Flextronics!

On the 4th of August,I have ,for the first time in my life, become empployed and am now an official Flextronics guy.YAhoooo!!!(or rather FLEXTRONICS!!!, yahoo is coming to the campus tomorrow).

The process of joining the hallowed ranks of India's ubiquitous IT force came about as a 3 step thing:

Step-1: A written test.
Step-2: Tech Interview.
Step-3: HR Interview.

The written test was seni retarded(Even those who could not clear it agreed to that).With 7 sections comprising of English, Quant, Attention to detail(the stupidest of them all), C, section on Data Structures OS and Algo, A section on retention, E-mail writing(yes,amazing what companies can test you on!),It was a mad scramble to the finish line.

I had fine tuning several strategies for cheating in the paper but all of the plaaning came to naught.The evil invigilators removed evryone around me beyond whispering range and I ws left to fend for myself in the big game of employment seeeking.

Yours truly wrapped up the English paper in less than 4 min, got slightly harassed by the quant paper, and generally tumbled through the rest of the section. There was barely a time to pause as the papers of the previous sectoin were taken away as soon as the next section was given.The only real pause I took was while deciding on how to masquerade as a cable operator writing an email to an irate customer.

This whole examination procedure was followed by several hours of waiting(I didn't really think about the result, some of my friends were on the brink of breakdown).The result was finally declared around midnight and 2/3rd of my flat ended up qualifying for thhe interview but the other 1/3rd was heartbroken.

Interviews began at 9:00 a.m. the next morning.I was among the first batch of 5 interviewees.The panel consisted of A mousy looking female and a guy who seemed to be amused at nothing at all.

Amused guy:Hi kislay,please tell us about yourself?
Me: *I ain't expecting this in the tech interviews idiots* Eh..I'm a student of NSIT-IT..eh...I am a hardworking guy and generally like to get on with problems and solve them...eh...But I tend to get a little unrealistic at times and put too much pressure on myself...eh....I've done a lot of web dev work and am fascinated by technology in all its forms.

Mousy woman:Ok thats a good intro(REALLYYYY!!!!)Wjat are your main subjects?
Me: MA'am DS OS and Algo.

What followed was a 10-15 min long series of questions that I answered and bluffed my way through.Then I found myself waiting for(eternally it seemed) for my HR interview.Got quite irritating, especially with Aditya muttering feverishly about how much we could have been studying for the Microsoft test.The only respiite came from Mr. Anil Dhawan,Product Manager,Microsoft.An excellent speaker, he provided a most interesting take on all iissues from his own life to piracy and software industry.

Finally my name was called for the HR interview.I was escorted to the interview table bya reasonably pretty HR female and I was beginning to think-"huh not bad at all!"

Female in red tee: So kislay-where did you do your internship?
Me: m'am I did it at iMediablitz Solutions,an internet marketing company.
F.I.R.D: Do you think working in teams is better or working alone?
Me: Ma'am I think working in small teams is the best as they have the most cohesion and are, inn my opinion the most productive.
F.I.R.D.: Have you ever worked in a team?
Me: Yes,as a part of the NSITLOUNGE web team(followed by a tirade about lounge)
F.I.R.D.: Ok you have mentioned here that like reading philosophy and economics.What did you read most recently?
Me: ma'am I just finished Sophie's world and have started ' The age of reason'.
F.I.R.D.: Why Flex?
Me: I want to work in a company which is doing new and exciting work.I believe Flex is doing that .So..(this is just the gist of it.I rambled on for 5 min)
FIRD: any problems with working outside delhi?
Me: none.
FIRD: Ok kislay.Thanks for your time.

I knew I would get the job then.And that is exactly what happened about6 hours later when the final results were announced.

You'd think it'd have meant a great deal---you now--a first job.But it didn't.Both I and Mangla took one look at the results mailed to us, confirmed our names ,and went right on studying for microsoft and a fatter paycheck.

Human beings are greedy creatures.