Understanding the Art of Interview: My Personal Account (Part - 1)
Note: During my six years stay in Delhi, I was associated with three different kinds of professions. For more than three years I was in Journalism and then I worked as Copy Editor at various educational books publication houses. Two of these professions i.e. Journalism and Copy Editing have some commonalities. In journalism, apart from reporting an event, you also need to be a copy editor at the desk whose job is to correct the linguistic and grammatical errors and to convert the content into presentable form. The same work is assigned to Copy Editor at publication houses. In the middle of these two professions I took up to BPO jobs due to seemingly glittering prospects of earning high salaries. For around one and half year I worked with international and domestic call centers. Here the experience was totally different. I attended many interviews and faced different kinds of questions. These questions are commonly asked to interviewees. I thought to post few queries and my response to them in different interviews. These interviews also speak of my way of thinking and my personal account. I hope that it might be of some help for those struggling in the same stages.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Tell us something about yourself?
About my nature
Tell us something about your native city?
A memorable day or moment or event of your life?
Why do we hire you?
What are your skills?
What are your achievements till date?
Why did you leave a career in media, which is considered today a fascinating and powerful profession?
Why didn’t you take up you father’s business?
What is your objective of life?
Tell us something about yourself?
I am ….. belong to ….. I have been staying in Delhi for the last 3 years. I had my schooling from Modern Senior secondary school, Kota, which is one of the pioneers in English medium of instruction in my native city. I did my graduation from Govt. College Kota, affiliated to MDS University, Ajmer. I had English literature as an optional subject in my senior secondary and also in graduation. I commenced my career in Delhi as a Trainee Jouranalist in a weekly magazine Radiance Viewsweekly for two years. There I used to do all editorial related works like proofreading, editing, writing features and articles and conducting interviews. Due to low salary I switched over to BPO where I joined an international BPO by the name of JustFares.com. I got the job in the very first attempt and I accepted it as a good opportunity. It is basically a Seattle-based traveling agency running their BPO in Okhla Phase I. I worked there for a year. One of the foremost reasons to join BPO was to improve my communicating skill in English language and to get proper exposure with the international community. And I did learn from it. I also worked at a domestic call center but left after few months as there were fewer chances to improve conversational skill in English there.
About my nature.
I am a typical Indian and I love my country, my culture and my people like any other Indian does. But like any person I also have my own peculiar nature or demeanor. I am slightly emotional and slightly humorous person. I am introvert as well as extrovert depends upon relations and situation I am dealing with. I can befriend with all kinds of people. But I retain only a few intimate friends. I have all kind of friends that includes intimate, professional and casual friends.
I firmly believe in ethics and morality. They should prevail in the society.
By ethics and morality I mean mutual trust, feeling of sacrifice without personal interest, caring and good treatment with downtrodden or underdog section of the society, good should be rewarded and evil should be punished, faithfulness in relations and loyalty to each human being in general and with the ones who put trust in us in particular.
A memorable day or moment or event of your life?
Like anybody else, my wedding day was memorable day for me. Apart from the general happiness that people have on marriage ceremony, I had some additional happiness to rejoice. I was against dowry system, some rituals that are performed during marriage ceremony like fixing of mehar on credit at the time of nikah, which is never paid in whole life and wife is requested to remit it later. It is also considered sinful in Islam. But these rituals were strictly followed by my community. I decided to break them off. Before marriage I met my father-in-law and told him that I will not accept any dowry and that I will give cash mehar instead of fixing of mehar on credit. We have a conference or congregational marriage system in which about 25 to 75 couples tie the knot collectively in an interval of 2 or 3 years. The parties from both the side charged very small amount of fees and every newly wed couple is provided with some equipment of basic needs. It is compulsory on both rich and the poor of the community to get their relatives married in the congregation.
My father-in-law accepted the condition but my father opposed my move. Giving of cash mehar was also against the rule of our community. I had already discussed the issue of dowry, cash meher with my father-in-law and we were agreed upon nominal meher since I didn’t have the capability to pay a large sum of money while I was totally depended on my parents. My all friends were on my side and my family was against me.
At the time of nikah the Maulvi or Muslim cleric asked me about how much meher I would allowed to fix. Since my father was not supporting me and I had the capability to pay a small amount of money. And further more in cash. Even the cleric was shocked because he also had not performed any marriage of cash mehar for long. He tried to push me to accept non-cash mehar contract. But I didn’t yield rather I said I would not accept the term and I am not going to be married otherwise. They called my father and my in-laws and many other influential people to pressurize me but no avail. My father-in-law gave his consent by accepting the condition. Finally they had to agree upon it and thus my nikah was conducted.
I and my friends were very much happy on that day because of breaking age old tradition. There was discussion about me every where in the conference and people were coming to see me.
For many days I had bitterness with my parents on the issue of dowry and mehar.
Tell us something about your Kota city?
