About 5 years ago, I went through some painful situations in the name of interviews. On top of the painful situation is – people who called me for a face to face interview didn’t bother to appreciate the time I took to interview with them. They always treated me (and perhaps others) as people who don’t have anything else in life than to find a job in their company. One organization went to the limits of making me travel long-distance thrice to tell me that there is no interview panel available on that day and asked me to come the next day.
At another company, I was made to wait for 6 hours and to be told, “Ah, you are still here. All of our folks left”. In yet another company, I was invited for an interview and they made me wait for, not 6, but 4 hours. After the previous 6-hour waiting experience, I pressed the front desk executive to check why I was not being called in, to hear a response that my profile didn’t match. Why call me at your office then?
These incidents happened at a time where I had to borrow money to travel to an interview location, even within Bangalore. Sometimes I came out and cried and other times I came out and shouted at the world for being so cruel when it doesn’t need to be. Thankfully,
one of the best lesson I have taught myself is – I am not alone and I must be suffering less than others. I am aware there are many people like me who get abused in the name of interviews. When people get a call for an interview, their hopes shoot up and when they are not appreciated for their time, their hopes vanish.
When I look back, I would like to thank those organizations who treated me badly. I have lost anger on those organizations because they helped me in my education, by setting examples of bad, worse, pathetic and insane. As another part of my education on interviewing, I read Johanna Rothman’s book on Hiring The Best Technical People. She also has a wonderful blog on Hiring. This inspired me a lot and I am going to respect anybody who comes to me and say, “I read that book too and I love it”. That book has inspired me enough to make my life beautiful because it helped me think how to make others life beautiful.
Putting myself and my previous contexts into situation, last month I came up with the idea of giving a Thank You card signed by the interviewer to every participant of our interviewing process. The idea was mine but the execution was from my colleagues in Moolya. More than the person with idea, we definitely need to appreciate the people who got the idea to life.
While I was writing this post, I was sitting aside Abhishek who joined us last week. I turned to him and asked, “Were you given any Thank You card for interviewing with us?” and he said, “Yes, I did. I heard it was your idea”. My colleagues who should have taken the credit for getting an idea to life passed on the credits completely to me. Other folks in Moolya appreciated this idea and so were the participants (interviewee – candidate). It is time I remind myself and the world that we are standing on the shoulders of giants and that is why we feel we have reached great heights. Here is the card we (my uncle: Radhakrishnan: Shristi Printers) have designed.
Dedicated to Johanna Rothman, one of the giants whose shoulders we are standing on. Thank you so much to help us change the world Johanna. And to my colleagues at Moolya who give life to ideas and give ideas to life.
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