My Odyssey of Getting a Job!!!!

A part of college life, apart from ragging, that is very scary is the part of campus placements. After all, that is the reason you have been willing to slog through 4 years of college. And as a friend of mine rightly said in this regard-‘ Choosing a job is like choosing a wife out of 10 girl friends, knowing very well that you may regret later on that the other 9 would have been better.’

Well this process starts off with a course called PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION in our 6th semester. It basically aims to prepare us for the interviews and also acquaints us to Group Discussion( GD ). The topics we had for GD ranged from Cos (theta), Is Euthanasia ethical, Bureaucratic control hampers national progress to Democracy is a government of the politician, by the politician and for the politician, and we had a chance to argue a lot amongst ourselves. The professor was also good enough to arm us with a list of 200 standard questions , asking us to prepare them. What I couldn’t make out was, if we could prepare them, what was the need for the professor or the course after all? It was being projected as a real easy way to get through the job selection process. Also, I couldn’t assuage the fact that how asking about the downfalls of honesty and ethics could in any way be related to me, after all, wasn’t I the important commodity, what had all this to do with me??

We also had to fill up a thing called Curriculum Vitae or CV for short. It had headings like marks ( mine were horrible ), scholastic achievements, extra- curricular activities, academic projects, positions of responsibility. I strained my grey cells long and hard, yet couldn’t come up with something worth while to write. To garner some idea about what all to write, I glanced at what my friend had written. My head began to spin after seeing his CV. His CV was full of stuff in nearly all the fields. Would any company hire me even with my hopeless history, as illustrated by my CV.

Another part of the job selection process is getting your look right. People with long hair are asked to get a proper formal cut, and formal dresses are advised. After my CV fiasco, I moved on to this step. But the thing that struck me was, why couldn’t we go for the interview in a pair of jeans or even khakis? Does it even matter what I am wearing, after all they are only interested in my skills.


My parents had already equipped me with formal shirts and pants, unlike my friend whom I had to accompany to the PETER ENGLAND outlet for some shopping. The irony was that my friend had a very good taste in clothes and I always preferred to go shopping with him, since he could always pick out something good. But here he was frowning and looking at me with me with a pleading look for assistance. I couldn’t help but laugh. Even the shoes were a problem. For guys like us who are accustomed to fanciful sneakers, the formal shoes appeared to be a bolt from the past.

But what really got us into fits of laughter was selecting the tie. It was like going back to drawing class in kindergarten. We had a heck of time matching all the weird ties with the shirts we had bought. In the evening I sat down with my dad, in order to learn the art of tie-making. It did seem very easy, as dad demonstrated it, but soon I realized that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. My situation was soon like Ishaan in the movie ‘Taare Zameein Par’, all muddled up. It took me an entire evening and loads of botched up knots, to master the art.

On the D-day, all dressed up in formal attire, armed with my blank CV, a few certificates, I was ready to embark on the difficult road. People generally, in tense situations, tend to give a lot of suggestions. But my dad, knowing me so well had just suggested to be myself and not to worry about the outcome. What was even heartening to hear from his mouth was that he was proud of me. And his statement carried the echoes of my mom and my sister as well. I could have jumped off a cliff and survived the fall at that instant. All ready to go, I took a deep breath and embarked on the journey to meet people, with uncomfortable questions, and who stood between me and a job!!!