Recruitment @ Thapar

Last Monday (September 5, 2011), I went to Thapar University from my office, for campus placements. There were 10 of us, and except for me and another Analyst (who is an alumnus of the college), the rest all were Senior Managers, Managers, and Assistant Managers. In other words, the other eight people constituted the "higher management" of the firm. Initially, I was quite apprehensive of going and wanted to back out. But, in the end I thought, "what the hell! Let's go and have some fun."

To say the least, it was a really awesome experience, and as the time approached I became quite excited. Firstly, we were going out of Delhi, because Thapar University is in Patiala (Punjab). This meant no office for two whole days but with attendance on both days :-) :-) Secondly, I was going for recruitment to a college, other than NSIT, for the first time, and that also with high profile people (my unit head was one of them). Last but definitely not the least, we were going to PUNJAB!!! One of my most favorite places in India. Well, we started from Delhi via train (Shatabadi Express) at 7.40 AM on Monday, and reached Ambala (where we were supposed to get down) at about 10.30 AM. From there, Patiala was a one-hour drive and the college authorities had sent in cars for us. We reached the campus by 12 PM and were straight away taken to the guest house. There we freshened up a bit and then immediately went to the main auditorium to start with the process.

There were around 370-380 students sitting for placement in The Smart Cube, the highest I had ever seen (in NSIT and DCE there are generally only 150 to 200 students sitting for a company). The first half of the process went out normally. There was the pre-placement presentation, after which we had the aptitude test. Then we went for lunch, and after that spent around 2 hours in correcting the answer sheets. By 5 PM we had shortlisted the candidates for the next round, which was the Group Discussion (GD) and had divided them into different panels. From the GD round, started, what I call the downfall of Thapar students. Now, let me divert a little and tell you something, so that you understand why I wrote the last sentence. Being an engineer myself, I have considerable knowledge about quite a few engineering colleges in India (thanks to all the research I had done when I was giving my entrance examinations in 2005). So, I have always thought that Thapar is one of the best private engineering colleges in the country. Also, two of my relatives are Thapar pass-outs and are quite intelligent, and are doing very well for themselves. Thus, I had very high expectations from the students. But, what I saw there was very disappointing. The students were so very cut-off from the real world, and lived in their own sweet world, which was limited to their campus. Also, their knowledge was completely bookish. Divert a little from the theory to practical application of a concept, and they got stumped and confused. Another thing which was surprising for me as well as the others was the lack of general knowledge in the students (This was true for even NSIT students). I remember when I was studying, I religiously used to read the newspaper, and there were many a times when me and my group of friends used to discuss the various articles we had read. Hence, I could not understand what really changed in the last two years that engineers completely stopped reading or watching news.

Anyway, after 12 GDs, and three rounds of very intense interviews, we somehow managed to give offers to four students. GDs and the interviews were really funny, to say the least. Some of the answers were so hilarious that I and my panel partner (a really cool manager) burst out laughing right there and then. Also, for some interviews, I got so engrossed in watching the by-play of questions and answers between the manager and the candidate, that I didn't ask a single question. Not surprisingly, we rejected all the students. Well, I won't go into too much details here and just like to share some of the funniest answers with you all. So, here goes:

GD Topic: Pink is the new blue

Point made by a student: Women are the overpowering and dominating the men. The Sonia Gandhi is plotting against the Anna Hajare (he actually said Hajare and not Hazare). But, Sushmita Sen is the defending the Anna Hajare in the parliament!!

Point made by another student: Girls like wearing pink clothes. Boys like wearing blue clothes. Now girls are also wearing blue clothes, and boys also wear pink shirts. So, pink is the new blue!

Interviewer: Do you read newspapers?

Interviewee: No

Interviewer: Then how do you keep in touch with the happenings in the outside world?

Interviewee: I read news on the internet, I read Yahoo News.

Interviewer: Oh..how often is that?

