Jun 13, 2010
"You have always recruited seasoned Engineers with minimum 15 years of experience, how come this time it's a fresh graduate??" asked Andrew to my CEO during our corporate dinner in Canada a few months back. Almost instantaneously Mike spoke up saying "He must have had a rigorous interview". Recognized for wise and tough decision everyone starred at my CEO, as he prepared his answer scrupulously sipping on to his drink. "Recruiting a new graduate was a well planned experiment, I am sure Sudeep will develop excellent technical skills which will be a good asset to our company". was his response.
2009 can be described as an "Unfortunate year" for new graduates specially in the United States. Owing to the economic recession thousands of skilled Engineers/Technicians became unemployed, resulting in a tough competition between the skilled and the new graduates, the ball definitely rolling towards the seasoned.
In addition to these miseries, my (future) job responsibilities inclined more towards Computers and Electronic Engineering, while I graduated as a Mechanical Engineer. To make things worse, my CEO was from the US navy, who followed a stringent recruiting procedures. After all these shocks , my future colleagues informed me that there would be six rounds of interview, most of them being technical. Hearing this the fear within me increased while my hopes began to decrease. The Days and nights preceding my interview were appalling, my days were filled with Stress and anxiety, while nights were filled with weird creepy dreams. As expected I was informed that there would be 6 interviews spread over a span of 4 weeks.
Night before the Interview: My dad had once told me that, the night before his CA exam, instead of revising, he drank a bottle of beer to keep his stress low. This was his secret of success in passing his CA exam in the first attempt. Recalling this "Golden Advise", I began sipping beer while I casually glanced through the Company's website. The fear within me shot up progressively as I encountered products/softwares/concepts/words which I had never heard off. (The beer failed to do its job of reducing stress!). After losing 50% of my hopes I finally forced myself to bed.
First Interview: "I would like to acquire images from a distance of 100 meters, what resolution camera/optics will I need to use to obtain a clean image?" This was the first question posed to me, even before I settled properly. Even though I was a new graduate, I was well acquainted with the Fundamentals of physics, after performing some quick calculations on a sheet of paper provided to me, I promptly answered "Data Insufficient, Object size not given". ( This was not the first time I answered that way, when I was Pursuing my B.E in India under VTU university, many questions in the exams had missing data, so we were in fact well trained to write/say 'Insufficient data'). In response to my answer my CEO stared at me and said "You show no fear in answering, do you??". Immediately 5 more questions followed which were in fact tougher than the first one. I felt as though I was spinning on a roller coaster.... Managing to answer all the questions, I cleared my first long interview.
Lessons to learn:
It is not possible to replicate the answer that is expected by your interviewer, this is because he is a seasoned engineer with good hands on experience. The interviewer wants to know how confident you are in your answer and how strong are you in your fundamentals.
Never get bowled by the questions posed to you. if you do not know the exact answer "beating round the bush may help", but do not remain mum.
When answering a question look directly into the eyes of the interviewer/s. This shows that you are courageous, capable of communicating effectively and have faith in yourself/your answer.
Final Interview: The second, third, fourth and the fifth interview were similar to the first one but with higher degree of complexity.
Many of us think that the final interview is a easy shell to crack, because of the fact that the company management has already made a decision of hiring us and that the final interview is basically meant for signing contracts/NDA agreements.
In my case (in many other cases too) the final interview was a tough one. This task of conducting the final interview was entrusted to the "Engineering Manager", who was highly skilled and knowledgeable with the company's products and software's. After a few technical/personal questions, I was escorted to the Lab and given a software to learn and then asked to explain its functionalities. To be honest in my whole life/career I had never heard nor seen this software. Sitting in the lab I began playing with the software hoping to have some idea about its working but to my utter dismay the software stopped working and I had to reboot the whole computer. Wow, 90% hopes that I had of being recruited slashed to 10%. I began staring in all direction to see if my manager (would be) was standing somewhere and laughing at my expense. With God's grace the computer booted up quickly and I was able to open the software, immediately my manager walked in with a sarcastic laugh and asked me if everything was "okay" and if I was ready to answer his questions. Giving no room for me to reply he began asking questions, luckily his questions were concept oriented rather than software. I could answer most of them, the few that I dint answer were from the controls of the software, which I could not learn because of the computer hanging (Damm!!!). After three long hours of battle I finally got home.
Lessons to Learn:
Never take final interview for granted, this interview might be the toughest and may weigh heavier than other interviews.
Never say "I DONT KNOW", this shows you are not attempting to answer.
Use the Two G's extensively (God and Google). I missed the questions based on software controls basically because I never googled to study the software.
Results:
I was informed that the company management would let me know their decision after seven days.
On the seventh day, I was expecting a call between 10-11 AM. At 10.50 AM I received a call from my CEO, being nervous I dint not pick the call (What a mistake!!!), however my CEO left a message which read "As promised to you earlier, we have made our final decision, please call me ASAP". Reading this message I was nervous and began to sweat profusely ( In fact this was the first time I was sweating copiously in US). Gathering all my shattered courage I called back. My CEO had the following words to speak
"Congratulations. We are pleased to offer you the post of an Application and Sales Engineer at our company, please do accept our offer".
Ever since then It's been a pleasure for me to work for this new company.
Even though many a times we may find it extremely hard to move on in life,
'Never Give Up"
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