PLACEMENT EXPERIENCE 1: The downfalls ( CSC COIN and MU SIGMA)

Last year, at the same time I was searching for individual placement experiences to get a better insight of all the companies and their recruitment process. I talked to many seniors and many other people already placed for their experiences. It’s quite a hectic process to search placement experiences on the internet and most of the time you do not get what you are trying to search, hence I thought to write up all my experiences in a series of posts to help the juniors and other aspirants. I have already posted a generalized procedure to approach the placement process. Now I will share my experiences, earlier I wanted to write about only those which I cracked but then I thought it would be better to write all the experiences as it will help others to pick out my mistakes or things I shouldn’t have done and device a better approach.

A brief summary, I sat in total 6 recruitment process, got select in 4 and rejected in 2. I also sat in CSC Coin Project training process back in third year where I got eliminate in the last round. This post will be having the experiences of 2 rejections i.e. CSC coin and Mu Sigma because it’s better to learn from a failure’s point of view also after all a successful one can teach you what to do and a failure can tell you what not to do and at times the don’ts are more crucial then the do’s.

I have already dedicated an entire blog post to CSC, so I won’t go into much depth on this. You can refer to this post for that http://mayankviews.blogspot.in/2013/01/csc-rejection-and-beyond.html All I could say now, after almost one and a half year of that event is that rejection was necessary for me. In fact, everyone must go through one harsh professional rejection in life whether because of their own fault or by some other reason but rejections are must. They make you feel good about yourself once you are over them. They not only help you to explore your weakness but also your strength and you don’t feel nervous, scared, insecure ever again, once you are over with a harsh rejection. In retrospect, if I have to give that interview again after clearing the written, I would have answered in the same way, with the same attitude. At the end of the day, what matters is to remain honest and find a place for yourself instead of adjusting into every place for the sake of security. Still, what I think I shouldn’t have done to get rejected would be not to be over expressive. I was very comfortable in that interview and too much of casual attitude might go against you. I was showing real desperation and projecting myself as very apt candidate that could have been avoided. It’s better to act a little normal and play safe when majority is going to get select and few are going to reject. Don’t try to show yourself that you are different and better, just play it normal and cool and you would make to the final list. I was 1 of the 24 among 350+, but not 1 of the 20 among 24 so keep in mind how many are going to select and how many are going to reject and decide your strategy and attitude likewise.

Now, coming to MU SIGMA, it was one company I wasn’t much attached to or aiming die hard to clear it, though clearing it might have helped me in pursuing my other aspirations but still I have learnt not to get attached to things after my CSC experience so I had a neutral attitude for it. Before the official process, we were supposed to fill a big form by signing in from our Facebook or LinkedIn account. It’s better to create a LinkedIn account and complete your profile properly as it’s a more formal approach. The form was though very informal and contained questions like 3 fav movies, 3 fav novels, one event that changed your life, your strength, your weakness etc. You were also supposed to nominate one other person (I was glad 4 people nominated me :P ). Many people find the novel writing question very hard, in fact I filled their form and explained the summaries of 3 novels to them. So if you are aiming MU SIGMA, it’s better to read 3 small novels just in case this question is repeated. I would recommend ‘who moved my cheese’, ‘ jonathan seagull livingstone’, ‘1984’, ‘animal farm’,’ to kill a mocking bird’, ‘Anne Frank’ etc as they are short and simple.

 The process started with a written test I remember. I think there were 20 questions over all and I had attempted only 16. It was a mixture of aptitude (15) + technical (5). I wasn’t sure about whether I have correctly attempted all or not so I was little uncertain about clearing the written. My friend on the other hand had attempted all 20, there were many with more attempts than me so it was advisable not to be confident of clearing written test. The results came around late night and were shocking. Many students who were good in both aptitude and technical and had already cleared GRE or performing well in MBA mock tests or GATE test series didn’t make it to the next round. One more conclusive proof about uncertainties of placement when you see people much more hard working and better prepared than you not making the cut.

Next round was in IPS academy, a college little bit away from the city and we had to reach there by 8 am. The night before was hectic and busy, we were told to bring 4 xerox of all our certificates and most of the photocopy shops were about to close at that time so quite a running for everyone. Thus it’s always advisable to keep at least 3 sets of copies of all your certificates and your latest resume ready so there won’t be any last time rush. Also keep a soft copy of your resume in your draft just in case you need to edit/print or mail it on the spot. Those who cleared written slept in nervousness, those who didn’t sleep in sadness. The next morning started quite early for many as most of us were not able to sleep. We all reached to the campus around 7:30 waited for almost 3 hours when the PPT started and immediately the next round began. I don’t remember the exact order though.

