Stepping Stones

I landed in Bangalore on 7^th March in high hopes of cracking the much hyped mu-sigma interview for the business analyst post. The job is reputed to be the perfect platform for freshers eying an MBA degree at some point in the future, as it is acclaimed to be a gem in any aspiring MBA graduate’s profile. The company visited our campus in December last year for an on-campus recruitment drive but unfortunately those of us who already have a job offer in hand were not allowed to attend the interview due to downturn in the job market. Some of us who desperately wanted the opportunity of an interview with the company, applied for the off-campus drive at Bangalore. We were shortlisted to appear for the written test on 9^th of March and that’s the story of how I ended up in Bangalore on 7^th March.

Although I was quite tensed about the interview I was confident that I would comfortably clear the written test. The only things to watch out for, I thought, are the next four rounds-the group discussion, video-synthesis and two other rounds of personal interview. Finally, when the most awaited day dawned I was cool and confident, wrote the test with a cool head and came out with a positive attitude about clearing the test. After a 45 minute wait the results were out and to my utter shock and surprise my name didn’t appear in the selected list. For a moment I couldn’t believe this and went through the list again hoping that they accidentally skipped reading my name. But no, they didn’t. For five minutes or so I was quite disappointed and couldn’t think of anything else. But then I convinced myself that whatever happened, happened for the best. I always believed in Paulo Coelho’s words in ‘The Alchemist’, that when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. But I also believe that when this doesn’t happen it only means that what we wanted is not what we needed. It is not ours and it was never meant to be.

I consider this failure a huge stepping stone towards my future as I have learnt some valuable lessons from this experience. The candidates were actually shortlisted based on how accurate they are and not on how many points they scored. This for me is the biggest takeaway lesson from this experience. At every point in life one needs to be accurate and fully confident in taking decisions with every possible consequence carefully considered rather than throwing stones in the dark. Of course sometimes in life we also need the guts to take risks, calculated risks at that, but that is an entirely different story. So for now the biggest lesson that I learnt is that clear and calculated decisions govern our lives. The decisions need to be either a yes or a no, in the sense that one should have a perfect clarity over one’s stance in anything. Most often than not it is the “maybe” that lands us in trouble. For some this might be too big a philosophy for too small an incident. I think philosophies are not about how big or small an incident or its impact is but are a way of life. It’s something that you follow in your everyday life and it’s something that defines you. With a good lesson learnt from this failure I hope to stride forward into the future with increased confidence and certainty.