Four Years in Consulting...the journey to consulting and till now..

Today we ( a bunch of 25 people called as TMP-2 in our company), completed four years of our consulting profession. The four year ride has been an awesome journey to say the least. 25 of us who were from different geographic locations in India, different languages, different degrees some of the engineers and some MCA's started our career together, in this one of the Big Four Consulting Firms. It was like a dream come true for most of us, as for me it was more than a dream. I was just looking for a job in any damn company but see where I am, in consulting that too in one of the Big Four, awesome! Here goes my story from getting out of the college and landing into the consulting firm..

I had told this to many of my friends, the situation in which I was when I landed up in this job. It was already three months that I was out of my college. I was desperately looking for a job, any damn job. Initially, I was confident that I will join some software company for sure, the reason for my confidence was in the NIIT certification program that I b(r)arely managed to complete. After some days out of college realised how difficult it was to get in a good company. I then started looking for a call center job, as it was easy to get in. I attended interviews for some companies, got rejected then realised even it was a difficult to crack. Then practised some techniques of public speaking etc. The eye opener was the call center interview that I planned to attend for Wipro, where I found hundreds of aspirants waiting outside the famous Amruta Castle in Hyderabad. The event had left tears in my eyes, as I found that it was really tough to get a job. Then I started looking for any kind of call center opening. Attended an interview for HP and then for Wipro Spectramind through some consultancy. The only aspiration that I had was to get a job. It is not something great to say, but there were days I used to take only one bus out of my place to the most connected bus stop in the city and walk from there to the desired location. Or plan my trip such that any of my friends leaving to the office can drop me somewhere close to the destination.

Some of the my college friends were already in this dollar nation to pursue their masters, some getting placed in good companies in India had increased the pressure on me to such an extent that I was out in town looking for the call center openings. My NIIT certification also started helping me in finding some jobs, though I hardly managed to get an interview call. There was one company that called us for an interview and offered us a job with 3000/- Rs per month with three years of bond. I seriously considered this position, if not for the advise of my well wishers and some great friends I would have accepted the offer. With the advise of friends and well wishers dropped the idea of joining that firm. Meanwhile, my search continued for the call center positions, and with things looking to fall in place, I got a call for the final rounds of interviews with HP and Wipro. Then I thought I was getting there and was thinking I will be in Bangalore or in Pune within weeks. Fortunately / unfortunately both interview calls happened to be on the same day and same time. I preferred attending HP as it was an international firm and to my mysterious luck, I was the only one who was shortlisted but I was subjected to another written test. The HR guy looked impressed about me and gave me his contact details to call for the results in a week. And from there made my way to the next interview as I was already late. Thought I would take a pit stop at my beloved Kanna's place near tank bund and will make it to interview after that. If not for the lecture from my beloved friend on that day, I would have made it to the interview and who knows what it had for me? Kanna asked me if my family would not survive, if I don't get a job. The answer was my family would survive, but I needed job. Then the choice was simple I need to look for a better job not a call center. Not knowing if skipping the interview was a good decision I was a little upset. Skipping of interview made me listen another lecture from my other friend who thought I should not have missed it.

Another event, that made me not just think but act for getting a job was the TCS written exam. I and RC left as early as 6 AM in the morning to go to Hitech city and attend the TCS Exam. And to my surprise I would thousands of people standing in front of TCS. God! that really scared the shit out of me. And I realise how foolish it was for me, not to prepare seriously for the campus recruitment's. I realised it was high time, i start working on aptitude exams.Though I managed to attend TCS written Exam, I could not clear it.

As my search for the jobs was going on, one fine evening RC turns up at my place and gives me a photo copy of some application form of one of this big four companies who were looking for '04 pass outs for immediate recruitment. That being the last day of filling in application forms, my dear friend gets a photo copy for me. Now, having no chance to make it to college that day, I decided to fill in the application form and give it to some Mr.Rao, whom I have never met before. RC had realised that I could not make it to college to get the application submitted, got me the mobile number of Mr.Rao. I called this guy and tell him that I am from the college and is looking out for job and want to apply for the job. He asks me to meet at M'patnam bus stop early in the morning on the next day. I managed to get to the bus stop on time, give a call to that guy and as we have not met earlier, the only way was to display the name of this company as a placard. This guy recognises me by that placard takes my application for submission and wishes good luck.