ROUND 1: It was video synthesis round. In this round, a video clip is shown to you and you are suppose to write what you learned or understand from that clip instead of what was shown. We were shown a clip from the movie GANDHI, then we were suppose to sum up the experience in few lines ( there were 3 sets of 3 lines each as far as I remember). There are no subtitles so you got to listen very carefully. It’s better to make it a practice by not using subtitles whenever watching anything in English. Also, better to practice beforehand by writing concise and short statement which can fully represent the meaning of an entire event as there would be very limited space, you won’t be able to write more than 6/7 words per line depending on the size of your writing so better to practice beforehand instead of doing some mistake later.

ROUND 2: It was a case study round of some android app, various parameters and past data was given and you were supposed to add your own insights and ideas. The important thing is you always need to think from business point of view in such rounds and your ideas should be something that can bring impact on a larger mass. More different certainly would be more better, don’t write something you have already heard or read somewhere, better formulate something by your own so that it would be unique and you would be able to justify it later.

ROUND 3: It was a GD round. We were given the topic “whether mobile phone should be banned in college and school campus or not”. Before that we were asked to suggest a topic, I suggested “ women’s reservation bill in parliament” but the co-coordinator didn’t approve it as he wanted something simple as the topic. Most of the people were in favor of mobile phones except 2 people I guess. So, in the words of the coordinator himself the GD was lacking aggression. It’s a better approach to not go with majority at times as you would have more visibility. It’s better to listen first, decide your approach and then speak and be very patient but make sure you have raised your points time to time at regular intervals. Many people who weren’t able to speak were later given chance to sum up the entire conversation and most of these people made it to the next round. Nowadays, even if you are not able to speak, the coordinators give all those people a chance in the end.

On a personal note, I was suppose to clear this round with ease but I was eliminated after this round ( I wasn’t surprised :P ). I didn’t like the fish market that was getting created again and again and the fact that some people were not at all getting chance to speak. I proposed a way of speaking turn by turn and complete at least one circle so that everyone would get a chance to speak. The coordinator didn’t like my approach of trying to regulate the process perhaps he liked the fish market better. So it didn’t come as a surprise to me when I was not selected unlike others. Funny thing, many who got selected always thanks me that I am the reason they got selected and many who didn’t blame me that because of me they didn’t get selected . I would like to apologize to those people who think that I came in their way of selection. Anyway, the crux of the matter is if you want to be on the safe side, don’t pull any stunt like I did, just focus on speaking on the topic given and you would be fine. Besides, there is no such thing as those who can speak better or fluent will crack the GD round and those who are not good in communication skills can’t. There were many people who were exceptionally good in speaking but didn’t clear this round while many who doubted their abilities made it. So it’s a good thing not to go with a pre-occupied mind in any placement process as your performance at the spot matters instead of your theoretical capabilities, so never be overconfident or under confident.

As I was eliminated in this round, my personal experience stops here. My friends participated in the next rounds. There were 2 rounds and interview of every person varied. Some were asked questions about their project while some were asked questions about their extracurricular. Some interview lasted for 50 mins while some ended only in 5 mins. It’s a good practice to solve many puzzles or at least device an approach to solve them and able to express it for a company like MU SIGMA as they lay more stress on approach than answer. It’s further better to explore the company’s site and their vision and future plans so that you can justify your interest in the company. Also learn about the designation that you are getting so that you can justify how you would fit in the role perfectly. Total 21 people were selected from my college and I along with my friend order 2 cheese burst pizza to celebrate the failure of 2 of the most hyped personalities for this company and we both updated our status as “NOT PLACED IN MU SIGMA”.

I do not mean to flaunt, all I am saying is it’s better to have a sporty and live spirit after rejection. It’s a part of life, no matter whether you were deserving or not. I have seen people losing their faith and confidence after this process. I have seen people taking months to come out of this failure as it was their first one. I have seen people putting their entire future on stake and doubting each and every of their capability afterwards. Many who didn’t make it to MU SIGMA made it to other good companies, or to good PG colleges. The important thing is trying, learning, observing, making a note of weakness and faults, improving them, and with the same or more enthusiasm facing the next opportunity. Don’t lose hope is the moral of the story.

That’s all folks. I would write about the day zero experience i.e. (Accenture, Infosys and wipro in the next post where I made it to all the 3 companies). Questions, queries and feedbacks are welcome in the comment box.