Friday, April 4

5 years hence

When I was an engineer, the campus placements were on full swing ... well, not so full ... it was the Dot Com Bust of 2002, remember?

So a new firm had come to campus - IRIS. And I was intent on getting placed. The interview was going well and I seemed to have the technical part of the interview clinched (whew!). Now the hard part ... the HR round. Some weird questions were thrown in, but I got them or dodged them safely ... then the head HR (Jayaraman, as I would soon find out) asks me, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

I had not thought of this question (I was green under the gills, cut me some slack here!!). The smart alec inside me wanted to blurt out ... "On the other side of the table" ... I did not. I gave some simple minded answer and that was that.

5 years hence, I am taking interviews ... and I AM on the other side of the table.

5 comments:

Sudhir Pai said...

[:)]
I'm still wondering what the other side of the table feels like...
but had a similar experience not so long ago. 2006 february, I was at my charming best, trying to sell Revels '06( the cultural at MIT,manipal) as a great platform that would offer sponsors unlimited visibility (yea, right!). february 2008, I get a call from NIFT who were hopeful of footees sponsoring
an event in college.

Anonymous said...

I've been on both sides of the table and I know the feeling ;) .

But one thing that isn't going down my throat is -

[quote]"When I was an engineer" [/quote].

Could you please clarify?

ps: Did you receive the CE Tee?

Unknown said...

@ sudhir - it feels like a reverse deja vu experience na?

@ Biggie - I had two rounds of placements na, had to specify the engineering placements .. dont be touchy about it sir, :-) .. my work is engineering for businesses!! Yes I did recieve the CE Tee. Looks great!!

Unknown said...

Well you are not the head HR, so you are not and will never be at the other side of the table. :p

BTW, its so much fun you are the interviewer. Have done 3 so far and it just keeps getting better. My best strategy is pick up any one subject listed on the resume and ask the most basic technical question on that. Results are varying but gives an amazing insight into the person.

Favorite interview question ever (sadly not asked by me) - If you were a superhero, who would you be? Craziest answer heard - IEEE guy. :D

Unknown said...

@ashish - awesome question. I generally ask questions ranging from google problems to simple algorithms to business fundamentals, et al