Now I got back to another friend of mine, a very good and childhood friend. Don't know if it there is something special, but we have been together in the tuition, college both intermediate (for a year), engineering and now in job in the same practice. This guy offered me the valuable advise for preparation both technically and for interview too. As far as I remember this was the only exam that I prepared seriously. We (RC and Me) turn up at the exam, again was a little scared looking at the crowd standing outside the exam center. Never imagined I would get through, but seriously wanted to get a job. One of the employees (who happened to be my senior in the company) was advertising about the company. The only thought that I had in my mind was come on dude, give a job I am not concerned about what you will make me do. I write the exam, just as always struck to whatever I knew and left the other questions. Coming out of the examination hall was confident that if I get through the exam, I will celebrate. I felt the exam was tough and had remote chance of getting through it. Did not wait at the examination hall to view the results. I return to RC's place, went to Church along with him, we came back and gave a call to one of our friends to know about the results. The result was 50% satisfactory as it was both good and bad, it was only me who made it through the exam and unfortunately RC could not clear the exam. Unfortunately he was the only guy who did not make it, the other fellows from my college made it to the interviews.

Now for the interview preparation, I called up another friend of mine Mr.Nrs to help me get through the interview. This guy is immensely talented, made it almost all the interviews in the campus but could not clear the interview rounds. The veteran of all these interviews was helping me clear the very first interview in a big firm. This guy explained me all the electronics subjects that I need to know. The interviews were over the period of three days and luckily I was the only person to have the interview on third day. All others from my college group had the interview in the first two days. The inputs these guys gave me were immensely useful. I remember telling to one of my friends that if the interview is more of HR, I will star and if it is technical I am gone.

The D-day was here, as I always did for exams. I went to Maa Durga temple at Nampally bus stop and hurried from there to interview. I boarded a bus, and I was sweating like anything, the conductor in the bus commented if I was sending all the liquids out of my body through my skin instead of the actual organs to be used for the purpose. I paid little interest to the comment. Made it to the office just 15 mins ahead of the scheduled interview. I was awestruck by the place, was thinking I was fortunate to be there. One of my to be senior verifies my certificates and tells me that I was just 15 mins away from the interview. He asked me to be present at the interviews at least 30 mins in advance from next time on, and luckily for me I did not have to attend another interview.

I sat in the lobby, first I was thrilled to hear the security guard call me as 'Sir' with respect. There I was given a light blue envelope of two pages and was asked to fill in the contents. I had to fill in all the stuff like personal details, hobbies etc. I filled it with whatever I could think of and sat ideally for sometime. There was a girl sitting adjacent to me, as she was ok, I didn't pay enough attention to her. Now there comes a big guy from the door in front of me, walking confidently as if he has won a battle. Looking at the guy, the first thought in my mind was "this guy will definitely get the job". This guy comes out and informs the lady sitting beside me to go to the interview room. There I sit ideally for sometime, some how the form I was supposed to fill, falls down and opens up. The I realise that there are many more columns that I am supposed to fill and my work was just half done. With the very little time left I fill in all the columns with whatever came to my mind. After that I realise that I had used up all the available space in the form, but forgot to mention the name of my role-model favourite cricketer "SRT". On the top of the last page, I wrote a line as SRT is my role model.

In some time, this girl comes out of the door tells me I was called for the interview. I go out, and another person who was my senior takes the form from my hand and asks me to wait outside the room for sometime. In the meantime I prepare mentally for the interview. I made up a strategy, I will imagine that I am talking to Dan, my best friend. Now that will get rid of the fear of talking to strangers. I was called for the interview in couple of minutes, there I found some three people sitting on the other side of the table. They ask me, introduce myself. As I was well prepared I told about myself as prepared on the advice of my friend Mr.RA. Now the interviewers asked me about my favourite topics, I told them all the hardcore electronic subjects. To my luck, none of them was from electronics background. They asked me about the very basic questions like the type of electrical connections that you have in your home, i.e. parallel, and the difference between series and parallel connection. Then asked me put down some algorithm for array calculations and I wrote some scrap there. In the meantime there enters Mr.KVS, he takes a looks at the form that I filled in and finds the line "Sachin is my role model". He brought to my notice, the then controversy of India declaring the test match innings when Sachin was on verge a double century(194*) in Pakistan. He said that Sachin plays for himself and not for the team. Being an ardent fan of SRT, that very statement made me contradict strongly. I defended Sachin in all the possible ways that I could. In the meantime it was time for Lunch, and the guy my senior who called me interview room, interrupted telling that I was a great fan of SRT. And Mr.KVS introduces himself to me and says the interview was over as it was time for lunch.

