one of those high paying management or oil companies.
Buds got himself a formals wear –made a lot of fuss on colour combination of shirt and pant –and invested generously on tie and shoes. He is now ready to grab his dream job.
HLL and Lehmon Brothers scanned him out in the CV stage itself. He managed to enter the group discussion level in ITC but couldn’t make any headway from there as the only thing he did was nod his head. After the first interview round of Schlumberger, which he couldn’t clear, Buds realised the importance of extra-curricular activities to get into PCMG or oil sector. He immediately used his well-placed contacts to get certificates certifying that he was Inter-IIT gold medallist in football. Friends suggested, looking at the unusual anatomy he had, to take volley-ball or cricket but he settled for no less that football.
The interviewers from Shell Oil were extremely pleased. Good at academics, good at sports and good at hall activities (he had apparently got a certificate issued from the hall that he was general secretary mess).
“What position do you play from in football?”
That was the first question and Buds drew a blank. He had mugged the names of many clubs and players but he had just forgotten to memorize the game.
“I…I think…no I was the goal keeper”
“I guessed so, looking at your anatomy”
Buds didn’t sound much convincing. Luckily the person facing him wasn’t also good at football and so Buds wasn’t grilled much on the topic.
“During my graduation days mess food was horrible. Tell me what your responsibilities are as a mess secretary?” the interviewer asked.
“Making the food” Buds mumbled, more to himself.
“Ok, thank you Mr. –– it has been a pleasure meeting you” Translation: “Get out. You already wasted much of my time”
A wise man is he who learns from experiences. Buds dumped the forged certificates and got ready for an assault of core electronics companies –Intel, Ittiam, Sandisk, Samsung and Philips to name a few. He then realises that he had maintained a good grade point average by taking the easy elective subjects and by taking more subjects in other departments and that he was no good at embedded systems or image processing. Worse, each company has its own specialization to ask from and to learn a dozen elective subjects –RF communication, VLSI, Multimedia etc –in a few days is an uphill task.
After facing the interview board of such companies Buds realizes the essence of B.Tech project even if you aren’t applying for higher studies. But it is too late and almost all core companies have gone. From now on software companies, big and small, will parade into the campus and will take truck load of cheap labour.
Mind you, there is variety in software companies also. There are start-ups that give stock options and a decent pay, then there are the multinationals that pay you six lacs+ per year and make you do work worth ten, the BPO ones that practically end up changing your body timings and last but not the least our very own Infosys, Wipro and Satyam which pay quite enough to manage:
‘Two square meals a day
A modest room to stay
And a blanket to keep the winters at bay’
If you spend prudently (by taking one meal a day and supplementing the room by a cell) you may save something for your insurance policy also.
Coming back to our hero, Buds, we aren’t quite sure if he wasn’t tempted to sit for Infy or Wipro but he finally managed to abstain from these farms. He sat for Oracle, DeShaw and Goldman Sachs Technical positions. From Oracle he learnt that you can’t predict the future, that is, the questions they ask in technical rounds. From DeShaw he learnt that you are either right or wrong in a technical interview but in HR interview you think you are right but you are wrong.
Goldman Sachs interview went quite will. Buds is a wise man who learns from his mistakes and doesn’t repeat them in future. After the HR round, he was asked if he had any questions. He frankly said he had none. Of course he had none. He was ready to work in a coal mine for the brand name of Goldman.
Goldman Sachs didn’t take him. Someone pointed out that if you don’t ask them any questions, the company thinks you are desperate.
“Isn’t it enough that I answer all their untoward questions? Do I have to ask them too?” Buds had practically shouted in frustration that day.
And the story continued such…clouds came and went but Buds saw no rain, very much like Mithun Da’s movies.
There were many moisture-laden clouds
But no rain for Buds
Oracle, DeShaw and Goldman
But no gold for our man
Then comes a company
Called Symphony…
By this time Buds is qualified enough to write the book ‘How to face an interview board’. He now regularly checks the websites of all companies he sits for and calls up seniors in the company to get inputs on nature of work profile. He finds that Symphony is a reputed farm of US with a back-end office in
By now Buds has learnt C, C++, C#, Java, HTML, Javascript, XML, VRML and a dozen other languages spoken in software farms of
“I want to be the CEO of Symphony” A classmate had impressed the panel of another company by saying this but with all due respect to Buds’ copy and paste ability, he was being recruited to an off-shore office of Symphony and aspiring for CEO was too ambitious.
Perhaps the interviewer also thought so. “Do you know who the present CEO of Symphony is?”
Buds again managed to make a fool of self. He had mugged everything from the website but this small info.
The interviewer moves on. “Do you have any questions?”
“Sir, can you tell me about the work culture at Symphony?” Buds says even though his expressions mean “Just take me in. I have been wearing these formals since three month now and am ready to go to any company. Oh I regret the day I didn’t sit for Infosys and Wipro! I will do whatever work you ask me to –software, hardware, carry bricks and cement, clean the toilets or serve food –whatever you say”
It seems like the company wanted quality students (some companies have a notion that students from IITs have a lot of grey cells) and so recruited almost all who had applied for the job. The pay wasn’t as good as Buds had aspired when placement season had started. In fact, the pay wasn’t half as good as he had aspired then, still it was a good company and Buds found out a dozen odd reasons to convince himself and friends and family that he got his dream company.
All is well that ends well. Buds has now given up his formals and concentrates on what he is good at –woo girls and lick an injured heart after getting rejected.
4 comments:
too good smarak keep it up... i think after reading this buds is going to hang u with the same tie he used to wear for his interviews ;) ...
pseud!
so did he get a job finally ?
I read this lately. Tum line se buds ka karnama likha hai :) Mazza aa gaya .. Nostalgic moments !!
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