The interview was in Kolkata and from Ranchi it’s a night journey. The reporting time for the interview was 10 AM and the train usually gets late, so I decided to go by bus from Ranchi to Kolkata. I left the Ranchi at 7 PM evening so that I could reach there as early as possible and get enough time be well prepared for the interview. Also the venue was Nirula Institute of Technology that was an hour away from main Kolkata.
It was 5 AM by my watch. I saw outside from the glass window and found that the bus has reached at its destination. I was appreciating my decision for taking the bus instead of train for the journey. I came out from the bus with my luggage and found myself on the highway. Highway??? It shouldn’t be Highway. It should have to be the Bus stand of Kolkata. Then all my dizziness went away when I saw that it’s a road jam. I confirmed from truck drivers playing cards on the road that from Kolkata I was at least 5 hours away somewhere in Ghatshila and the jam will not be cleared before 7AM.
WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!
Why the Nexlites called ‘band’ on such an important day. I asked a truck driver that if there was any railway station nearby. He showed me on bypass road the Ghatshila station is about 7 km away from there. Without thinking much I took the road as I had no other option. Luckily an auto was coming from the other side to take me to the station. The station was just a 3km away. (The less knowledgeable truck wala)
Luck favoured me again as a passenger train was at 6 AM from Ghatshila to Kharagpur. From Kharagpur I could reach Kolkata in about 2 hours. The train arrived and with a little struggle I was able to make a comfortable place on the stairs. Lots of thoughts were floating in my mind about the interview and the self-generated tips from the past interviews. I knew that I would not be able to make at scheduled time. After 2.30 Hrs I was at Kharagpur stations. A local train from other platform was just about to leave for the Howrah so couldn’t think much about other option and I was on the way to Howrah.
Somehow I spent another 2 Hrs. standing, tired and hungry. The local train was now showing her true colour stopped at somewhere one hour away from Howrah. I enquired from some local passengers that if there was any other option for reaching the venue without going Howrah. I trusted one and left the train as she reached her next stoppage. I hired a taxi for Rs-350/- from that place to my interview venue that was still at 45 minutes distance.
It was 11 AM of hot sunny day and I was sitting in the taxi, tired and hungry. I instructed the taxi wale bhaiya to drive at his maximum speed as he could. When I was just about to reach my destination I changed my cloth in the taxi. Finally, at 11.45 AM I was there, thanked to the taxi wale bhaiya and headed towards the interview building. On the ground floor the guard told me that the room is on third floor. I asked the guard to use his wash room for 5 minutes and he offered no objections. Within 5 minutes I brushed my teeth, washed my face and took a deodorant bath. I was ready for the show.
I was not late for the interview rather I was late for the waiting room, where more than 100 students were already waiting since the morning.
So the story begins here. I was waiting till 1.30 PM when I got my call for the first round of interview. I enquired before that there were three rounds of face to face interview, two among them was technical and another one was HR. So the first round was technical one. This time I was not nerves not even a bit. My past interview results had made me very confident. Past interviews, did I tell you about my past interviews? Ok. I was already selected in Aricent, Infosys and Congnizent. The interest in Huawei was because it was a telecom company and offering the post of Software Engineer in its R & D division. Now come back to the story, the placement coordinator (a girl) told me to go to the cabin where interviewer was waiting for me. The girl was damn beautiful. I could reject hundreds of job offers for her. Concentrate, Concentrate on interview, I controlled my emotions and entered in the cabin.
1st Round
A smart intelligent looking young man instructed me to set down. He already had my CV and my PEP score. I saw my score was 870 total of 420 in technical and 450 in aptitude. Then he fired his most common question.
Tell me about yourself.
Subjects you studied so far, interested field and programming skills. Then he asked me to write a program in C. The program was to find the occurrence of a sub string in a string and its exact position. I told him that I was good in programming but working with pointers is a bit difficult as I am not in practice, but he insisted to make the program using pointers. I did the program with some errors that he found. Somehow I manage to escape form that. After that, he gave me some written programmes of C and asked me to find the outputs with explanations. I asked I got the last one right or not. He replied Right. And my mind said ‘Bingo’.
