SBI PO- 2014 GD/PI EXPERIENCE PART-3
Personal Interview
I mentioned before in Part-2 that 4 of us were taken to the Interview and the rest marched forward to the dining hall. Since I was number 5, I was suggested to wind up the lunch quickly. I know you are more excited about the food than the interview experience. Do not worry both bones and greens are there in sumptuous way."Pura Intezaam hai". The batches in the morning were also provided with a Snacks box; I was curious but did not have the courage to ask them.
I took a very light lunch with more salads and decided to leave the dining table early. After all I did not want to enter the interviewing room with a tooth pick in hand, caressing my tummy and resume with a belch- " karyakaram shuru kiya jaye(let the show begin)". Before I go ahead I would like to have my say on dress code.
Dress Code
I am taking the lines from Mrunal Sir's article which I liked and copy pasting it here. I hope he would not have copy right issues with me.
Copying a few lines from NSA Shiv Shankar Menon's speech to IFS officers:
"A word about dress. Some younger colleagues have asked me why dress so formally and why they could not dress as they chose. The answer is that we normally dress to make the other person take us seriously and to be persuasive, not to express our personalities or look good or stylish, or for comfort. Like it or not, people judge you by your appearance. How we dress depends on the culture we operate in and the statement we choose to make.
I have a theory about why diplomats, soldiers and bankers dress so conservatively, each in their own uniforms. Notice how the more an occupation deals with risk, the more uniform their dress is? A soldier risks his life, the banker risks your money, and the diplomat deals with the risks of war and peace. It is in order to convey the assurance that they know what they are doing, to reassure society, the client or the interlocutor that these professions dress in what amounts to a uniform. And it seems to work."(End of copy paste)
I have heard different opinions from different people. Some People ask whether they should wear a coat or not, they should knot a tie or not. Does it make them odd in the group if nobody is wearing those?
I personally feel it is all your personal choice, if you can carry a Tie or for that matter a Coat, why not wear it. But you do not want to do it on somebody else's advice if you are not comfortable with it, why you will like to suffocate yourself when the situation is already like a hot pressure cooker. I personally prefer a dark trouser(mostly black) and light colored shirt(especially white) with a dark formal tie. But I would like to reiterate, it is all about your comfort Zone.
As far as Lady's are concerned, in my batch a lady wore a black coat and trouser, she managed herself well. But In my opinion nothing beats when a lady enters a room in a light colored Cotton Salwar Suit, with hair properly tugged behind, with no or very light make up and no accessories except a watch on her left hand, wearing sandals with no heel. But again it is all about your personal choice and opinions and we can agree to disagree on that.
INTERVIEW
Moving ahead, I entered confidently into the waiting hall. It does not matter how many interviews you have given before or how much confident you were before, the pressure starts to build in. If I will count from my final year, it was going to be the 26 or 27th time (of course with zero success rate) that I have entered into the final or penultimate stage of a recruiting process but still I found a new situation to worry about. This was the first time a lady was in the panel of men, I was circumspect whether to wish the lady first or the President. I asked the coordinating officer. He was very friendly. He said again this is a personal choice and it varies but he said when you will enter the room the president will be in front of you.
The room in which we were interviewed was of Arundhati Madam's. A year back I had a IBPS po interview and when I entered, the room ended before it started. When the green light glowed and I could hear the buzzer, I got ready and entered the room with confidence, at least tried to look confident. It was not just a room but an opulent suite, and the process was conducted in the first half of the room. There was couch parallel to me and two other perpendicular to it, on each side. A chair was at somewhat 9 to 10 feet from the central couch. That was of course for me. I think the arrangement should be like this or a U table when more people are in the panel.
The president and one more gentleman was sitting on the central couch, lets call them P and R1. The lady and one more gentleman was sitting on the couch left to me, let us call them W and L1 respectively. Then finally one more gentleman sat on my right side couch, He is R2. Once again to clarify the sitting arrangement- clock wise from me - W, L1; P,R1; R2
The president was in front of me, I wished him then the lady and the others. I was offered the seat. I sat using the whole depth of the chair, with back aligning to the chair and hands resting on the thighs. I went by the book and followed all the so called standard operating procedures but I was nervous. I think almost everyone had my Bio-data in his hand. Mr President broke the ice.
P: Alright Avinash, You have done Electrical and Electronics Engineering.(I am engineering graduate, 2012 passout) What is the difference between Electrical and Electronics Engineer??
(he straight away hit on my sore nerve, the question was expected but I was caught unprepared)
Me: Electrical is about the basic concepts of Electricity and electronics is all about it's application.(I was reluctant)
P: (Pointing towards the AC) what is it Electrical or Electronic device??
Me: (Unsure) Electronic device
P: Why??(aise kaise chorr dun beta- he must have thought)
Me: it works on the principle (he looked unconvinced)
P: Alright if the cooler at my home stops working whom should I call, electrical or electronics......(I interrupted ,I was getting cornered and was moving nowhere, I had no options)
Me: I am getting confused Sir.(the lady looked at P and smiled, as i have raised up both my hands up in the air and signaled that you could not shoot me any more )
P: (with a smile) Am I confusing you ?
