Job Interview - The Presence of Mind

Recently, I did one (good) thing. I convinced one of my friends Mr. AK to start blogging. After his first post, he himself confessed that he did not knew about himself until he wrote it. It is this thing with writing. You never know what you would write. Also, I am trying to convince others to write their interview experiences so that we can blog them. Let's see how much I am successful.

Now continuing with my job interview. After my first interview, I was pretty confident that I should call it a day. But I waited till it was official. Meanwhile, the interviews going on for another profile did not go as expected and the corresponding interviewer was not happy with any of the interviewee and so planned not to continue the selection process with any candidate. The profile was related to Computers and I along with some of my friends were apt for the same. (Atleast technically since we are doing our graduation with Computer Science stream). So, the TNP head Mr. AK (Not the same as one mentioned above) proposed that we should be given be a chance and asked the interviewer to atleast interview a few others. On agreement he listed all names of students in the Computer Science stream for the interview.

When the first of these Mr. AC went for the interview, he was asked the most trivial question of reversing a string (What is your name? would become a rather difficult question as you move up in the hierarchy of this stream) for a decent Computer Scientist (if I may say so). After he massacred that question the interviewer was in the state of searching-from-when-found-now and as I am told from then on the interview was good enough to be called a cake walk. Apparently, the interviewer had been asking the same question to the previous interviewees but none were able to give a convincing answer. As Mr. AC walked out of the room, more than satisfied by the process, the interviewer followed him and called him again in the room. This was not for the second round but to the surprise of atleast a few, an offer had been made.

As time progressed, two more candidates Mr. PG and Mr. AG were involved in a similar sequence of events and both had been offered a job. I was happy for them as well as for the fact that I was somewhere in this line of people getting jobs but was sad since I was second last in the line. I thought that though one door had closed (literally) after my first interview, another has opened. After three candidates, it was almost lunch time and the interviewer asked for the CVs of rest of the listed aspirants. What is commendable here is the presence of mind of Mr. AK who was very much responsible for these offers being made. If it not had been for his immediate thinking and voluntary action, the 3 candidates may or may not have sailed through.

For me, I was waiting for the lunch to get over so that I could have my chance. I had to miss my lunch since another company had their test for selection the same day and the lunch time was the only free time (ironically, the lunch was also free) I could have given that test. What happened after the lunch would definitely satisfy your appetite ...