Life is Tough or Tough Life?

Few weeks ago, I spoke to a HR Manager from a Multi National Company (MNC). The company is 2nd largest e-learning company in the world. I posed him with a question…….

Life is tough… as the wise man says. Isn’t it? “People” say you have to work hard in order to achieve what ever you want, whether it’s success, richness or fame but they failed to say how long you should work hard anyway! Is life really tough? That’s a golden question which everyone are wondering about. So when everyone are wondering, let us ponder on something else - the campus interview @ India.

Campus Interview - for us Malaysians it’s just two separate words but for the Indians that’s all about their life. In order to survive in this challenging world – that’s the life line for them. Campus interview is some sort of job fair which held once a year in KLCC or Penang Pisa but the process is far more stringent. The rounds vary from aptitude tests to technical interviews and sometimes up to fourteen rounds will be conducted one after another.

The Crowd

Undergraduates, who are pursuing their pre-final year or third year engineering, have to prepare themselves with various skills including soft skills. Soft skills consist of good communication skills, interview skills, presentation skills and many more. The other things that students should prepare are for aptitude tests which consist of two parts - quantitive aptitude and verbal non verbal aptitude. Well i do get headaches whenever i had to prepare the question for the students - it’s copy paste from internet anyway :p so just imagine, the question will be a mix of everything ranging from maths, electronics to c and c++ language.

Few weeks ago, I spoke to a HR Manager from a Multi National Company (MNC). The company is 2nd largest e-learning company in the world. I posed him with a question - why the undergraduates have to go a very stringent process in order to get a normal job which was an entry level anyway? The question was disturbing my mind since I took responsibility to run the placement department in the engineering college. Instead of answering the question, he posed me another question! You have 100, 000 people walking out with same qualification and how do you choose them? That’s it… That’s the answer. It was so simple and all this while, I failed to realize it. Thanks to human nature! We tend to think every solution in complex way rather than finding a simple way. Life is tough or tough life?

Students listening to the pre-placement talk (PPT) by the company HR

Comparing our interview with the Indian interviews, I feel we have more relaxation in term of the process. Most of our interview question will consist of general knowledge and simple ‘matematik’ and straight to hr interviews. Well below are the possible interview rounds that the undergraduates have to go through:

1. Aptitude test – normally consist of two separate test
2. Group Discussion – a discussion held in group of 10-15 member. Each have to talk 5-10mins
3. Essay Writing – Punctuation and general writing skills
4. Technical Interview – Technical Knowledge
5. HR Interview – Personal info and willingness to work
6. Telephonic Interview – Telephone ethics
7. Work Sample Interview – Normally done for experienced candidates, whereby to check on their working style
8. Peer Group Interview – How well the candidates can mingle with their team members
9. Luncheon Interview – Interview over a lunch and this will be conducted without the candidate’s knowledge. They will be invited for a lunch and the HR person will be extra friendly to check out the candidate’s corporate ethics.
10. Stress Interview – Some of the HR will even throw the candidates file to the face and ask them to get out from the room. Some will ask funny question and do funny things like talking to themselves.
11. Video Conference Interview – Mostly done if its an MNC company
12. Case Method Interview – A case study interview

The other candidates

This posting might not be interesting or useful to you but as I’ve said earlier for us, campus interview is just two different words. The only thing I would like to remind here that we do complain that our job environment is not friendly, people are not co-operating, our college life sucks and et cetera but we should remember something… Somewhere, some people are going through tougher life than you. We should be thankful on what we have with us now. Just look to your right, then to your left and finally your back. What do you see? A cozy environment? Familiar faces? The things that’s y belongs to you? Or do you see yourself on roads with torn clothing’s and in hunger?

The newspaper ad - thats my mobile number :P

LIFE IS TOUGH (somewhere else) OR (do you wanna live a) TOUGH LIFE (by complaining that you don’t receive much when you have all sufficient?)

Signing off,

Ajay