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“Summers” of 09

Well, it has been a week now since I got placed in ICICI Prudential. Honestly it was one of the toughest period of my life. I was never prepared truly for the GDs and PIs. And I paid heavy price for it.

The Summer Internship Placement process started with various companies coming for PPTs. We had to fill hell lot of intent forms, decide preferences for companies. These FMCGs are worst of the lot when it comes to summer placements. They have such big forms with questions ranging for one’s biggest achievement to a situation where one faced moral conflict. I was one of the lucky people to be shortlisted for 5 of the top FMCGs on Day zero. Each of them had GD + PI procedure. I tried my best in each GD, but I really could not make an impact in the GD. After all it was not like MBA entrance where GDs carry some percentage of marks, here GDs are used for elimination and I was eliminated in each of them. By the end of the day 0 I had lost 5 golden opportunities.

Second day started on worst possible note with the news that 2 companies in my top 5 preferences were not expected to come this year :( I didn’t have anymore calls that day. I was not happy but not feeling that bad. I knew that it was just the second day and I will get some company or the other in the placement process, I just had to “Fight” it out till I get it. I was banking on an IT company which usually comes to our campus in slot 0 and does not have GDs. I reminded myself of Arun and Sneha’s situation during our engineering placements. When the shortlist for that company was declared my name did not appear in it. At evening I got the news that I was shortlisted by ICICI Pru for its Business Intelligence Unit. I started reading GK stuff and went through ICICI Pru’s website once.

     Next day, the interviews started at 8.30am. I was 6th in the interview list for BIU. The people were interviewed on the basis of their resume, knowledge about insurance sector and reason for selecting the given profile. I called up Nik and asked him to give me as much information as he can give. He explained me various types of Life insurances and current scenario in insurance sector. I had also prepared the answer for the profile question as an interest in analytics. Finally when my interview came, I took a deep breath and entered the room. It was pretty obvious from their looks that they were really impressed by my record, both academics and extra curricular. Similar questions were asked to me as were asked to other candidates, ranging from why MBA to current scenario in insurance sector. By the end of the interview, I had the feeling that I had made it. After the interview I moved to Auditorium where Tejas was searching for a person for his GD group for an FMCG. I agreed and was actually standing in the line to be part of next GD when Prateek called me and told me that I was called by ICICI Pru people for next round. The next round was basically internship offer being made to me which I gladly accepted.

I was lucky to be out of the process in the Slot 0 itself. There have been people who got just one call and converted whereas there are people who have had 15 odd calls and are still hunting for internship. I wish everyone, including my roommate, gets placed as early as possible.

P. S.: At the time of signing out of the process I found out that the name of the HR person who took my interview was “Sneha Shenoy”!!!

Comments

Anonymous said…
:) That is a big coincidence :D But yeah, when I think about placements I just know one thing - After all disappointments, something big comes in ur life :) So never lose heart :)

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कुछ बिखरे सपने और आँखों में नमी है, एक छोटा सा आसमां और उम्मीन्दों की ज़मीं है, यूँ तो बहुत दोस्त है ज़िन्दगी मैं, पर जो खास है वाही पास नहीं है ....................