CRACK'D: HOW NOT TO SCREW UP YOUR DREAM INTERVIEW

Written By Parijat Mukherjee

Illustrated By Dipannita Banerjee

FAIR WARNING

This is not a guide-book that’ll help you crack an interview. This is not going to be a book full of questions and answers that you can cram and regurgitate in any of your campus interviews. There are no tips on how to groom yourself for that day which is probably more special than the day you propose. If you want an interview guidebook, Google it. There are tons of those, and some are really great.

So what the hell does this book contain? You can call it a story, call it  fiction, call it the reminiscences of a serial job-seeker. This book contains some experiences, some expectations, and some make-up scenarios that have, may have, or may happen during the interview process.

So if you are a serious gal or guy who’s only interested in that job, don’t read any further. Just close the damn window. This ain’t gonna help ya.

But if you really wanna have fun, turn the page, intrepid Jobventurer, and let’s you and I delve deeper into the Murky Caverns of the Corporate...

CHAPTER 1: THE HERALD

The first three years of my four years at college were spent, mostly, in trying to think up excuses as to why I had bunked classes. The remainder was, of course, well utilized in movies, music, and downloads of all things under the sun, if you get my drift. It was towards the end of the third year that things began to get serious.Rumors started drifting, in the form of whispers along the corridors, that campus interviews would start very soon.

The effects were disastrous. Normal students like me, who had near about very little idea how they had cleared the latest exam, were left scramming for the libraries, trying to cram up whatever we could in the fear that we would be left behind. I for one was not a very tangential student (tangential in the sense that I at least went through my course materials instead of just skimming past them), so I was not that bad off. But it was just heartbreaking to see the state to which some of my batch-mates had been reduced to. I remember entering the college one day, only to find Lolita, the most popular girl in our year, standing at one corner of the field, dressed like a tramp, staring at the open drains that flowed through the back of the campus in a vacant sort of way.

“Hey! Lol, what’s the matter?” I asked going up to her. She didn’t reply. I then picked up a small rock and hit her on the head. Normally she would have reacted vehemently, followed by a flurry of verbal fury. Now she just looked through me as if I were made of glass.

“What the hell’s happened to you?” I asked again.

She scrunched up her face as if I had given her a very hard problem to solve. Then after some moments, she blurted out.

“Whaisthelassdigitofpi?”

Now it was me that looked at her in a dumbfounded way. Was she learning a new language? I asked her that.

“No no no...” she shook her head in negation. “...what-is-the-last-digit-of- pi?” She emphasized each word now.

“How on earth should I know? Pi is a non-terminating-” I started to reply incredulously.

“But we have to know!!” She whipped out a slim volume from her bag and waved it before my eyes. I managed to catch a glimpse of the title between oscillations.

10001 Interview Questions for Engineers.

I began to understand the problem.

“Is that a question from this book?” I asked carefully.

Lolita nodded yes.

“Then it must have the answer too, right?”

Lolita’s face once again screwed itself up into an expression of utmost irritation. She waved the book in front of me again.

“Read the title!!!” She screeched. “It says 10001 interview QUESTIONS, NOT ANSWERS!!! THE ANSWERS ARE NOT GIVEN DAMMIT. AND I CAN’T FIND ANY OF THEM. I’LL BE REJECTED IN THE VERY FIRST ROUND!!!!!!!!!”

She went into hysterics, tearing the leaves of the flower plants as liberally as her own hair. I decided it prudent to leave her to calm down on her own, and sulked back to the next class. 

Another day, while I was in the library browsing through some mags, I heard the librarian arguing with some students. I peered around some shelves to find Rohit and his cronies in an animated argument with the man.

“But I have never seen you before!!! I am calling security. Where are your library cards?”

“We er...misplaced them. Believe us sir, we are students here. We are in our sixth sem...please we need to prepare for campusing...”

I didn’t need to hear anymore. I returned to my own perusals.

There were too many such incidences to recount here, so I’ll just skim through some. The Xerox center had to close down after some days as the xerox-guy had to be hospitalized due to excessive photocopying. The canteen, which usually did brisk business, was running at a loss as the regular patrons were now regulars in classes. One guy had to be suspended as he tried to bribe a professor into amping up his attendance for fear that he would not be allowed to sit for interviews on account of low attendance. Saral, who was simply studious, was practicing being interview-smart by coloring his hair magenta and sporting a hideous goatee. Ankita, the topper of our year, had a nervous breakdown and attacked the placement officer. She was sent on medical leave.