Interviewee: Whenever I log-in to check my e-mail, I read the news given on the Yahoo homepage. Also, I check my mail around thrice a week, so I read the news three times a week.

Interviewer: Who is the Vice President of India?

Interviewee: No, I don't know.

Interviewer: Who is the Vice President of the US?

Interviewee: Sorry, I don't know this also.

Interviewer: Who is the President of France?

Interviewee: I don't know this as well.

Interviewer: Who is the CEO of Infosys?

Interviewee: Sorry, I don't know this one either. (Laughs in a funny way at this point)

Interviewer: Can you name some competitors of Facebook?

Interviewee: Ummm..aahhhh.. (she takes 5 minutes to think)

Interviewer: Do you know what's Facebook?

Interviewee: Yes Yes. Ummm..I think one competitor is Gmail. (Let me tell you, this female is a student of Computer Science engineering)

Interviewer: Do you know actually know what's Facebook? Do you have an account?

Interviewee: Yes, I have an account. I made it a few days back only, because we get all our placement updates through that only.

Interviewer: Right. So I'll just tell you that Facebook is a social networking site. Now can you tell me the competitors?

Interviewee: I know Facebook is social networking, so even Gmail is social networking.

Interviewee: But Gmail is web-based email. There is a difference between the two.

Interviewee: Keeps shut and gives a weird and irritating smile.

Interviewer (to the same Computer Science female): Have you studied computer networking?

Interviewee: Oh..so now you'll ask me technical questions?

Interviewer: Errr..Yes. Any problem?

Interviewee: He he (again the irritating smile) Not at all.

Interviewer: So, can you tell me the difference between a circuit switch and a packet switch?

Interviewee: Ummm..(thinks for two minutes and then gives some hopelessly wrong answer).

Interviewer: Are you sure?

Interviewee: Sorry, I don't know this (The frigging smile is back!! Grr..)

Interviewer: Which is the one sector in India wherein you would want to invest, and why?

Interviewee (answers immediately): Automobile vendors'/suppliers' sector.

Interviewer: Why is that?

Interviewee: There is a shortage of automobile parts in India. When recession came in 2008, automobile suppliers stopped producing the parts. Now also, when automobile manufacturers are asking for parts, the suppliers are not manufacturing enough, due to fear. So, I will invest and make the parts available to the manufacturers.

Interviewer: But, we have been hearing that the recession might come back. So, don't you think that it is a risky investments?

Interviewee: No no. As I said, there is shortage. So, it will be very profitable business.

Interviewer: Can you estimate the number of females in all the beauty parlours in Patiala on a Wednesday afternoon, between 3 and 4 PM?

Interviewee: There are 5 good parlours in Patiala. They are - Lakme, Habibs, etc. (gives five names). So, once I went to Habibs on a Wednesday, between 3 and 4 PM. There were eight girls in the parlour before me, I was the ninth, and there was one female after me. Thus, we were a total of 10 females. Now, 10 in one parlour, total five parlours, make it 50 females in all parlours in Patiala on a Wednesday afternoon between 3 and 4 PM.

Last but not the least, there was one guy who had actually done his SWOT (Strength - Weakness - Opportunity - Threat) Analysis, and had got a print-out of it to give to the interviewers. Super cool, isn't it?

Well, we also had a lot of fun in eating out and shopping in Patiala. But that requires another post altogether. That's it for now.

Signing Out,

Punjabi by Nature!!

A Happy Post :)

With a sudden drop in the level of activity on this blog, you all must have realized that I am back to work. My life has again started revolving around the office, and all my thoughts are in one way or the other linked to my workplace. I had been meaning to update my blog for the last two weeks, and had even started some posts, but as always, I lost my train of thought somewhere in the middle and had to drop the idea. Then on Friday a weird thing happened at work, which made me aware of the fact that how small gestures and words can bring a smile to someone's face and lift their spirits. In this case, that someone is yours truly. I decided that I just had to write this post. My hands were itching to type it as soon as possible.


