An Outlet: Part 3

19 April, 2018.

It's the interview day!

I woke up quite a bit between 6:00 to 8:00AM before finally getting out of bed by 8:15. I quickly ate breakfast and got ready for the interview. I felt quite a bit anxious in the morning but I calmed myself throughout my journey to the office. It took me roughly about 25 mins to get there, by road. I haven't travelled by road in quite some time. I still prefer the trains. Any day. 

The office was pretty easy to get to and I reached the company reception area by 10:00AM dot. I was going to wait for my fellow candidate/ classmate. He had requested me to get a tie a for him cause he had already left home by the time he realised that he wasn't wearing one and he stays two times far from the office than I do. Anyways, I called him up but he was going to take a lot of time to reach so I ultimately ended up not giving him the tie. 

I waited in the reception area (there were seating arrangements, ofcourse) until my interviewer came out and took me into her cabin. Yep, the same person I spoke to yesterday. The first thing she asked me when we settled was whether I was able to find the place. Lol.

And then my interview began and honestly, I think it went pretty well! I'm very satisfied with what and how I spoke to her and she was pretty sweet too. 

She first asked me to talk about myself and my interests and I gave her a background of when my interests in the field of Commerce and Finance came about and what I've been up to in my college- all about my club and projects. She was particularly interested when I said that we've had projects on financial analysis and asked me to elaborate on that. We had a small discussion on debt vs equity following that.

She then told me about the job profile/ project that the interns she hires will work on and what she's expecting out of her interns. And it's interesting! Its mostly expense analysis and budgeting (for upto 5 years) and working on new management systems, since the current ones are quite outdated and the existing workers are not quite ready to adapt to a new system altogether. She wants her interns to not only follow her instructions but also give our own advice on various aspects of budgeting that might come along the way and give a fresh perspective to the project.

She asked me about my skills and why am I a good candidate for the internship. Somewhere in the middle I spoke about being sincere and dedicated to the work I take up (and I really am) and she brought the topic of my phone call yesterday again. She found it commendable how I was hell bent on getting through to the receptionist and making sure I have the right address. Wow, and here I thought I might have created a bad impression because of it. 

We seemed to be nearing the end of the interview when I asked whether I could express a couple of my queries. I learnt that this was a 2 month internship (though the particular project will take only about 15 to 20 days), my timings would be dependent on my work and I will be getting a stipend (yeah, I really suppressed my inhibitions and asked her about it) of a pretty good amount. I was really surprised when she quoted the stipend as I was really not expecting it. Well, then again, I've always heard that finance pays well. 

A couple of points of doubt now. 

During the interview she learnt that I had my finals coming up in May and that I won't be available to join immediately, even if I am selected. She might want this project to get over as soon as possible and that might be a problem for me. Another thing is that there are already a couple of interns working for a couple of weeks now and the company HR dept like their interns to start working at the same time, as in batchwise. So there's that. But we'll see what happens. They said they'll get back to us by Monday/Tuesday.

So overall, I was happy with how things went and proud of how I presented myself. This current streak of 'focused head space' is really doing me well. 

My classmates' interview also went well and he looks hopeful so let's wait patiently.

After I relayed my interview to my dad, even he told me that I did well and the man has an experience of interviewing over 100 candidates. Yeah, I was surprised too but then again, he did have a really high post. Oh, and he knows my interviewer! During our introduction, she told me that she has had work ex in two three companies and one of them was the company my dad worked in. So when I asked my dad if he knew her, he laughed at the recognition. But I really don't want him to put a word for me. If I get this internship, I want to get it on my own merit. 

So it's couple of days before I get to know their decision. So now I have to bring my focus back to my finals preparation.