Passion for making a difference

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Of late, many of my friends have updated their status messages indicating they've been placed. Although it creates much controversy, the fact of the matter is that you need to feel good on such achievements specially in these economic crisis and other financial downturns. Quite naturally then, our expectations were high when we got a mail saying that the big names are going to turn up at our college and were looking at good numbers. CTS, one of the well known names in the industry was scheduled to kick start the process on 21st Jan. Inevitable last minute resume updates, copies of marks sheets, the lot were the order of the day on 20th. My only saving grace was my preparation for CAT last year and some gut feeling told me, "Get through the first round, you'll do well in the interview".

With this thought, I got an early night and made sure I was fresh. The first round was as expected, with a mix of vocab, math and analytical ability questions. After this was an hour long PPT(Pre Placement Talk). Since we had all done some research on the company, their sales figures and achievements din't sound alien. It was now time to announce the shortlisted candidates for the interviews. After what seemed a year, my name came up and boy was I relieved! We were expecting a break after a tiring and exhaustive first half of the day, hoping to regroup together and rethink. But they had other ideas, we were straight away taken to our respective panels. Maybe the lack of time forced them to start asap. So there I was, the first interview of my life, with absolutely no preparation whatsoever. My head is still spinning when I recollect some of my answers. Some were acceptable but others were totally irrelevant! Still, there was some strange confidence in whatever I was saying. After the interview, I made a few phone calls to tell my parents not to get disheartened if am rejected. By the time the entire process was done, it was quite late in the evening and I was tired of starvation (Dunno why they've to punish us like that, endurance maybe!!).

All these moments of pain, anger, frustration, tiredness etc., were erased when the name "Tejus S" fell on my ears. For a few minutes I could not believe what was going on. When they reached the end of the list, there was a celebration of sorts viz cake cutting and some music. I still had not got round the fact that I was placed. All the years of hard work finally paid off. It was very emotional but it's a day I'll never forget, 21st January 2010.

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