Tete á Tete

What does one do after settling into a new place? . Get down to business of course. And so like any sane person I too decided it was time to get going and find myself a job. Started scanning through the paper looking for good openings in HR or in Training, and came upon an Opportunity with a Networking company that was looking for HR Generalist. I promptly sent out an application and began the dreaded process of waiting to hear from them. My prayers were answered sooner than I had hoped, and I got a call from the Head of operations, Mr. Andrew* who asked me to come over and meet him the next day around 4pm.

So, the next day I got ready, was a it apprehensive about how the interview was going to be, because it had been nearly a year since I had attended any interview. Reached their office, and made my way to the 2nd floor and as I stepped out, was greeted by a Security guard who went about asking me if I had an appointment and who I was here to meet. Gave him the details and took a seat in the waiting lounge, took a survey of the place and thought to myself “this is not a bad place to work at”. Couple of minutes had passed and I saw a head peep through the door, look towards me and say, “Please come this way”. Now, I wasn’t sure if this was the person I had come to meet or someone was guiding me to him, but I meekly followed him. He led me into a discussion room, handed a paper in front of me and asked me to fill it out and Poof, He was gone!

Took me a couple of minutes to get the form filled out, cos it was quite extensive and wanted details pertaining to my Education details right from 10th std to my MBA, took me awhile to recall my pass percentage in High school and College, but managed to get it completed. Mind you, this form was not short and sweet, it went on and on. Was starting to get antsy as I was sitting in this small room and the air-conditioning was also pretty high and I was starting to feel cold.

Finally, the door opened, and I thought it was the same person who had given me the form coming to collect it but it was another person who walked in and took a seat. It was Mr. Andrew*, after the formal introductions, he started with work related questions. Things were going well, until he interrupted me as I was telling me about my prior experience, to ask if I knew Spanish, and if I was fluent in it, I replied, “Yes, Sir, I do know the language but am not very fluent in it”. After a couple of nods he asked me to continue, only to break in once more, this time he asked how comfortable was I working in an office which was predominantly male dominated. This caught me off-guard as I had worked in big firms before this and had worked with both male and female colleagues, and it basically had made no difference to me, so I jus responded “yes, Sir, I am comfortable working in any kind of environment:

That was it, he dint ask anything further but kept looking at the form I had filled out, nodding his head couple of more times, and looked like he was muttering something to himself. I was perplexed, cos I had never attended an interview that was so vague, where I was feeling lost. Anyways, that was the end of the interview, with the promise to call me back, he showed me out. Now, we all know what it means when a person says “I’ll call you back”. Off I go in search of more opportunities and hopefully something will come along soon.

Aaarti © 27th Sep