My Accenture Adventure

This post is dedicated to Patchez, who so badly wanted to know about my whole Accenture adventure as I refer it to as.

Long before the start of my third year, I had decided that I didn’t want to join the IT sector. But as the campussing procedure started in our college, the desire to join an IT company grew a lot. And this dilemma escalated after viewing the presentation of Infosys. I bugged a lot many people that night, begging them to give me their view-point and finally I decided to try my luck out with Accenture, uncertain where I stood in this whole web of interviews.

The day before the interview, I went home to get all my documents and certificates and a suitable attire for the ordeal, and the hardest part was picking out a tie that went with my shirt ( thanks to mom, I did manage to select a decent one). I had planned to solve a lot of problems, and to study a bit of C, C++, but could do neither. So I left all to fate and went to bed, with the best wishes of the people close to me.

The next day dawned bright and clear. I set off at 8 for the presentation, with goose bumps in my stomach. Years spent following Tiger Woods, the brand ambassador of Accenture, had acquainted me with the tagline “ High Performance Delivered”, and the people giving the presentation also appeared highly professional. The written test that followed was pretty simple. Inspite of not studying, I was able to solve all of them without breaking much sweat, though I still am confused whether HORRENDOUS means horrible or terrible.

All exhausted after the ordeal, I was just about to take a nap, when my roommate messaged me, that I had cleared the written, and had to report in 20 minutes for the Group Discussion. So all dressed up in formals (the tie was so tight, I hardly could breathe ), I set off to face the people whom I had faced countless times in my dreams. The funny thing about GD’s are that they can get out of control, if 1 or 2 members are of the argumentative type. The guy who was overseeing the thing, seemed real pleasant and jovial type, he gave us the topic “Has the 60 years of Indian Independence been good or bad”. I don’t remember saying much, or maybe I did, but the end result was that I was amongst the select few ( few being 32) who qualified for the actual interviews.

As luck would have it, I was the first one to kick off the interviews, fortunately my interviewer was the guy who had conducted our GD, his name was RINU ( he had said his aunt adored the name RENU and hence the name). He made me feel at ease, and then I was asked to tell something about myslef, why I wanted to join the company, my hobbies and did I have a location preference, all standard questions that I answered without much trouble. Guess I did give the right answers because I was again amongst the people who were shortlisted for the next round of interviews(I had heard there were going to be 3 rounds, but we had only 2). The best thing about having your interview first is that you don’t have any premonitions about the questions that may come in your direction, so when I was called the second time around, I went with a big grin, knowing very well that my fate lay in my own hands, and that I would be free to go after this particular battle.

The interviewer was curteous enough to shake my hands, and then we got down to business. The first thing he did was to go through my CV, and then he gave me a situation where I was him, and I had to convince a guy to join the company. It started out pretty well, until he started giving me wacky conditions like my responsibilities were very few and that it was a stereotype kind of job. I managed to say some things, don’t even remember what I said. Then came questions about design, on the computer, how to design a room, the basic requirements of design from where he deviated to the internet, and its functioning. The funny thing was after every question, he commented-“What else should I ask you?”, and out popped another question. This must have gone for about 20 minutes. The final few minutes were a bit relaxing, with him asking me about my hobbies, talking about EURO’08, but the real googly he reserved for the last. His last question was “Tell me 2 reasons why you think, Accenture should hire you?” I had thought long and hard about this question, but hadn’t come up with a satisfactory answer, so I managed to get by somehow and then with another handshake, left the room, uncertain whether I had made it or not. All processes finished, I returned to my room around 7, all exhausted after the long day, ate and dozed off, a bit apprehensive about the results, which were to be published the next day.

I had never slept so badly in my life as I did that day. I attended a class, managed to get by somehow by watching India’s test match, until I heard that the results had been declared, when I called up my friend whose first comment was-“Congratulations!!”. I remember feeling numb at that moment, just kept on smiling as my room mates looked expectedly at me. I experienced the real euphoria whilst breaking the news to my family, and a message that I sent out to a friend read as: “I got thru, am no longer bekar!!!”

People called me up to congratulate me, but it dint feel like I had a job. I was indifferent to it all, still it doesn’t seem like I am employed, maybe it’ll sink in with time, but for the time being I am happy in the knowledge that the next few months are going to be hassle free. And as I sign off, I would just like to thank the Accenture people, who thought me worthy of being selected for their esteemed company.
And I just got this thing to say:

HIGH PERFORMANCE DELIVERED