CDAC: My Second Home (Part Eight)

June: Placement Fever

The last lectures in OOSP were taken by Suman Ma’am. I was studying for aptitude from www.indiabix.com. Everyone started visiting the above mentioned location. Now there were only placement talks; which companies are coming, when are we starting, etc. The SE Quiz was on 14^th but a night before we all were cracking jokes in the lab. It was the last quiz of the syllabus. Now there will be no more 10am quizzes; and the last minute search for pencils and rubber and sharpener; and those sign language hints for the options; and those OMR answer sheets. After the quiz, the dates for first three companies were put on the notice board. 

18^th Jun: Asian Paints (Santacruz)

19^th Jun: Diebold (Malad)

20^th Jun: Tata Power SED (Andheri)

On 15^th, Diebold had come for Pre-placement talk. From the discussions, we realized that companies prefer a B.E more than just an IT Graduate. So tension was increasing all the more. I completed with the resume at 5pm and took two printouts and left for home at 5.30pm. I completed with all the Aptitude Preparations on the journey itself. At home, cousin brother was waiting for filling the F.Y.J.C admission form. We completed that by 11pm. The next day morning was spent in searching a big folder to keep all the certificates. At last we found one in Sakai Stationery. I could study only Database that day. I still had to do with Programming Languages. I made up my mind; if you do not get placed in the first company, do not lose hope, prepare for the second, then third, till you get placed. I packed everything that night, actually double-packed with plastic to secure from the heavy rains.

On 17^th, it was raining cats and dogs. As usual I left home for the 06:54 train. When I reached station, there was no train. I was determined to reach CDAC that day itself by hook or by crook. But what should I do now?  No train and lots of rain. I always get such kind of “Best of lucks”. I sat at the platform itself. At 7:30, one train arrived; with the timings 00:00:00. This time is used for extra locals. Whatever it is I got a train, but it was going at the pace of tortoise. “Slow and steady wins the race.” I had to reach Kharghar before 11am, because from 11am there was a Mega-Block. I reached Bandra at 9am then at Wadala by 9:30. Finally, I boarded a Panvel train and reached Kharghar at 10.30. It was continuously pouring. I had no other option than walking in the rains till CDAC. I was drenched so was my bag. During lunch time, there were talks of Placements getting re-scheduled due to rains. Such rumors spread so fast. Again, I was on the stairs thinking of the next day. Then I told myself: sitting and thinking will not help, it’s time for action. I got back to my room and started with Java, came down for tea-break. It was a surprise to see no one in the canteen. At last Birje uncle sent a housekeeping guy to call students from the hostel. “Kitna padhai karenge, chai k liye bulao sabko.” Again there was pin-drop silence in the lab in the evening. Look at the seriousness; this was never before for any quiz, MGPA or project Presentation. It was raining till late night.

We got up early next morning. I arranged all the certificates in order in the folder and got ready for the big day. I wore a Punjabi suit of mustard yellow-rasin violet combination. It later became my lucky dress. Breakfast was at 8.30am and we had to report in the lecture hall at sharp 9am.

Placement Day One: 18.06.2012

Company name: Asian Paints

The pre-placement talk started at 9am. Mr. Ravi Venkatramana (Senior Manager – Systems) talked about Asian Paints and what role does IT play in AP. He has got elephant memory; he remembered everybody’s name. There was an HR (Omana Nair) and two more Managers – Systems (Aarti Yadav and Rahul Verma). I got to know that there is already one Pranita (Pranita Rajadhyax) from CDAC in AP. And then I was telling myself “There should be one more Pranita in AP from CDAC itself.” We broke for tea at 09:40 and the Aptitude test started at 10am. 

 

I sat in the first row; I have got a reason for that. It was a 30 minutes MCQ with 30 questions. I got the question paper; but did not get the answer sheet along with it. Thank God for that! Because of that I read the rules on first page. If I had the answer sheet in hand, I would have started off. Ranjith did this mistake. There were 30 questions, divided into two sections. We had to answer 8 correctly from each section; to clear the test. This rule was not read by many; even though we had the Magic Matrix example from past. So my suggestion to others is: Always read the rules carefully. The questions comprised of many topics including Graph reading, Profit and loss, Geometry, English synonyms, and puzzles, Jumble words (I and Namrata used to always solve the Jumble words from Bombay Times, it helped today), etc. We had to solve really very fast. 