Kota is a well-known educational hub for pre-medical, pre-engineering and pre-IIT’s coaching institutes. There was news recently in TOI appreciating Kota’s coaching institute estimating that at this time Kota’s coaching institute along capturing 50 to 60 percent seats of prominent IITs in India. Kota is also known for its evergreen Chambal Garden. The Chambal Garden is situated at the river bank of Chambal. Whenever the name of Rajasthan is come into the minds of people there comes a concept of desert where there are hot winds blowing and lack of water and vegetation. But Kota is entirely different in this aspect. There is 24 hours pure drinking or potable water supply. The water there is soft water and it takes lots of water to wash away small amount of soap. So we are habituated with using lots of water for small things. We only realize the worth of clean water when we are out of Kota. Kota is a rocky area where there is no desert surrounding it hundred of miles. Rather we have an evergreen river Chambal flowing in middle of the city and till now its water is very clean as I saw the water of many prominent rivers in India is highly polluted. But unfortunately, thanks to the thermal power plant of Kota and lots of other industries that are mushrooming very fast, pouring all its impurities in the river. It will not take much time to pollute the Chambal as well. Kota is also an industrial city. Kota alone has three big power plants of India which utilizes all the major means to generate electricity. They are hydroelectricity, thermal and atomic power plant. Atomic power plant is among the few in India. We have some famous industry giants like Samcore, JK and Iffco. Kota has a very strategic location in terms of transportation and natural resources. The railway routs of prominent metropolitan cities passes through Kota. Kota is also bestowed with Kota stone which similar to marble and other precious stone in quality but comparatively cheaper. It is slightly grayish or greenish-coloured stone.
My locality is also situated at the river bank of Chambal and it is the place where we can say the Kota’s current civilization emerged and spread later in other parts of the city. There are lots of people from different parts of India migrating to Kota for its good location and availability of natural resources and other basic needs like abundance of water and electricity. There is a special train service for Kota from Nizamuddin, New Delhi.
Why do we hire you? What are your skills?
For Call Centre:
As I have an English Literature background and good at verbal and written English I believe that it is a suitable career for me with respect to earning money and achieving respectful position. I want to become an accent trainer since I have theoretical knowledge of phonetics and I also worked upon it practically but until I get complete exposure it would not be possible to achieve expertise. I have formal knowledge of differences between American and British accent and phonetic transcription. Once I would be engaged in this job, I would have opportunities in India and abroad as well. I may get advantages of this skill in other fields as well. Surely our efforts has prominent place in making our destiny, but God has kept with him a crucial part of fate which is out of our control. Nevertheless, let us do our part.
What are your skills?
For Call Centre
It seems to me a very strange question to enumerate our skill and competence since it would be similar to appreciate oneself by one’s own tongue. With regards to BPO I would say
I am flexible in working at any time, I rarely feel wink of sleep working in night shifts.
I have the capacity to adept to any kind of environment, have necessary convincing capability, can work under pressure and well-acquainted with the official working environment.
For Journalism
I can write good English with grammatical precision and accuracy, and can write articles and features on social and political issues. Similarly I can express myself on any common subject in English.
What are your achievements till date?
My academic achievement is that I managed, although with lots of difficulty, to do my Post Graduation in English and Post Graduate diploma in Journalism while I had a very little salary and time; a family to look after without substantial support except from Allah. I was a full time media professional in the day and a regular student of PG diploma course in Journalism in the evening.
My professional achievement is to become an English journalist and a writer which was equal to impossible for me before coming to Delhi. I realized in my life that things look greater, different and difficult from distance until we deal with them.
Professionally, I didn’t like journalism, but I had the urge since from my young age to write on social and political issues. I always felt that I should contribute something to my society or at least words of just advice. First I want to settle myself financially then I would like to become a freelance journalist.
Why did you leave a career in media, which is considered today a fascinating and powerful profession?
Why I didn’t like journalism as a profession is because I found it very difficult to make progress in journalistic career if we are true to certain principles. Whatever may be the reality, you have to present a fact according to the ideology of a newspaper or magazine. Being a Muslim, we are destined to face certain other prejudices in capitalist media.
Other reason is that it takes long time to earn a good salary in journalism. There are too tight deadlines to finish your job. It is a very risky job too. There is a danger of entangling in a situation while covering it or entering into an area where there is possibility of violation of law and host of other reason. Just see what happen to the editor of Tehelka for exposing the ugly face of current politics. One of my friend who was also my senior, conducted series of sting operations for prominent news channels. He informed me about the ugly faces of many prominent politicians and government officials against whom no one care dare to speak in spite of having self-speaking evidence against them. Current media is no more than a stooge serving the interest of capitalists and diverting the attention of people from common real issues which the political system is unable to solve. Therefore, I decided to take it as a hobby for me but not as a profession.
For call center
Working in night shift for six months was also an achievement for me. Previously, I thought about it nearly impossible to go for it more than one or two months. But I didn’t find any difficulty working in night. My team leader was working in night shift for more than five years.
Why didn't you take up you father’s business?
In the beginning of adopting a profession I was thinking of engaging myself in my father’s business that’s why I didn’t care much about my studies after secondary education but later I found it unsuitable with my attitude. There one used to deal with lots of Thelawalas (labourers) most of them are illiterate and it had been a culture that until you dealt with them harshly they did not work. They spend the money given to them on credit and then returned for job. They were never regular with their job. There were certain other risks in the profession. If a Thelewala bought a stolen good, may be in ignorance, the scrape trader have to face the brunt of the law.
But after my graduation I felt that job would really a good option for me. Then I started my career as a teacher at my paternal uncle’s school.
What is your objective of life?
To fulfill all of my responsibilities. To excel high in life, financially as well as socially. To achieve an honorable post in an institution where I work. What a man need “roti, kapda, makaan aur izzat” i.e. food, cloth, shelter and honour. And to achieve the pleasure of God in this life and hereafter by following His guidance. I cannot think beyond this objective.
Posts
