Interviews I failed (Simplified version)

Interview - 2

"Failure is the first step of success", everyone says that, right? Everyone talks about the result, either it's a failure or success but no one talks about the journey and efforts in between. Failing an interview is not that big deal, but preparing for another one is. Things doesn't remain that easy anymore, surroundings get changed, your method of preparing changes. In Hindi we usually say "Saari motivation ki band baj jaati hai" to represent this kind of situation. But another interview call helped to do some better.

I applied in an off-campus placement drive, there was a vacancy for C++ developer intern at a company. I was one of the few thousands of people who participated there, but the count was in hundreds after a single coding test only. And the recruiting people were not satisfied with that too. They were expecting it to be less than 100, maybe they were not prepared for these much candidates to pass test. But the credit goes to online resources, recruiting staff members didn't worked properly and the solutions to the questions were available on internet. But to shorten the list, they conducted another test, A proctored one and boom. The new list had only 20 candidates. Although this count was also not expected by them (they were expecting more this time), but they officially announced the name of these 20 guys. Obviously, I was one those 20, I am a genius code. They told us that the next round will be an online technical interview which will be done through zoom only and we will receive the links on our email.

All of us went to home, I went to my hostel. Leading to a sleepless night, I was busy with my interview preparation. I was in no mood to let this opportunity go. The result of my last interview was still bouncing in my head reminding me that there is a lot of scope of improvement and I need it. I had an interview at 2 pm, it was hot as hell that day. I was logged in at 1:50 pm and was waiting for interviewer and was abusing everyone, literally everyone. Electricity went off in our building and I had to use my friend's room who lives in next building to me. But his Air conditioner broke in the morning and it was burning hot inside the room where I had to wear a full sleeve shirt, fully buttoned up, wearing a tie and combed hair. I was sweating a lot but all I could do is wipe it with my handkerchief and keep my smile on. The interviewer was 15 mins late, but it's okay because what he is going to do next is nothing in front of this.

The first thing he did was asking me to turn off my fan, and I had no other choice because it was making a lot pf noise according to him. The fan, the only life support I had in that room, just got turned off like this. But there wasn't any other option so the interview got started like this only.

He started with my resume, the first thing he said was "This is so fake". I wanted to hit him at that very moment, buddy I gave my everything for the whole 4 years, I literally skipped 4 years of my youth to get those certifications and learning those languages but not to listen that this is all fake. But I said, "No sir, whatever written on this resume is true to the best of my knowledge", because this is all I could say, right? But he didn't stop here, he had a lot of plans that day, I guess. He started enquiring about my certifications, and the questions were like, when did you join the course? when did you end this course? How many days it took to complete? the name of faculty teachers? Was it a female or male faculty and how old were they? and how did you end up choosing this course? This was the moment of realization here, when I knew I missed this one too but I had to continue. I tried to answer all those questions irrespective of their relevance and he kept asking such questions. After a while he got tired of certifications and got interested in coding languages I have known.

I was just a college freshman, who didn't have any professional experience in this tech world. When he started asking me the basic concepts of programming, my confidence about the job increased slightly. the interviewer started getting interested so I was interested too. Everything was going good other than my sweat but suddenly he increased the level of questions and suddenly started discussing about management of applications, deployment, and marketing strategy. And it was good with that too because at least I was the part of conversation but they went too far with it. they started asking me questions like I am not a freshman but someone who had been working in this industry since 10+ years. I was asked many questions and I was trying to answer them to the best of my knowledge but every time I was off the track or slightly wrong, he kind of humiliated me. "You don't know about this?", "You don't know about this too?", "What did you do in those 4 years, feels like you passed because of internet", "How did you even think of applying for this position?", "Are you sure you think that you are made for this field?", I was bearing with these things while answering those typical questions which were not even according to a freshman. I just wanted to quit the interview and turn on the fan ASAP. I was tired of wiping sweat off my face all the time and listening to those comments.

I felt like I was trapped in a cage, and I wanted to escape it. Now I was completely sure that there isn't any chance of me getting hired so I thought of trying something to end the interview soon. because this interviewer was getting on my nerves. He was making fun of me and my knowledge, comparing me with himself. Like common man, he was in his 40's with experience of more than 15 years, there's no way that I could compete with her. There wasn't any point of those comparisons, so I tried submissive approach and accepted that I don't know about anything in a hope that he may end this interview after hearing this.

I was a fool that I thought of this idea. He ended up giving me lectures for another hour on how to gain knowledge and not fake our details in our resume. He explained very briefly about how intelligent and knowledgeable he is and I am nothing in front of him. He was telling me to study more as corporate sector is a competitive place and we need to grow continuously. I know he was right, but buddy I applied for an intern position. The things you asked me for are taught to the interns by the organisation. There's no book which can be considered as professional experience. In that hour he termed me as characterless, Lier, illiterate, fake and non-reliable person. I wanted to give him answers on every comment he was passing on me but his seniority and my fresher profile stopped me from doing so.

At that time, I was damn sure, that now even if he begs to me hire me, I don't give a damn. I was done with the interview from my side and was eagerly waiting for him to end it asap because I couldn't bear his words anymore. he was continuously targeting me, trying to provoke me. But soon he got tired when I stopped responding to every comment. And in the end, I got to hear those golden words from his mouth, "If you don't have any question, then can we end this interview?". It was like a proposal and I said yes with a big smile, turned on my fan, removed the tie, loosen up my outfit and got laid on the bed. I didn't move for a while as I was tired. I was listening to that interviewer for straight 3 hours (and a few minutes), I don't know about him but I was seriously tired after listening to him.

But the reviews left him wasn't that good. Later I got an email for the rejection which was something I expected long ago but there was an attached file which was my interview scorecard. I opened it and I saw that he didn't mark any score but did leave a review. The review was, "The candidate will not be able to fulfil the requirements of the position of an intern, he has faked a lot of things on his resume and also lied about his technical competencies. He cannot be a part of this company in any means.". After this, all I needed was to be left alone. I kicked all my roommates out of my room and locked the door from inside. I was crying, not because I was rejected but because I was judged wrongly and I didn't even get a chance to prove that. I was warned by my elders about how rude and insensitive people can at corporate but that was my first encounter.

It took me a while to gather myself again, but my friends gave me time and also helped me to forget about it. Yet again, things didn't go again in my way especially when I had a lot of hope. But this can't be the end I want, but I was sure that I improved a lot in past few days. But whatever, in the end I was left with a rejection email and a hope to do better next time.