After another set of problems on finding the outputs of some C programs, finally he came to the subject of my interest that I told him embedded Systems. But he asked some questions of digital electronics that I answered correctly.
Now it was time for testing aptitude. Some of very common which I answered and one I couldn’t was to divide a circle in 7 parts using 3 straight lines. I asked the answer but he said- Google it. Then he asked about the offers I already had. I convinced him that I will join this company only.
It was over and I was waiting for the 1st round result outside where she (that hot girl) came and sent me in another cabin for next round. She was... beautiful…
2nd Round
The next interviewer was in his cabin waiting for me with my last round results and sheets that I had used for rough work. Again he started with some basic question of C but absurd type. Then about the subject I was interested in. I don’t know what happened but my mind was just got blank and I couldn’t even explain embedded system’s definition. The next was about the final year project and in that the programming part. I explained that my project is based on PSoC and pulled him in my court. So for 10-15 min I was telling him about PSoC and the programming part in that.
He was now in the mood of teasing so started asking questions of elementary mathematics, Seventh or eighth class… area, perimeter, rectangle, triangle and rhombus. I was really getting irritated. He started with drawing a parallelogram on a paper, asked me to find the area. Now when I answered, he pulled the sides making some inclination and then asked again what would be the area this time. I replied it will be same. Then aging he pulled it little more. I aging replied same. After 4 times, I now realised that I was wrong. Then he just said... MASTER aa….
The question I was waiting for finally came, ‘Why Huawei when you already have so many offers’. I just replied, better position, better company, and the most important part is the R&D factor, that’s it. He was not very impressed with the answer but I was not in the mood to explain so I didn’t add anything much. His part was now over and in the ending some questions regarding family background.
3rd Round
This was the most interesting part of the whole process. I was waiting in the waiting room with a few students. I had to keep myself awake so I avoided sitting and just walking in the room thinking about ‘Social network’ the movie that I had seen recently. I remembered the scene in which the lawyer asks Zuckerberg ‘may I have your attention’ and Zuckerberg replies ‘NO’. At that moment I was watching outside the window I heard a sound ‘sharat’. I turned and saw a fat (a little) lady watching towards me (like asking me ‘Sharat... Can I have your attention?’ And I just ignored and showed her my back and saying in my mind NO… you can’t). After a few seconds a louder one, Sharat Chandra. This time she got my attention and was not looking happy. Anyways, she asked me to follow her as my turn had come. I stopped for a while to get my pen back from a student there. She returned in the room with a bad mood as she found that I was not following her. I didn’t say anything just took my pen and aging followed her to the HR interviewer cabin. What’s wrong with you? - She asked me in a bad mood. I couldn’t say anything, was shocked that the lady was the HR going to interrogate me, just thinking ‘First Impression is Last Impression’.
Well, the interview did begin and after few predefined questions like about you, strengths, weakness, why this company … The HR aunty (not exactly) was very good and was smiling on my every answers so I was also giving her company by smiling back. I thought the interview was in its last phase as she asked me if I have any question. I was ready with questions as I had done a lot of homework for Huawei on Wikipedia. She cleared my doubt with smile and with a question ‘anything else’. I wanted to show her my knowledge and interest in the company so I asked about the growth in the company. Again she answered with smile and the same question ‘Anything else’. I said of course mam, a lot actually. So now the interview was like a discussion about Huawei where we both were sharing our knowledge about the company. Thanks to Wikipedia.
I almost exhausted. As I was giving her company in smiling after the answers, after her last answer for some second my mind was sleeping and she noticed that. Where are you? Something is bothering you as your mind is not here, what’s that? I woke up. I explained her about my situation that how adventurous my journey was. Then she said ok it was nice to talk to you and best of luck blaa blaa… I also did the formality but something more was in my mind that whether I will get the job or not but I must take something that was actually bothering me. So, I said- mam one thing that was actually bothering me and taking most of my attention was that dairy milk éclairs kept on your table. She was surprised and asked – you want that? I said- yes if you don’t mind. She was impressed. She gave me then 3 toffies included that éclairs. And PAPPU pass ho gaya…
