Before the placement season started at Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management (SIOM), Nashik, I had decided that I’ll apply only to firms operating in the services sector and I won’t keep my expectations too high. Each one of us used to eagerly wait for the mail from the placements mail id. One day we got in our mailboxes a mail asking the interested students having more than 2 years of experience to apply for KPIT Cummins Infosystems, Pune for roles of Project Lead & Operations Manager. I being having 21 months of work-experience was not eligible to apply as per the required work-experience criterion. However, going by this condition, a large chunk of people falling in the bracket of 20 to 23 months experience were not eligible. I amongst many others requested our placement team to insist the KPIT Cummins to relax their condition of work-experience. After talking to KPIT Cummins, finally this condition was relaxed and students with more than 20 months of work-experience were allowed to apply for the company. With around 84% of my fellow class-mates being having prior work-experience, I thought I had bleak chances of getting short listed in the company.
It was on December 18, 2009, when KPIT Cummins visited our campus. They had a shortlist of just 7 students for the role of Operations Manager. I was pleasantly surprised to find my name at Sr. No. 2 of the shortlist. I had not prepared anything for the selection process. I quickly went to my hostel room and picked my file having all the academic & extra-curricular certificates. I asked one of my friends to take the print-out of my resume and in the mean-time I quickly had my lunch. After that I immediately rushed towards the interview room. Interviews were about to begin and my turn was immediately after the first candidate.
During the interview I was bombarded with many questions. I would like to share one question for which I gave a very funny answer. I was asked by interviewers to choose any one of the two subjects viz. History & Geography. After thinking for a while, I chose Geography. Interviewer asked me to explain the reason. Here goes my funny answer:
“It’s because History keeps on repeating itself and I’ll get to learn history one way or the other from the future happenings. But Geography I’ll have to explore on my own!”
Finally, when the interviews got over, out placement co-ordinator announced my name and asked me to meet the interviewers. This was primarily a negotiation round wherein I was supposed to divulge my expectations. I was unable to control my happiness and I was ready to accept any reasonable package for the position of Operations Manager and that too for a place like Pune. They offered me X.XX LPA and without even a sign of reluctance, I readily accepted their offer. I couldn’t believe that I got placed and that too in a company for which I was initially not eligible! This is what destiny had for me. Today when I look back, I realise that chance attributed more to my placement than my hard-work.
