My story is same as that of Madhavan’s character in “3 IDIOTS”. After it was confirmed that I was a boy my grandfather declared that I will grow to become an IAS officer. During my whole life it was portrayed that no other job is as praiseworthy and nothing would bring more glory to the family than my selection into IAS. So from very beginning of my life I have cherished the idea of getting into this elite service and hence opted out of placements. To my remorse, placements turned out to be the best ever. There were people who never dared to think above 3 lakhs per annum job and eventually bagged more than 7 lakhs. Low CGPA was also not a problem for the consultancies (not far from another crisis). Believe me if students were paid two-thirds of the compensation being paid now they would have been just fine and elated. But during all this I kept my cool and decided to be firm on my stand. But my anxiety subdued my patience and I went for PWC aptitude test. Now there were some 100 students there, all BITSians, who, as I believed then, had a sound mental aptitude. I gave this exam without stressing my nerves for a single question and managed to complete the test well before the stipulated time. Though there were many questions I didn’t had any clue about, but by completing the test (40 questions) in 55 minutes, I must say, I impressed myself. But still I was quite certain about my rejection as I was told that every other student in the room has appeared for similar test for more than 10 times before. And yeah many of them were fucking serious about their test as they didn’t have job. There life depended on this test. For me it was just a free mock practice paper for my forthcoming IAS Prelim exam. I came back to my room only to be woken up by my friends who saw my name in the shortlist of 22 candidates. I was told that I was one of the 92 test givers who managed to surpass the rest 70. Initially I was very happy but then I realised that I didn’t had formals. Then I had not made resume for interview. And at the same time I couldn’t afford taking a risk of not sitting in placements and inviting a penalty and frequent proff. visits. My friend Shah bhai came to my rescue and provided me with his suite and trousers. So I was now all well dressed for interview but still didn’t have a resume. Now I had to make my resume in 5 mins as the interview time was nearing. I made half of it and decided to take this along with me. That was the only piece of document I had when I sat for my interview. I managed to be there just on time. Then came my number and I found myself sitting in a small room of a hotel with 2 interviewer sitting on the other side of table. They asked my Resume ripping me off my only possession. They then interacted for few minutes and asked about stuffs like interests and passion. I did particularly well in Current Affairs section but none of my efforts to portray myself as a suitable candidate yielded fruits and my half page resume did enough to disqualify me from sitting for next round. I was shown my way out and my 2 close friends made it. And hence ended my first and only attempt to find an employer for myself. Though it was a good experience but I later realised that I couldn’t have helped my cause by doing anything better in my interview. At the end it was the resume that they considered apart from ensuring that one can speak English and is presentable enough to not invite embarrassment to the world’s second largest auditing firm Price Waterhouse Coopers.
