Campus placement begins...

I entered my college (JIIT Noida) at 9 in the morning, looking forward to what could be the best day of the semester. It was drizzling. All of a sudden a voice whispered in my mind, “It’s raining fortunes for us final year students”.

It had to be. It was the first time a recruiting organization (Infogain) was coming to our college (No, our college isn’t that bad, actually we are the first batch of the college). And as if it was not enough we had the final UGC inspection scheduled for today (if they liked the college we would get a deemed-to-be university status).

It was 10 and we were pushing our way through the door of the lecture theatre where Pre-placement talk was scheduled. It was raining heavily. Everything went on as usual (Read boring) until the guy on stage mentioned the compensation, Rs. 280,000 p.a. (approx. $6250). All of us like woke up from sleep. The pay package was way higher than average pay offered by other such IT companies. Everyone (around 150 students) geared up for the test. There were two tests – aptitude and technical. Also, we were supposed to write a small paragraph on our hobby. I performed fairly well in the tests and was particularly good in the paragraph (I chose computer gaming as my hobby:-)).

It was 6 in the evening and we were anxiously waiting for the list of candidates selected for interview round. It was still raining heavily. As we were waiting, a rumor spread from somewhere that we had been awarded a deemed-to-be university status. Before we could check whether it was a truth, the Infogain team arrived with the results. 27 students were selected for the next level (Oh yes, I was there). We were told to fill in a form and be ready with our resumes.The interviews started at 8. I was sixth on the list. A few people went in and out and lo, the coordinator announced “Chirag Gupta”. I rushed in nervously, accepting all the good wishes in the way. It was still raining. There were two guys sitting on a conference table waiting for me. The first guy asked me some general questions about my family, hobbies and areas of interests. All these questions did little but increase my confidence. Now the other guy asked some technical question (Basically, he asked me to utter something about my areas of interests and skill set). It was a long interview and to worsen the situation he asked me to wait for next round. It was already 10 and I wondered how long and boring this would be.

It was 1.30 and the night was pitch black. We had spent hours listening to essentially similar interview feedbacks with some white Gaussian noise added here and there. Finally I was called for the second round. Late night 2 isn’t particularly a good time to give an interview that could earn you a good job, but I had to do my best. I went in and was very cordially welcomed by a gentleman. He asked me all the same questions but they were better framed and expected a more precise answer. I was answering everything perfectly before he threw the ace - “Mr. Chirag, you have got such good marks in GATE (a GRE like exam to pursue higher engineering studies in India. Why would you come and join our company?” I tried to do everything to show my inclination towards job, especially a job in his company but I couldn’t impress him with any reason. Ironically it was a truth that I would have probably left the job if I got an opportunity for higher studies. He changed the topic and I performed well in the rest of the interview. Finally it got over and I came outside.

It was 3.30 and we were all speculating each others chances and waiting for the results. The results were finally out and 6 of us were selected (No, not me:-(). I went outside and saw it wasn’t raining anymore. The pleasant voice in my mind had been subdued by loud congratulations. I went to my friend’s room (I am a non-hosteller) had a long sleep and bunked college the next day.

As of now everyone is waiting for a huge party from the selected candidates – Anshuman, Gaurav, Abhishek, Ankita, Shikha and Aakansha. Sadly, we still haven’t found whether the deemed-to-be university news was a rumor or not. And yes, the pleasant voice in my mind is back and I am sure it’ll be raining fortunes for all of us final year students.