The written test started at 10.30am. It was for 2 hours and 30 minutes. There were twelve questions in total. Some of them were:

• Java program to find Anagrams.
• Java program on Matrix.
• Find the error in the code 
• What is the output of the code
• Short note on types of Joins.
• Two SQL Queries
• Mind-twisters
• Logical Reasoning (Card Game)

At 1pm, the test was over. I was the last one to handover the answer sheet; again I have got a reason for this too. Then we had lunch. The interviews were to start at 03:30pm. The results were announced: eight students were shortlisted. They were: Niket, Nirgun, Piyush, Gaurav Bhansali, Atul, Shadab (everyone was surprised hearing this!!), Namrata and me. We were called in the lecture room for filling the interview forms. These boys crack jokes even before interview. As usual Piyush had many questions. He asked one, “No. of children k yaha kya likhna hai?” To this Atul, The Great replied, “Arey, tere kitne children hai, vo likh de.” And Piyush is thinking now, “Mere kitne children hai…” After few seconds he got the joke, “Ek bhi nahi!!!” Then Atul said, “Toh zero likhde.” We completed with the forms and had tea-break and snacks. 

There was no order as such for the interviews, anyone could be called next. We did practice the same during the Mock Interviews. Only eight of us were allowed to sit in the reception area. Other students had to be either in lab or hostel room or anywhere; except the reception. One security guard was on duty especially for this reason. First one to go in was Atul; second was Namrata; then Shadab, Piyush, Gaurav and Niket. The feedback till now was as follows: “Ravi Sir is asking all the questions; rest of them is asking only one or two questions.” “They are asking Normalization, Queries if you will say I know database.” “Do not say Data Structures, the questions are very tough to answer.” “HR is asking normal questions.” “The Manager with specs is asking very difficult query.” And many more things were discussed.

Finally at 7pm, it was my turn to go in. It was dinner time; so all was quiet at reception area. I went into the room and greeted Good Evening to everyone. The first question was: tell us something about yourself. I answered the question. Ravi Sir said, “Only this much about yourself.” Then he looked at the resume and talks of my hometown started. Back to questions: Ravi Sir really asked a lot of questions. Hopefully I answered all those. It included Garbage Collection in Java and its similarities in C++ and C (too much on memory management). What is the difference between final, finally, finalize? The worst was Normalization. I jumbled up everything at first but then answered it correctly. And I do not remember the other questions.

Coming to Rahul: the same query optimization question was asked to me. Even I could not answer it. The next was Aarti: she asked whether I liked coding and which program do I remember very vividly. And then I narrated the story of Paragraph Formatting. It took me four months to submit it in Parikshak. All the technical questions were over. Now the HR round: Omana was very happy looking at the resume. So I was also positive that good questions will come up. It starting with reading and I just went on speaking about Shakespeare and Harry Potter. I was asked about future plans, past achievements, where do you see yourself in next five years, toughest situation in my life, etc. Then I spoke about my journey from Medical Dreams to IT Reality. 

Out there people finished with dinner and came to the sofas as usual and started talking. Again the dutiful security guard threw them out of the reception area. Ravi Sir not only remembers names but also recognizes voices. He recognized Niket’s voice. Now it was my turn to ask questions. I said, “No questions.” They said, “You have to ask at least one. Anything, any doubt, salary, about Asian Paints, etc” I said, “All my questions got answers in the pre-placement talk itself.” But they were not ready to leave me like this. So I asked a question, do not remember it now. It was 07:50 then. The interview was for 50 minutes, my first interview. Nirgun was the last to go in. 

I came out and all started hitting me with questions. Again the security guard pushed us to the canteen. “Kya questions puchhe? Tune kya answer diye ye mat bata, but tune saare answers diye naa” “What do you think, you will be selected? Woh log ka reaction kya tha?” I said, “I am hungry.” But I guess no one heard that. They went on. “Khaana is not important, job milna is important” I had to tell each and everything what happened inside. It was 08:30 now and Nirgun had finished with the interview. So everyone was awaiting the results. All of them ran to the reception; I did not go. There was one security guard having dinner in the canteen. He said, “Tumhe akela chodke gaye. Tum bhi baahar jao, result pata nahi karna?” I said, “Agar main select hogayi toh sab mujhe lene aa jayenge” 

And the entire crowd rushed in the canteen, some hitting each other at the door. Whew, Finally I am selected!!! I went to the reception. Ravi Sir congratulated and said “Welcome to Asian Paints Family” and gave his visiting card. Later I got to know that Namrata, Piyush and Nirgun are selected. Ravi Sir and other three left CDAC at 9pm. 

Preparations started for the next company. There was a rule. “Once you are selected, you cannot appear for the next interviews, you are out from the interview procedure.” After a series of calls to family and close friends (which took almost an hour or so), I was back at the stairs. I was happy, now I have a job, that too with a descent salary and on Western line itself. I went to the lab and started helping others. I revised all the sorting techniques to Mithil and cleared doubts of others, whoever asked me. I went to sleep at 12 o’ clock. 

Read next: CDAC: My Second Home (Part Nine)