Interview Priorities

It was already a quarter past ten, but I was glad that it was at last my turn to the meet the interviewers at the end of a very long day.

The interviewer was kind enough to smile and make me comfortable. The drill started with the customary request to tell a few words about my strengths. A task I had to pull through fighting the superfluous humility innate to most Indians. The interviewer noticing my anxiety asked me to take a minute and calm down. From then on the interview went on to be a typical conversation between two colleagues who are yet to despise each other.

I left the campus that day catching the last train to the city. I was grinning to myself with my headphones on because I knew I had aced the interview. I felt relieved that even I would soon have an offer from a prestigious IT firm. Then I started fantasizing about starting my work life. New city, new people, and at last complete independence!

But it didn’t take much time for the fantasy in my head to turn into a nightmare. It was when I started looking at my life maybe 5 or 10 years down the line still coding at one of India’s prestigious IT firms that I realised I was making the same mistake I had made 4 years ago. Following the herd. It was then that I decided not to take up the IT job offer.

The train reached my station after an hour and I left the platform wondering if I would have come to the same decision if I the interview had not gone well.