My interview experience.
It was the beginning of summer in 2015 and the suits which were earlier a delight to wear felt like a big pain in the ass with every guest lecture being organised and every pre placement talk being held, even for companies where I did not even qualify to apply.
One fine day we get a mail from the placement team about a certain trading firm coming on campus for a routine guest lecture followed by a possibility of them recruiting some candidates if they deemed good. If there's one thing I have ever been proud of about myself it has been my love for numbers and ability to observe patterns and make sense out of them, and this was exactly what is needed to be a part of this industry!
Easier to say now that all this is in the home sight, but I had a strong gut feel about being able to crack the interview and was more concerned if I really wanted the job. Since the lecture was being postponed time after time after initially being scheduled during the afternoon, I went and talked to my professors and people who might know a thing or two about this business, all the while wanting someone to stop me from bothering to travel the distance the next day for an on site interview at the Mumbai office, which was a minimum 2 hour distance from the campus.
I absolutely nailed the first round which was an aptitude test consisting of numbers and pattern recognition. The second round consisted of a simulation trading experience, where again I did decently well, followed by my PERSONAL INTERVIEW.
The day of an interview is rarely memorable as they all feel the same, but right from the get go, this one felt different! With no major knowledge about trading apart from the basic definition of a sale and purchase combo, (fun fact: this is how I still define what I do to people who do not know about this profession - "I try to buy at a lower price and sell at a premium") I went in for the interview process fully dependent on my mathematical ability and my ability to bullshit through toughest of places. Now the series of questions began, question 1 followed by the second than the third with no reply from my side, and finally when the interviewer thought of giving up, he asked me why did I think I should be chosen for the job and I guess it was due to my inability to bullshit on any of the other questions, this one came out very confidently, "I came to know that this profession needs an ability to understand numbers and observe and read patterns, and I can tell you one thing about myself that I'm the best that you can get who knows how to do that, and I'm very careful with the adjective I used here, I am not saying that I'm good, but declaring that I'm there best that there is, and you can test me for that!" The interviewer looked at me with a state of disbelief after understanding that I'm boasting about something after not being able to answer any of his previous questions regarding the knowledge that he deemed was needed to be eligible for the job at hand. And then he started to ask me, "what's the square of 25?" "625", "how about 26?" "676", "27?" And I replied, "really? Are we gonna go on like this?", He then have me two random 2 digit numbers, say 38 and 74, and asked me to multiply them mentally, which I could have done, but being a bit out of practice, I asked him if I could write and solve it just to save some time, and as soon as he could see me writing the numbers down, I had my answer! He was clearly impressed, but then went on to tell me that my talent with numbers, he had to keep me on hold and told me to wait outside while he finished off with the other interviews.
While I waited outside, I rehearsed the answers to the questions he initially asked since I had given him an excuse about my inability to remember the terminologies for a long time, And thought I should be ready if I get tested about the same again. After waiting for an hour I got called in again, and this time it started with the question, "so what are your plans after this interview?", and without a second thought I replied, "it's a long journey back to campus so me and my friends would probably head out for a couple of drinks and food and..." when I got cut off with these words, "Oh no, I'm asking if you don't get selected in this interview?" the answer to which I still remember, "our plans would stay the same regardless of whether we get selected here or not, as for the interview process, this is not the first company that I've applied to and..." where I was again cut off by the following words "and it CERTAINLY won't be your last!"
Hearing these words, I had a smile on my face looking at the way the interviewer said those words and was pretty relieved knowing that I can go back stress free, knowing that I have not been selected rather than waiting for a reply on mail for the following couple of days/weeks. The commute back did indeed consist of drinks and food, after which we headed back to campus on a late Mumbai local, hoping to reach by midnight. After reaching the campus, as was customary after every recruitment process, I was surrounded by my friends at the Darbaar-e-Khaas who were asking about the entire process and what went wrong and what went right and how they could learn from the experience, this continued till 1 or 2 am after which I concluded by saying that I was anyway doubtful about being a trader, I think it all turned out to be for the better and then went inside my room to doze off.
Around 4am, I got a ring on my phone and the caller ID read, "Jai Shri Krishna (our placement officer) and still half asleep, I took the call and from how much I could recollect the next morning, it went something like "You and Nick..... Selected..... Report to office.... 12pm..." I remember replying, "hmm, OK, hmm" and then putting the phone aside and going back to sleep.
The next morning, I thought it to be some dream but then checked my phone to find a couple of missed calls groom before the one I had accepted. Still being doubtful about the whole episode, I ran to Nick's room, where he was still asleep, and I swear I would have banged his door like crazy, trying to wake him up. He had no clue about what happened since he did not take the call and we could just see missed calls on his phone as well. Next thing we tried to call up Jai Shri Krishna to confirm if this was indeed the case, and to our horror his phone was not reachable!
We decided to at least start off for Mumbai since the office was quite distance from the campus and took our resumes again expecting another round of interview as a worst case since we could not afford to get late as per the reporting time, regardless of whether we were selected or not. We reached the office and were told that to complete the formalities with the HR dept and join the training session scheduled for later that day, and the rest, as they say, is history...
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