An Unexpected Interview that changed his Life.
An incident happened with a 22 Yr Software engineer.
Aug 15th — He received a call from a random recruiter who explained him about some company and said
Our Engineering head is coming from UK for a day to take these interviews, So I am scheduling your interview on Aug 23rd.
That boy said, Yep proceed. But the irony is he never heard of that company nor remember the name of the company, So he laughed himself and disconnected the phone and thought he will never attend to this random stuff.
Aug 20th some incident happened, So he thought of taking this interview but he don’t even know what to prepare and which profile he got shortlisted. So he prepared all the web stuff especially PHP (LAMP) stack.
Aug 22nd he went to play cricket in the evening got exhausted and again started to find excuses to skip the interview. He received an email with the interview details. Then he came to know about the company and gone through their website as a part of little research on the company before the interview. It’s a product based sports company with really interesting products but he is still unable to decide. So went to bed early and thought let’s decide in the morning.
Aug 23rd (Interview Day) early morning. He woke up and found that his phone is missing so as his roommates and it’s confirmed that house got burgled. Lot of chaos, Neighbours came in and started showing sympathy etc. Now he decided that I am not going anywhere. But his flatmate forced to take this interview just not to miss the opportunity because who knows what’s behind this. So finally our geeky engineer decided to go but he haven’t took this resume printout. He thought let’s go to interview building and then take our the printout in some shop nearby. So he started early.
Aug 23rd | Interview Building | 8:50 am
Our geeky engineer reached office, Went inside the building to check his inteview details with the reception. And suddenly some person came from inside and received him with a huge glow on this face and treated him like newly married bridegroom. And saying
Hey man I am trying to reach out to you but your phone got switched off, So we thought you might turned down the interview inviation. But I am so happy that you came in time. 9 am
Interview Room
There are 2 people, Head of Engineering from UK, And this guys who came to receive me (He is a General Manager)
I greeted them and they offered him juice and a warm welcome. They made him so comfortable which helped him to forgot all the mess happened early morning and able to start interview with clean mind.
Interview Started — Lot of interesting topics covered, Few PHP questions, Mysql in depth. Later they had some good conversation about NodeJs which is booming at that time. The Engineering head is so happy with out guy but he got a constraint that our engineer only having 3 months of experience. But he is looking for people with atleast 4 years of experience. As our geeky engineer’s resume looks interesting, So they called him for the interview to checkout his skills and at the very best case to offer him a entry level junior developer role who will just take care of website maintenance.
Almost interview is done, Engineering head said
I am happy with your interview, We really had a very good conversation. But let me put his straight to you. We are looking for people with at least 4 years of experience, So we will let you know If we can offer you or not. But thanks for coming to the interview. Is there any questions ?
Our geeky engineer is expecting this result, Because there is a bad start that day. So nothing positive can be expected. But he never gives up so quickly, So he simply said whatever in his mind.
Yep, I have one thing to say. Your website is too bad, No one really understands what’s going on by looking at it. As a sports company you guys need to have an interactive site with eye pleasing color combo. So that any visitor who accidentally lands on your site will get attracted and will surely go through. Only for the sake of interview I landed on your site and navigated a bit as a part of research.
Once listening this both the interviewers got shocked because of the word (Too bad) and they told him, You are so frank. Then our geeky guy said
Yep I am, Because it is the truth. And if you hire me then trust me I will revamp the site and make it looks perfect.
This one line changed his life. Generally many interviewe’s get disappointed with any negative sign and never speak their heart out. Never ever give up till the last ball.
After listening this, The Engineering Head got pleased with this frankness and said I won’t promise you the offer but I will speak to my CEO about you and will try to hire you as an exceptional case. BUT
You won’t be involving into development initially, You will be a kind of junior dev and learning from your seniors for a year or so. Meanwhile you will do the old website maintenance. I am telling you this before, So that you shouldn’t come to me after few months saying that you are bored and you wanna leave.
Our engineer said — Nope, I will take things positive and try to find some opportunity in the maintenance itself.
Interview done shook their hands.
After interview, Our engineer don’t have any expectations anyway to receive a an offer. He went to police station along with his roommate to file the FIR on this lost phone.
2 Weeks later
No call from the company yet, So our engineer fed up waiting and called to check about the interview status. And Guess what he heard
Hey, I am trying for few days to reach you out but I think I have your old number so just thought of emailing you for the new number, Thank god you called me. Coming to the point — We are pleased to offer you. (Role & Details etc. ) Just need your confirmation before sending offer letter.
Vowww, our engineer is so happy and accepted the offer. Finally he joined the company on Oct 1st 2014.
Since then he never looked back !
Remember the sentence….____…. Junior developer, learning from your seniors and end up in website maintenance.
But in 6 months, He took over the tech team and became a primary resource in the product delivery, Interview panel etc. In a year he became the Lead Developer.
And have raised in his career (10x mode) with so many exceptional product deliveries, Geeky nights, Fun stuff. And lucky part is — He never failed in any interview since then.
Points to be taken from the above story
- Never underestimate any opportunity. “Who know what’s behind it” (Ref: Unknown Interview Scheduled)
- Never think a day is bad only because the way it started. (Ref : Apr 23rd 2014)
- Never give up easily, Fight till the last ball. (Ref: Last statement of the interview)
- Never let anything go away, Just put some effort on your end, There is nothing wrong in it. (Have seen people simply thinks If I am luckily I will receive the call) (Ref: They are ready to offer but they have lost his number)
- Never relax or satisfy with an opportunity. There is hell lot to explore & achieve. (Ref: Junior developer offer sentence above)
Finally, Revealing characters
Geeky Engineer — Me (KrishCdbry)
Head of Engineering — Kee (Still I am in touch with him in whatsapp & hangout, An exceptional tech leader to work with. He is in UK now)
Having some fun during hangout in mid 2015.
I can never forgot that strange day of Aug 23rd 2014 !!
A note on 08/23/2014. That day I also got a zomato lucky coupon code of 300 rs. (Strange stuff)
Life gives everyone a story to learn but only few people pick the key-points from it. Just try to remember where are you now and what led you to this. That’s it you too have a beautiful story to remember & good people to show gratitude.
Sorry for the long Article but I hope it’s worth reading.
Stay Tuned !!
