Interview in Tech Mahindra(Key to Success)

This was the day when I got my first offer letter for any software company. Let me start this from the beginning when I got to know that MBT has posted some openings for fresher, and for which we have to apply online. My brother done it for me from his company,as he had net facility in his office.
The very next step of my strategy to get success in this episode of life was to ensure a call for written test from MBT (read Mahindra British Telecom). For this I contacted my cousin brother who was also in MBT, but in UK. My parents talked to them on my behalf. And I also talked with my Bhabhi, who was in IBM at that time, but she told me that she knows someone in MBT, and will talk to her.
At this moment too I am not sure who tried from their end(My cousin from UK or my bhabhi from IBM or my luck from GOD-SIDE), but anyhow I got a mail with subject "call for written test with MBT". For a moment i felt lucky to get this call. I wont say that from the starting of this episode that i was feeling that I will be selected in this company, otherwise this blog will appear too filmy to you.
Then I went for this written test in Noida. Allotted time was of 1 hour. And if rumors to be believed then paper was very tough(but in fact it was not), in which we have approx. 6 section and each individual section has its individual time limit, and a overall time limit of the complete paper as well. So before seeing the paper I was feeling as this going to be a crunch situation. Anyways I wrote the exam with full confidence in me(as my friend used to tell me that in Aptitude I can clear any exam). And that was all for that day, as MBT people told me that result will be declared in 1 weeks duration. So I left from that place.
Now waiting for the results to be announced we(I and Dheeraj) shifted our place from South ex to Lakshmi Nagar in Delhi. We were under this impression that we will get to know about our result through mail(this was told to us on the test date), but in Laksmi Nagar flat, on one fine afternoon I got a call of interview for the next day in MBT office, Noida.
I thought if I will be able to deliver this time then this will be my great chance.
So interview preparation started with a visit to cyber cafe to search about the company, what they are into exactly? In 1 hour I got a complete idea about this. Then some books here and some books there, and I was ready for the interview.
I reached there within time, and they asked me to wait till my name will be announced. From morning 11 Am to 4PM(I guess) i waited there. And if people to be believed they were asking very tough questions, and were not selecting any one at that time. I was feeling a little tensed, and as per the timing of Sachin's cover driver, they called my name for the interview.
Now I was in front of an interviewer praying from GOD that please don't ask these 2 questions 1- What I was doing for last 6 months? 2- (I have done a course in Java, but at that time I was not confident enough to make a fool of anyone in Java) Not to ask anything about Java course. I was OK with anything other then this (Technical or aptitude or puzzle). And no prize for the guess interviewer asked me both the questions other then some regular stuff. But on that day GOD was on my side so both the time when he asked me these questions, he got call from somewhere, and he forgot what he was asking before that call. And in the end after approx. 20 mins of interview he told me to wait outside, and wait for a call from HR.
And true to his words, I got a call from HR to go in some other room for one more round of interview. Now I thought 2 round of technical interview will make it difficult for me to get selected. But again praying to GOD that please listen to me this time I wont ask anything more after this i went into that room.
I don't know from where I got some energy to fool around the next interviewer, as he was asking me some programming in microprocessor, but I told him that I can tell you in C language, and he said OK. I did that. Then he asked me some puzzles, which I forced him to ask, as I said that I have interest in solving the puzzles. He gave me 3-4 puzzles, and every time he told me that if any puzzle is not new to me I should have told him beforehand. But I was not a fool. Neither I told him nor he get to know, that 2 puzzles I have heard and solved before. The pattern of asking question was he gave me one puzzle and some time to solve that, and went out of the room. I was able to answer 3 of his puzzle anyhow, and 1 solution that I gave was unorthodox. That was it in the second round. He also asked me to wait outside.
With butterflies in the stomach I was waiting, sitting on the sofa. Then HR and that guy have some discussion, and what I remember was HR guy came out from somewhere having a form to fill. At that moment I got the feeling that I have hit the jackpot. And finally he told me that now YOU-HAVE-BEEN-SELECTED-INTO-MBT. And that was the confirmation call. Last interesting point was, he asked my expectation, I being a jobless-6 months old-fresher told him anything around 10K will do, and in reply to this he told me that I will be getting 2.5 lacs per annum. I was more then happy after hearing this, and thus I got my first selection into an IT firm.
In the end I would like to say that if God has made a lock, then there must be a key, created by god.So no need to panic in any situation, just trust on GOD, everything will be fine.

Faculty in college

You all must be wondering why I am writing in such a haphazard manner, But this is the way I am,so cant help it.

I want to introduce you to the faculty of my engineering life(1st year of electrical branch) and 2nd year onwards of electronics branch.

J.S.Singh - Physics- He once told me to speek in english as he said to encourage me that I wont be checking your spellings, so you can speak in english.

O.P.Sharma(Read Jadugar/Tillu) - Communication - Height not more then 5 feet, in case he hear any noise in the class of even 50 students, and I am also there in that class, then without even looking towards the class he simply said Pankaj, no, dont make noise. I even tore my answersheet in front of him as he has given me only 15 or 18 out of 50 in sessional. and after this he increased my marks to around 30-35(approx).His famous quote "As far as my last lecture is concerned..."

Piyush Singhal - Mechanical engineering - Eventhough he taught me in only 1 sem in 1st year, till now(7 year after that) he suggests me to appear for IES(He was aware of my talent, although I was not).