But my eyes were truly opened when one day, after coming home from an exam and sitting down to study for the next one, I found my mother staring strangely at me.

“What?" I inquired irritatingly.

“Today was your last exam, right?”

The reality of the situation hit me at that exact moment.

Campusing was on.

CHAPTER 2:THE BIO

Dear candidate, I’m sure you know the first step that needs must be taken in order to achieve that career you dream of: you need to sell yourself. And the channel through which you primarily bring your self to the notice of the interviewer is through your bio. But wait, some call it the Bio-Data, others the Resume, still elsewhere you are asked to submit your Curriulum Vitae.

But what the fuck’s the difference between the three?

That was the first thing that stumped us as we prepared to prepare for that most important event of our lives. As students, we had no idea who to ask about this, so we turned to that omnipotent savior of mankind:

Google.

After some time of searching we came to the following conclusions:

A resume is french for “summary”. In it you don’t need to list out all your life story. You can start with a brief description of yourself, then dish out your professional accomplishments in reverse-chronological order, followed by your academic qualifications. Resumes should be tailor made to the position you are applying for, with focus on the skills necessary to bag that particular job. While writing a resume you should follow the KISS philosophy(Keep It Simple, Stupid; I’m not asking you to go around kissing everyone you can manage to manage). It should ideally be 1-2 pages long. And it is pronounced Ray-Zoo-May, not Reez-yoom.

Curriculum vitae is a more serious affair than the resume. For one thing, Curriculum Vitae is latin(man, latin, that’s....deep) for “course of life”. It should be more detailed than the resume. Ideally 2-3 pages long, may be longer as per your life story. A CV should list out all academic, professional and co-curricular accomplishments of the candidate in full detail. The purpose is to highlight the general talents of the job-seeker.

Oh yeah, and unlike the resume, a CV should be in chronological order.

Last and the least effective is the Bio-data. It is essentially the old term for CV and Resume. Here the main focus is on the personal details.The other accomplishments come after that.

Guess bios are out of fashion.

Anyway, after much deliberation we decided that since we were students without any particular experience, a resume would not really be suited to us, ‘cause we won’t really have anything much to say. We decided to go with the CV, where we could list out all of our accomplishments from school to college. Bio-data we did not consider at all.

But what kind of profile was best suited for us? I mean, we were going to be graduate engineers, but we all knew that a degree in itself meant nothing. The most important thing was to choose the right career. In order to choose the right career we needed to know ourselves. To know ourselves, we decided to visit a career counselor.

Searching on the web turned up a lot of options. But the various institutes which were offering careers advice were also charging steep fees. And even though we were all very worried about our future, we also had to keep the present in consideration. So after some deliberation, we opted for a free online career choice test.

“So who’s going first?” I asked. No one volunteered. I guess everyone was apprehensive about the results. We looked around the class...and found the perfect test subject.

Ankita had returned to class after one month of medical leave, during which time she had undergone psychological counseling as well as medications to calm her nerves. Now we found her huddled in a corner of a back bench, poring over a fat tome. I approached her cautiously.

“Ankita, how are you feeling?” I asked her gingerly.

“Better now I guess.” She replied. Her tone was tired and drawn. “What are you guys doing?” She inquired.

I explained the situation, and she agreed to be the first one to take the test. “At least it will take my mind off such tension.” She told me, gesturing at the dumb-bell of a book.

Ankita sat in front of the laptop while we encircled her. She went through the account creation process, during which she was required to submit an assortment of personal info like email and phone number, and then she was logged into the test.

There was no time limit, and it was all MCQs. There were about 200 questions on various innocuous topics. Sample a few:

1. How do you think others perceive you?

a. Helpful    b. Studious  c. Friendly  d. Introverted

2. How are your Domain Skills?

a. Average   b. Good   c. Excellent  d. Mediocre

Etc. Etc. Etc.

The instructions were to not think much and answer with the first option that came to mind. Ankita carefully considered each question before she ticked her answers.

Finally, after about an hour and a half later, she was ready to hit submit. We waited with bated breath for the few moments it took for the server to display the answer.