Coming out of the office, I was high in confidence not with the thought that I may get selected, but with the feeling that I was called as one of the great fans of SRT. The thought that struck my mind out of the office was I was least bothered about the job but I feel great because I was called one of the great fans of SRT. Contrary to my previous call center interviews, this time I head directly home instead of my friends places'. There was a mythological telugu movie "Ramanjaneya Yuddam" played on the television though I don't exactly remember the name of the movie, it was about the war between Lord Rama and his dearest disciple Veer Hanuman. I watched the whole movie and was praying to God to get me selected. I was informed to check the results on my mail id in the evening around 7 PM. I make it to the Internet cafe near S'Nagar wait for my turn to get the system and logged into the hot mail email Id of mine to look for the results. To my disappointment I did not find any email. I closed the browser logged into yahoo account checked the emails and found I missed one of the written exam calls for another company. Contrary to the habit of checking all the non sense pornographic stuff on the Internet, I re logged in to the hot mail and found there was an email in Junk folder.Wanted to check what it was and to my disbelief and the boundless happiness I found a message with the subject line "Congratulations! Welcome to Deloitte." There I go....ecstatic, excited, happy, joyous what not! Ran to RA's house thanking GOD for having got me through the interview and getting me the job.Could not find in home, his mother told me he was at another friends place, ran to An's place and found him there. RA congratulates me right away looking at my happy and excited behaviour. We buy some sweets and went to share this most happiest feeling till date with my mom and family. Called up all the friends and was on cloud nine. I was very very happy to see the message that day, probably one of the best messages I had seen till date and have it archived in my mail box. My mom broke into tears, my family was happy finally. Went to my grandmother's place with my friend Mr.SAJ. It was really late in the night, and my grandparents were a little shocked to find me at that time of the night. They were really happy on hearing the news and were really satisfied by remembering the way my parents brought us up in spite of the troubles they had to face. Bid good bye from grandparents home and as always went out to celebrate the moment with my regular gang of best buddies Dan, AR, PVR, SAJ and MM. Dinner at 1AM.

The next day, my father turns up from his night shift and was very happy to know the news. Gave me a hug and patted on my back, the message that understood ..'Well Done Son!". However the real surprise was yet to come. He asked me how the interview went, and was surprised to know that the interview was about Sachin rather than on the subject. Might have thought that my cricket madness and Sachin madness had at least gave me something in life to be someone. My father was /is a strong critic of cricket because of time consumed by the game. However the very first time I saw him happy because of Cricket. But even on that day, though I was already a day into my celebrations I was not completely convinced that I got a job. To my surprise some of the very favourite candidates missed out on the occasion but I made it. The very first time in my life I was going to accept an offer letter from a company, I cracked the very first interview in a consulting firm, awesome, unbelievable! I tried to get to other Internet cafes near by and wanted to to view that message again, but had initial trouble as the Internet cafes were facing some network issues in the area. However, I was to receive the offer letter the next day.

The next day was on the way to office, the bus broke down near Jubilee Hills Peddamma temple, prayed God and thanked Mataji! for having given me the job. Ran to get another bus and turned up at office in time, at least this time. Found some of these people from the bunch of 25 sitting next to me, standing in the lobby. I was high in confidence, but looking at some of these folks felt I had to be really competitive to survive here. We were led to the cafeteria (heard the word for the first time, was used to canteen all these days!), and could not believe what I was listening when SCrn, the HR Journalist who was giving us the offer letters revealed our compensation, the facilities what we would be getting. Thought for a while, were they all for us, one of the facilities that really made me jump was, we getting a cab to pick us up from home and drop us back at home for free. When SCrn called me with my full name, I turned to be his great admirer. He in fact is a great person, he later told us that we were the first batch of people recruited by him in our company and I was the last in the batch to get selected. He revealed that there were 936 candidates who attended the written exam, 161 were called for the interview, out of which 160 were interviewed and 36 were shortlisted. I felt lucky and proud that I was one among those 36 people. Out of these 36 people, 25 of us known as TMP-2 were put into this application called SAP, again the new term that I got to hear.

TMP-2 was like an extension of college days, we were put into a training room. Got through the period of one month training and a weeks induction period. The very first day of my cab to office, I found the same guy whom I thought will definitely make it to the job, none other than the big boss of our team. TMP-2 had been through some tough training periods, some collective efforts of assignment submissions, collective efforts in performing arts, tours and trips that were planned and re planned and re planned finally executed. Had a great time sticking together with these guys. Though some of them have moved on in search of good opportunities, some will move on in search of better opportunities, some have found there life long partners in the group and some have collected the gems. I personally share some life long friendships, good times, tough times and good relationships with this group also known as Virtularfila (aka TMP-2). Virtularfila is something which I can proudly claim that no dictionary will have it and no other person in this world will know about it, other than we, the TMP2.

I am thankful, to each and every person, my parents, teachers and friends in special, whose help, advise and encouragement has kept me afloat till now. Who have been with me with ups and downs, and brought me to where I am today. This would not have been possible without my friends, never in my Dreams could I imagine my existence without my friends. I would never be where I am today, if I would not have found these great human beings in my life. I am always thankful to God, for having given me such great friends! I wish these people will be with me for rest of my life too...as I feel the journey has just begun.....