Campus Recruitment Blues

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times….

It was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair…”

These opening lines of The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens best sums up the current situation and scenario of the campus recruitments.

While a lot has been said and written about the campus recruitments by the people who got roped in, they write hordes about how they managed to get in and how they assiduously planned and executed their “ideas” and got a job. Narrating in a tone that wants to tell you that their recruitment board went all around the globe looking for this particular person and finally they found him in this college. For a job only this person can do and he is not interested .Common Guys! Get a life!

Amidst all this does anyone even bother about the people who could not get placed in the first phase? None.For them, Life remains the same, nothing new to celebrate, no success stories to narrate and no people to congratulate. Once touted as one of the most eligible people to get a job, they have now slipped to darkness. But for them life still goes on.

For others who got in, they have no serious intensions of going for it (may be a GRE/CAT/GATE but not a job at this stage, they might retort), but for scores students who did not feature on the list it means a lot.

So, does it hurt if you do not get a job now? Sure it does and real bad!

The feeling is not all that easy to assimilate. Getting ready every other day in crisp formals, clean shaved and coming back in the evening, devasted.The feeling is miserable, to say the least.

There are many other things that make matters worse and first on the list are, the Pressure. It is pressure from all sides, people start popping in from all the three axes (even an acquaintance!) to get an update, every other minute you bump into a person who is inquisitive to know if you got through.You, who just managed to get over this slump, reply in negative and the person on the other side throws in a sympathetic smile. Another thing that irks you furthermore is that many who got in weren’t expecting it themselves and people with sound academic record and excellent interpersonal skills don’t, you feature in the second category and the former decides to give you a crash course in “How to get a Job”!

Coming to the obnoxious three most popular things of a Campus Interview. A common rumor to start with; on the day of the exam someone says that they are going to recruit students just from one branch and not from a select other branch of Engineering and furthermore that the exam is just a formality. Worse yet ,he comes up with some weird statistics that the same company selected seven from BITS and five from an NIT , going by the pattern they might select just a couple of candidates from the college!

Second one is the interesting way in which the supporting staff decides to call the names of candidates selected in a round. They either call the candidates who got through or the candidates who did not, depending on their whims and fancies. Students sit there with their hearts in their mouths and you feel like playing the-mock-reality-show over here!

And finally, topping the charts this season is the remark, “Don’t worry! You might have something better in store for you”. The tone is generally either sarcastic or sympathetic. Sarcasm can be quite bothersome and a feeling of sympathy is uncalled for. Simply because, the person you are talking to has attended half a dozen more job interviews than you did and is far more experienced than you are, so he is a better judge than you are! It is just that things did not quite work for him as they did for you, lady luck smiled on you that day she might be ‘frowning’ at him right now. So please! Leave him alone!

This goes out for all you guys who did not get through. Don’t lose heart, you need not. Many feel that it’s either Software or Nowhere.No, You have ample avenues and a myriad of opportunities so just shoo that theory away. Ignore all the bagatelle comments, take note of all the constructive criticism. Learn from your mistakes. Things might look a bit nebulous now but sure they will clear up pretty soon. No one who gave his hundred percent ever lost. The path to success is beset with pitfalls that test character and spirit, stay calm and you will come out victorious.

The Original Article got published in THE HINDU