Hunts
It has been a hunting time in the recent past. If one is hunting for a 'girl', other, for a new job. Both are tricky and both require good prior preparation. One difference being, finding a partner is for life and job is a lesser commitment.
Talking about my friend hunting a girl, it has to be said that it is tough to find the right match. Seeing all the hunts around my friends are doing, each one is doing in his/her own way with no two similar cases. Mostly, there are two cases - younger lot don't like the choices of their parents; and parents are too much into horoscope and whatever they pick is not liked by the prospects. With that being the case, other options open up - my friends trying to hunt on their own by putting their profiles on matrimonial websites. All these stories are there just because these people are in the US. I haven't seen such type of stories with my friends in India. They somehow find their match easily I believe!
Coming to job hunt: I myself was hunting for one for the past couple of months. It now seems like a long story, rather call it, story of stories. In the end, I ended up with 4 jobs in hand and had the luxury of picking my choice. The whole hunting process was an experience by itself. Everyday, I applied for tens of jobs. Some replied positively, some the other way; and many didn't even bother to respond. After 2 weeks into the hunt, I was still in the starting phase talking to the head hunters all the time. These people are most important to us; some are most worthy, and few are real troublesome. They talk a lot and judging them becomes a very important issue.
Into my third week of hunt, I had couple of jobs confirmed back-to-back. One took a long time to send me the offer letter! So, that was put aside for a while. One company, out of the blue, within 48 hours, offered me the job and demanded me sign the papers. I was almost there to do that. Just then, one more company came into picture and finished it off. Overall, I had to say 'No' to a few and 'Yes' to a few! Why few and not one? That is because, people take their own sweet time to process the paperwork - visa transfer, verification, etc. takes its own time.
A byte on how phone interviews looked like -
1) Head hunter - She first sent me 20 questions to fill out and send her back. After she passed it, she talked to me for 60 minutes! This included my career background, education, projects, US elections, a Sushi restaurant in Bay Area near that Mervyn's (don't know where it is though), etc. Finally, she got back to me after a week, CEO of 'X' company didn't want to fill the position yet!
2) Tech guy - This guy was supposed to call at 3pm and he calls 30 minutes late. If someone doesn't call for a phone interview at the scheduled time, the mind switches OFF and any call after 10 minutes is assumed 'non-interview' call. The moment I pick the call, thunderstorms of questions pour into my cell phone making me all sweat and wet. In 5 minutes, rain stopped and I saw rainbow outside - meaning, interview was over and I knew for sure, I was out :D.
3) Assistant of the Tech lead - He had all papers spread around his desk I believe. He read out the questions and didn't even know if they made any sense or not. My answers had to be real slow as he had to write them down ;). Poor guy. Next stage of this interview was the Tech lead himself. He asked all questions on acceleration, velocity and gravity. Moral of the story - Better have everything under the sun on your finger tips for your next interview!
Talking about my friend hunting a girl, it has to be said that it is tough to find the right match. Seeing all the hunts around my friends are doing, each one is doing in his/her own way with no two similar cases. Mostly, there are two cases - younger lot don't like the choices of their parents; and parents are too much into horoscope and whatever they pick is not liked by the prospects. With that being the case, other options open up - my friends trying to hunt on their own by putting their profiles on matrimonial websites. All these stories are there just because these people are in the US. I haven't seen such type of stories with my friends in India. They somehow find their match easily I believe!
Coming to job hunt: I myself was hunting for one for the past couple of months. It now seems like a long story, rather call it, story of stories. In the end, I ended up with 4 jobs in hand and had the luxury of picking my choice. The whole hunting process was an experience by itself. Everyday, I applied for tens of jobs. Some replied positively, some the other way; and many didn't even bother to respond. After 2 weeks into the hunt, I was still in the starting phase talking to the head hunters all the time. These people are most important to us; some are most worthy, and few are real troublesome. They talk a lot and judging them becomes a very important issue.
Into my third week of hunt, I had couple of jobs confirmed back-to-back. One took a long time to send me the offer letter! So, that was put aside for a while. One company, out of the blue, within 48 hours, offered me the job and demanded me sign the papers. I was almost there to do that. Just then, one more company came into picture and finished it off. Overall, I had to say 'No' to a few and 'Yes' to a few! Why few and not one? That is because, people take their own sweet time to process the paperwork - visa transfer, verification, etc. takes its own time.
A byte on how phone interviews looked like -
1) Head hunter - She first sent me 20 questions to fill out and send her back. After she passed it, she talked to me for 60 minutes! This included my career background, education, projects, US elections, a Sushi restaurant in Bay Area near that Mervyn's (don't know where it is though), etc. Finally, she got back to me after a week, CEO of 'X' company didn't want to fill the position yet!
2) Tech guy - This guy was supposed to call at 3pm and he calls 30 minutes late. If someone doesn't call for a phone interview at the scheduled time, the mind switches OFF and any call after 10 minutes is assumed 'non-interview' call. The moment I pick the call, thunderstorms of questions pour into my cell phone making me all sweat and wet. In 5 minutes, rain stopped and I saw rainbow outside - meaning, interview was over and I knew for sure, I was out :D.
3) Assistant of the Tech lead - He had all papers spread around his desk I believe. He read out the questions and didn't even know if they made any sense or not. My answers had to be real slow as he had to write them down ;). Poor guy. Next stage of this interview was the Tech lead himself. He asked all questions on acceleration, velocity and gravity. Moral of the story - Better have everything under the sun on your finger tips for your next interview!
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