Amit Mishra - Antenna - all of my classmate must be remembering him with his 2 dialouges
Beta, kah main bhi sahi raha huna aur kah tum bhi sahi rahe ho, ab tum baith jao.
ab to diwali ki bhi chuttian khatm ho gayi hain aur paper sir par hain, ab to pad lo. He was too hard working.

Vinay Deolia - Most useless faculty of college - in one complete semester he taught us OP-AMP in the class,and forced everyone to make notes,and the semester exam we got question 0f 15% from that portion. He even dont know how to create and manage a mail id, and whats the use of it.

Dharmendra- NCR teacher - He always dictates some notes to the class which were always there in the books. Out of 3 times in sessional exams I failed 2 times. But I managed to clear the external with more then 60% in exam.

Manish Goel - Maths - Mama's boy, In the evening too you can see him as much fresh as u have seen him in morning. He knows how to teach students to just manage to pass in the exams.

T.R.Lenka - VLSI - He used to come in class wearing topi(Cap), now while writing this blog I understood he was the motivation behind Himesh Reshamia. He had a strange habit to called chip as cheep, which many people were not able to understand.

Paromita Shome and Maghvendra Saini - Electrical - they were like buddy to the complete class, I am sure no body will have anything to say against them.

Every teacher in the college(Be it Deepak Das, Vivek Sharma, Anjum(maths), Manikanta,Chandan Jha, Sanjoy, Atul Bansal,Prabhakar, Shilpa,Ashish Sharma,Bajpai(from workshop),Ashish Gaud,A.N.Mishra, Rajeev Dwivedi, etc) had one or two special properties by virtue of which they were different from the crowd. They all were able to make a impression(good or bad) in very first meeting with you. Chalo all well that ends well.

Thanks to those kind of teachers, otherwise college life would definitely not have been spicey.No regrats for anybody.

College life

With so many dreams and so many doubts about the future, I joined an engineering college(G.L.A. Itm) about which I doubt if anyone is aware of at this moment too. I joined in Electrical and electronics branch in 2001. With ragging buzz around the corner I was afraid, but thanks to My dayscholer status nothing much happened. After that 1st year passed on smoothly with I being 3rd after 1st year in college. And thus I got a golden opportunity(Now I have understood it was useless) to switch my branch to Electronics and communication. MY electrical deptt HOD(Puneet Chaudhary, who used to come by his khatara Maruti 800 of blue color) asked me not to change my branch, for he believed that anyone who would pass out without any back from that branch would definitely get a job. And after 1-2 years I got to know the meaning of his statement (as no one could manage to pass electrical branch without any back). I met some of my good friends whom i wanted to be with me like Dheeraj, Shravan. They wanted(and anyhow managed) to change their branch as well. So our courtship extended for subsequent years as well, and the gang remained intact.

Second Year - 90 odd new class mates, a hell lot of books, U.P. Tech . university's Electronics syllabus, annoying faculty, a college 17km away from home, auto to commute what else anyone can ask for getting life worse in second year itself. Then teachers like Vinay Deolia(Will describe him later) who made our life a nightmare. Some new friends(Prerna, Parul,Ujjawal,Rohit,Anshul,Vikas,Ankit,Khemchand,Saurabh,laddu,kida,Lokesh(mota),rahul,Gaurav(rana),Vishal(Tyagi,machhar),Shyam bhai(Some of them I have missed, but all of them have a special place in my heart) some interesting topics, Samosas of canteen, lunch of college mess keep the fire burning anyhow till final year. Otherwise I would not have survived in that branch or in that college.One more thing that is worth mentioning is the speed of net, at that time it used to take at least 5 mins to load a gmail home page (u can imagine how fast it must be).
Those days seriously rock. No matter how much care less I would be but when I waited for the results my heart would come to my mouth at the thought of seeing something unexpected. There was one person (Gopika) whose result I used to watch after mine although I can not explain the reason.
15 marks in STLD,anteena and 30 in physics exam still give me goose bumps. If you will ask any of my batchmates no one can say that I was a studious kind of person or a careless person, But anyhow I managed to clear that degree with 75%(good na), did a good project that is till date a achievement for me.
Expect some more very soon.

Struggle till I got a job after engineering

Till I was in 8th semester, I was very anxious about my future roadmap. During the four years of my college life I remembered my father's quote "I have allocated this much fund for your degree, its upto you, if you want to spend it in 1 year(by failing repetitively) or want to complete your degree. Then the day came, after completion of the degree, I have one degree(thans to U.P.Tech. University) and one job offer(thanks to GLA, my college) about which I was not having any clue, when they will give me the joining date. From that day my fight to get a job started, till I find a great offer in December 2005 to join Tech Mahindra in Jan 2006. The wait was over on that day.
But 6 months spend in this struggle, were needless to say very tough. I learnt a lot during this period. I got a job offer with my friend Dheeraj for monthly salary of Rs. 5000. Huge amount for a jobless fellow. We joined there, but opposite to our expectation there was nothing technical in that job so we left on that same evening, and I was again back to square one. I shifted from one place to other place, then to 3rd place and then to 4th place.

On one fine day I went to Mathura(No guess, it is my hometown), and in the evening I got to know that remaining 5 of my flatmates went to attend a walkin, and out of them 4 got selected. Another one day story in my blog.

I did not leave any stone unturned in that duration. Be it my friend, senior of college, relative, friend of relative, I contacted them all. And from one of them i got such a advice to update my resume onto NAUKRI.com as if I was not aware of all this. Anyways I want to end this blog on a happy nod, that in the end I got what anyone can ask for at a level when he was a out-of-college-6-months-old-jobless-electronics engineer.