The incident (I don't know whether this is a correct word to use, but I can't think of any other more appropriate word right now) turned out to be quite funny, but it just made my day! Here's what happened:


It started as a normal day. As usual, I woke up at 5 AM, got ready in my workout gear and hit the gym. After working out for an hour, I came back home, got ready for work, and was sitting in the office cab by 8 AM. Since I was feeling a little sleepy, I put on my headphones, started listening to songs on my mobile, and closed my eyes. The last song I heard before reaching office was Quit Playing Games With my Heart, by Backstreet Boys. It's quite an old song, but I simply love it. I still remember when I first heard it. I was in the seventh or eighth standard, and my cousin had got a "cassette" recorded from a music shop nearby. He had given me the cassette to listen to his choice of songs, and had specially recommended this number. I admit that from the first time I heard the song, I fell in love with it. Since then, it has always been there on all my music players, cell phones, PCs, laptops, etc, and I listen to it as often as I can. Well, coming back to the topic at hand.


As I told you, this song was the last one I heard before I reached office and switched off the music. But, the lyrics were still swirling in my mind. There are these particular lines in the song, I am extremely fond of. They are:

Deep within my soul, I feel

Nothing's like it used to be

Sometimes I wish I could

Turn back time

Impossible as it may seem

But I wish I could

So bad

Whenever I listen to these lines I get a different sort of feeling, which cannot be expressed in words. Since the lyrics were still going through my mind, after I had switched on my computer, checked my mail, and logged into AOL messenger (our official messenger), I made the lines my status message on the messenger. Then I started on with my work. Barely five minutes later, I received a 'ping' from my counselor, which said: "Hi, how are you? Are you feeling fine?" To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised at receiving this. Before you make any assumptions, let me clarify that I share a very good relationship with my counselor. She and I chat pretty regularly and whatever problem I have, I go directly to her to discuss it. But, despite our good bonding and friendly relationship, it is still a little weird to get a ping from her out of the blue, and that also at the very start of the day. So, I replied by saying that I was fine and everything was going well. At this point she questioned me, whether I was telling the truth!! Again, not a normal question at all. So, I 'pinged' her again and asked as to what made her feel that I was not fine, to which she replied, "I got worried after reading your status message. It sounds sad. So, I thought I'll ask you what the problem is." Wow!! Now this was unusual. I assured her that nothing was wrong, and I just like this song and hence, put some lines from it as the status. But she still asked me to meet her after sometime and have a casual chat. So, I ended up having a half an hour long discussion with my counselor during which I tried to convince her that everything was great on my side. I also ended up giving her this song, as she was also quite fond of it.

But, this was not the end of it either. After sometime, a friend of my mine came to my workstation and straight away asked me, "Kya hua? Itni dukhi kyun hai?" (What happened? Why are you so upset?). I did not understand the question and just kept on staring at her with a puzzled look on my face. After a minute she told me that my status message gave the impression that I am sad and depressed. I started laughing and assured her that it was nothing, just a song. She got convinced, we talked generally for a few minutes and then she left. About 15-20 minutes later, another friend of mine dropped by and asked the very same question! At this point I was thinking to myself, "These guys give so much importance to status messages on AOL!! What's wrong with them?" But, I repeated the very same answer, which I had given to my other friend earlier. He also started laughing and went away shaking his head.

The story does not end here also. One of my cab mates was on leave that day. But, she was online from home, in an invisible mode. Suddenly, she sent me a ping which said,"Awesome status message!! But what happened? All well?" This is it, I decided. I had to change my message. I never knew that a status message can create such an impression on people. I gave her the very same reply once again. Soon after that I removed the controversial message, and instead put something simple instead.

After reaching home, when I looked back on the incident, I had a really good laugh. But also, I felt humbled by the concern of so many people. A mere status message made me realize that there are people, other than my family and a few close friends, who genuinely care about me. Thanks for all your questions and worries guys! It meant a lot to me.

Signing Out,

Ciao!