Over the past few years, Bangalore has become the largest resource pool in India with expertise ranging from floor cleaner to CEO. Professional recruiters are having the merry time of their lifetime with thousands or lakhs of resumes in their hand. The kind of growth rate at which the companies are running on is at its peak and recruitment cells are working almost 24/7 to meet the requirements.
However, as with any industry, when things go at a maddened pace, it do get out of hand and often end up intriguing the wrong decision haphazardly. There is already a term as “Selection Drive” which might soon end up in Oxford dictionary with its definition being “An unwise attempt to get hundreds of people screened on their expertise with a minimal investment on quality selection process and with fewer number of interviewers in record time!” This often ends up being an interview for the interviewers themselves as they fight against all elements (hunger, exhaustion, anger, frustration etc…) as the recruiters keep pushing more and more candidates in. My intention here is not to tame the reputation of any company, but to let the “candidates” who are in search of job to know what they are up against to.
One of my friends who has about 5+ years of experience in testing has been to a big time multi national software giant near to Domlur for an interview after he has received frequent calls from a reputed consultant to go and attend the “scheduled” interview at the company’s posh campus on a Saturday. As any candidates would do, he woke up early, went through few documents and finally set off to the location. As he entered the campus, he was directed to head for the basement by a set of security guards. Once he entered the basement, he saw few stalls like setups in few parking lots with banners such as “Testing (Manual)”, “Testing (Automation)”, “Oracle/DB2”, “Java”, “Dot Net” and so on… He then joined a big queue and waited patiently for his turn.
The person who was sitting at the “counter” was struggling to sort and prioritize the resumes and looked like a person who is taking interviews at a consulate. He also had to run between few counters to help his other colleagues as well. After a wait of 20 minutes my friend finally got his resume sorted out and was then asked to move to the next section of the basement. There he saw few securities distributing visiting badges and after some struggle he got one for himself and was then asked to wait in the smelly, dark section of the basement in a murky looking chair.
It took another 20-30 minutes before someone shouted his badge number along with few others and was asked to follow him. He then led the crowd through their big campus and I could not stop my laugh when my fiend told me that it looked like he was looking as if a Shepard leading a herd of sheep J After a long walk through their campus, they were taken inside their office with a maze looking posh interior. After reaching the 3rd floor, they were taken to a cafeteria where they were asked to fill up a 5 page form with all the details they have asked to furnish. As per my friend, they were asking everything except for his credit card number.
After 15 minutes a lady came and took the documents and it was not before another 20 minutes of wait that he finally got a call to meet the interviewer. The interviewer looked like a techie and greeted him with a deadbeat smile on his face.
“Tell me something about you” – he ordered my friend in a grinning voice. My friend was well equipped for this as this is a very common question for any interviews.
Before he could conclude, the next question came out “What's the difference between DELETE TABLE and TRUNCATE TABLE commands?” Now, this was a surprise for someone with my friend’s skill set. Somehow, my friend managed to answer it with whatever DBA knowledge he has. Little did he know that it was just a beginning of the trauma?
“What is denormalization and when would you go for it?” – Now this was turning out to be interesting for my friend. He again managed the show somehow.
“What is a transaction and what are ACID properties?” – My poor friend by now knew he was in trouble and again was smart enough to answer the question partially J
“What are the steps you will take to improve performance of a poor performing query?” – My friend was counting the stars already and just nodded his head confirming that he did not know much about it.
“Explian different types of BACKUPs avaialabe in SQL Server? Given a particular scenario, how would you go about choosing a backup plan?” – “Well…” my friend was speechless now and after a brief silence he told he has not faced any such scenarios in his career as a test engineer.
The face of the interviewer just glowed up for a moment and with pale look on his face, he asked if my friend has anything to ask as if it was not enough. My friend asked few questions as on what project it is and what would be his role if selected etc… The interviewer gave him some vague answers while counting the resumes he need to go through and then swiftly moved to the HR counter after shaking hands with my friend, without taking the eyes of the documents.
The person at HR counter asked him to wait and after 10 minutes and finally he came up with a list and started calling people and my friend was not there in the list. Rest of them including my friend was asked to leave after giving their badges to the security… this time without any escorts J
This entire episode took about 3-4 hrs to complete and my friend was cursing all Gods in heaven for wasting one full Saturday for nothing and he dozed his anger with a couple of beers as any other IT guy would do these days (if not dating) these days J
Let me end this rather long blog of mine with few questions
What went wrong here and who is responsible? Is it the mistake of the consultant who themselves was not clear on the requirements? Is it the HR desk at that company who never knew whom to call for the interview? Is it the interviewer who didn’t know what to ask and how to behave? Or is it my poor little friend for venturing out for a recruitment drive?
He gives me a terrified look when I tell him about interviews these days !!!!
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