It finally did.

Ankita went into another maniacal fit. We barely managed to restrain her as two of our group went to inform the HOD. She was taken home later.

Ankita was not in a proper state to state why she had had her latest breakdown episode. We never went back to take the career test ourselves. We were too afraid to try after seeing the effect the result had had on Ankita.

The career that she was found best for was CARPENTER.

*

One week after the Ankita debacle, Gurmeet, a dude(in every possible sense) from CSE came into the limelight with a software he had found that could generate proper CVs. And he was charging a steep price from students who wanted to use his services. I, together with Suhail and Lolita, went to see what the matter was all about.

We found Gurmeet surrounded by a gaggle of 4th years(most of who were girls) requesting for his services at a lower price. Gurmeet, obviously, was enjoying the feeling of being in control. I decided to accost him.

“What’s this about a CV software?”

Gurmeet answered coolly, with a hint of acid in his tone.

“Do you want your CV made?”

“You do know there are hundreds of CV maker apps available for free, right?” I questioned his question.

“Of course there are.” He turned to me. The light furrowing of his brows told me he was uncomfortable at my downsizing his business in front of all potential clients. “But do you know how companies screen CVs nowadays? The number of applications for each position number in the thousands, and naturally no one has the time to go through so many documents manually. So they use a screening software that filters through the CVs, searching for certain keywords that determine which candidate is most suitable for the position. And unless your CV has the required keywords in it, it won’t pass through the software filter and hence will be rejected. The HR people won’t even know your CV existed in the first place. Now my software,” he paused for effect here, then continued, “ my software uses AI technology to create a CV for you that includes all the necessary keywords for the profile you are applying for. You get a properly formatted CV that is sure to pass the filters and make you noticeable to the recruiter.”

“And what proof do you have that this works?” Lolita countered.

“My Father” he emphasized the my “is the HR manager at SunSwift Software System Solutions, and he himself uses such softwares. I have studied the workings of these closely and created my app. I know  it works. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

By then we had grudgingly agreed with him, and finally shelled out the amount he was asking for to have our CVs made.

Later, much later, we found out that his software was just a downloaded piece of shit that sputtered out CVs based on some predefined templates.

And his father was a jeweller.  

Anyway, I finally managed, with a little help from my family members, to put together a respectable CV. It had my name, address and phone number on it, together with all academic records(not very impressive, but not downright horrible either), and a bit of co-curricular accomplishments at the end(I was good at quizzes and debates). I made about 100 copies of it, and finally I was off to the races.

Little did I know then that the races would be full of hurdles.

 Chapter 3: The Prep

So finally we had or neat and clean CVs. Great.

But we had no idea as to how to prepare for the interviews. True, we were going through the course materials of all previous semesters with inhuman voracity, but we had no bloody idea regarding how to actually crack the interview. Normally we would have gone to a senior in order to seek their hallowed advice. Now we  were the seniors,and a murky something was looming in front of us that we had no clue about. So, after a lot of thinking, we made the most terrible mistake that you can ever do while preparing for a campus interview: we went to a professor.

Now, I’m not saying that professors don’t know anything, all due respect to them. They do know, a lot. And therein lies the trouble, for they know a lot about their subject, and they are prepared to share it, but they seldom have any clue about the campusing process. After all, if they did, they would not be in academia, right?

But we did not have this experience back then. We were, all things considered, novices in the subject of interviews. So one day after classes, a few of us buckled up and went to our HOD.

Now, a thing you should know about HODs, is that they are as elusive a creature as the Yeti/Sasquatch/Bigfoot. Their exact purpose is unknown, no systematic study has yet been conducted about their conduct, yet we know they are there. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can catch a glimpse of them, traipsing the hallowed halls and empty corridors, vanishing before you can get a good look. Our HOD was no different. So in order to get to him, we had to study his movement patterns for days before we narrowed down a time when we were certain he could be found in his lair er....office. We went and, with much trepidation, knocked.

No answer. We knocked again.

Nothing.

I pushed the door a little; it swung open.

The room of the HOD is a sacred place, and the rituals to gain an audience with that ever-present yet never visible entity differ from college to college and department to department. In our case, DC, the HOD, was a man who protected his den like a lion. So, with immense trepidation, we entered the lair of the beast.

TO BE CONTINUED...