Interview in KarMic Manipal.

I had heard about KarMic a lot of times in my department from HOD Prof. B. L. Desai, and seniors. They were all praise about the company. Though I did not have a feel of how and what KarMic was, I thought it was like any other company. Its was a pre-conceived notion that there would be huge glass-paned buildings, well furnished cabins etc. Afterall thats what companies were all about!

As the 'City Ride' (Vehicle hired for the interview candidates) entered Manipal, I began to look for the KarMic building. There were quite a few "structures" there- KMC, Syndicate Bank HQ etc; all passed by. No KarMic yet. Looking out of the window I saw a huge complex. I thought that was the Company. I was so excited. As the 'City Ride' inched closer to the complex I realised it was MIT hostel. Where is KarMic?! "We will know when we reach there", I told myself.

We finally reached there. Though not into the company yet, but home where we had to get fresh and ready for the interview. We hardly had any time for it as we were late because of a minor accident near Yellapur on our way to Manipal. We lost about 3 hours there! We felt at ease with the Seniors' hospitality. We got ready in no time and reached the training premises. I could find only a bunch of rented houses there; no wonder i was surprised. But I was able to get it out of mind because I had to concentrate on the interview. After a brief address by Mahantshetti Sir, we went to the interview.

Seniors had told me that the interview would be for 6 hours! I tried my best to prepare myself mentally for it. The questions were quite basic. I answered a few and honestly admitted when I didn't know the answer. Having a good attitude was all that was important. Rest I left to God. 3 hours passed by in the blink of an eye. I enjoyed the first session. During lunch we discussed the interview questions. After lunch I looked for a place to keep my plate. It was there I learnt my first work culture lesson- cleaning your own plate. It was a humble gesture and upheld the spirit of doing our own work. Moreover it makes sense in cleaning your plate (which takes a few minutes) than leave it there for hours for someone else to clean it. I practice it even in my home, reduces my mom's work a bit.

Second session was no different, except for Mahantshetti sir was there in the interview panel for about 30 minutes. He was not satisfied with plain conventional answers and made me think really hard and look into details which we usually ignore (example wire resistance). It was a great experience interacting with him.

After 5 hours of interview, I was finally out in the open. It was not as painful as I assumed it to be. Interviewers were quite friendly and encourged us to work on the answers and gave sufficient time. In the evening we played cricket with the seniors while others were evaluating our performance. We gatherd together for the result. Before that we had some light moments. My heart raced as Sir took the paper in his hand to announce the seleted candidates' names. With a few words of encourgement he started reading the names. I somehow convinced myself I had done well and had nothing to lose. It was a good experience. I kept my fingers crossed. My name was second last in the list and it was read out.

It was such a releaving moment. Finally I had made it. It was a mixed feeling for me. I was very happy with my selection. But 2 of my close friends were not on the list. I would really miss there company in the future and it made me feel sick. There were "congrats" and "its alright" heard all around. I prefered to keep a low profile and be in my friends' company. I tried to encourage them as they were clearly disappointed. We silently retired to the bus and took our seats. I told my parents about my selection and they were extremely happy. Surely there would be lots of phone calls to the relatives. A very eventfull day of my life came to an end.

Campus Recruitment Fever

Come sixth semester and everyone is anxious about the campus selection. Finding a job through walk-in is really tough unless you are blessed with a brilliant brain and destiny. I was not sure if I had either of them. Thus, getting selected in the Campus Recruitment in my college was on top of my agenda.

I was fairly confident of making it to one of the many Software Companies that visited our campus. But being a Electronics student, software was never my field of interest. For 4 full years you study all the electronics and communication stuff, and finally you land up in a software company with only programming language known being C (and C++ if you chose it as an elective). This didn't really interest me. Still worse, once you land into a software company, you undergo training in such topics as JAVA, .NET etc which my computer science counterparts study in their engineering curriculum as part of their semester program. Hence, a Software job was just an option ( there are more worse things like not being employed after graduation).

During the course of 6th semester there were quite a few seminars, some of them on system on chip, VLSI etc. Resource persons talked about what was expected of freshers aspiring for a career in emdedded systems or VLSI. It induced some confidence in me. One such talk was by Mr. Vivek Powar, which really inspired me to look seriously into getting a job which was in my field of interest-VLSI or emdedded systems.

August 2, 2006- the day when recruitment was scheduled to begin in our college. The list of companies was long, most of them software. The problem was if got selected in a software company during the initial rounds of campus selection, I was out of the race because the Placement officer didnt allow selected students to appear for other companies' selection process. And Companies of my interest came quite late, after lots of software companies. In such a situation it was a great relief to see KarMic and Sankalp having their selection procss in the last week of july 2006; KarMic on July 23, 2006 and Sankalp on july 27, 2006.

Dillemma never seem to end. Earlier it was Hardware or Software. This time it was KarMic or Sankalp!
Couple of issues made me go with KarMic-
1. Its selection date was before Sankalp.
2. Sankalp had jus started operation and companies often have turbulent times in the initial phase. Meanwhile Karmic was 7 year old and much talked about in our department.
So there I was, on board a bus to Manipal on july 22, 2006, for interview to KarMic. It was the First company I was interview for. Would it be the last ( during engineering), I was not sure.