Me: No sir (I was a name sake engineer, I get irritated even when somebody calls me that)
P: You did your course from VTU. What does it stands for??
Me: Visvesvaraya Technological University (for the first time I was confident)
P: who was he?
Me: (confidently, i wanted to punch in the air) a renowned Civil engineer. Engineer's day celebrated on his birthday. Krishna sagar dam in mandya is built by him.(he looked at me as if saying- beta pura ratta mar k aaye ho)
(I knew this but another candidate from same university refreshed it in the waiting hall)
P: What is your college's name??
Me: RNSIT (he expected the full form) Rama Nagappa Shetty institute of technology.
P: where is it??
Me: channasandra, banshankri- kengri link road(still he was giving a - dude no idea look) South Bangalore (the only option left with me)
P: who won that constituency seat in lok sabha election(where did that came from)
Me: Anant kumar, he is a central minister now (I noticed him during the election when he was releasing the names of BJP candidates, my friend comes from the same region and I discussed the same with him, so luckily remembered)
P: his famous political rival in that constituency (Should i remind him that i had to leave Bangalore 2 years back and i have been 1000 miles away now and no longer exists there, but when you apply for all India services, you better be Indian first)
Me: nandan nilekani
p: who is he ?
me: worked at Infosys and chairman of UIDAI
P: who is the CM of Karnataka
Me: Siddaramaiya
P: party??
Me: congress
P: Who is Shashi Tharoor? (The only reason I could make out now that why I was asked so much about political personalities is that in GD I talked about political will, political instability, political symbolism etc, perhaps i used the tabooed word a way too many times and i was bearing the burnt)
Me: MP from Kerela
P: from which constituency
Me: No idea,sir
P: what is the capital of Kerala?
Me: Thiru-vanantpuram (I stammered)
P: He is from there. Why he was recently in news?
Me: Sir, he praised Mr PM and was removed from the congress spokesperson
P: what do you know more about him?
Me: He came second to Ban ki moon for the post of general secretary in UN
P: do you know about his personal life?
Me: Are you talking about his wife?
P: Oh yes. What was her name?
Me: Sunanda pushkar
P: what happened to her?
M:She was found dead in her room in leela palace hotel in Delhi(That's how they showed in the news)
P: what happened to her?
Me: the case is under investigation ( I replied as if I am the Investigating officer and he is some journalist from a media house)
P: Why she was in news recently?
Me: the AIIMs doctor gave a report that she had poison in her viscera.
Anyways the post is going way to long, I will cut it short. He asked few questions about Mr. Modi like where did he fought elections from? Which constituency did he leave and why?
P: which 2 countries did he visited last month?
Me: US
P: and? (I remembered the countries but I had doubt about the last month)
Me: Brazil?
P: no
Me: Nepal?
P: no
Me: Bhutan? (This type of guess work is dangerous, puts you in bad light)
P: no
Me: (I quitted) I do not know
P: Japan (I felt like saying are haan yaar,de taali, I controlled my emotions)
Later he asked about the twin sister pact between Varanasi and the japan city. I replied.
P: Kyoto is famous for?
Me: Kyoto protocol on Global warming.
P: it was way back, of late?
Me: No idea,sir
P: what was the pact about Kashi and Kyoto?
Me: I do not know but with your permission can I make a guess?
P: Please go ahead.
me: Sir, Mr. Modi fought election on making Kashi clean and may Kyoto will help in the cause.(I unnecessarily pushed and that was an absurd and immature answer, when was the last time foreign policies formulated on stupid election campaign promises.)
P: anyways in GD you said Ranchi, Raipur and Dehradun are smart cities. Are they?
Me: (I corrected myself) No sir what I meant was that they are now better in infrastructure than before. They are not smart cities.
P: what is a smart city?
Me: I defined
P: how many smart cities government planning to make?
Me: 100
Finally Mr. President took a glass of water and gave the Baton to R1.
R1: You stayed in Bangalore for 4 years but did not learn Kannada?
(There was column in bio data which mentions the languages you know apart English and I wrote only Hindi)
Me: Sir, I know elementary Kannada, but I am not fluent. I can communicate though.(No Ulloo banaing, No Ulloo banaing)
R1: Can you respond me in Kannada?
Me: ( I was completely trapped, I hardly knew more than few words) I will try Sir (held my breath).
R1: Did you have your lunch?
Me: Ootta itta Sir (I was just lucky that day and every one of them broke into a smile)
I remember when I was in the first semester of my college, I was in PG. The mess boy used to bring our Tiffin and used to shout 'Oota Aaita'. Later the watchman used to ask us 'Ootta Itta bhaiya' I used to say 'itta, itta' . The tag line of KBC is completely apt 'Sikhna band to jitna Band'.
I have put Bangalore as one of my preferred circle and may be that can be the reason , so many question on Karnataka.
R1 said that he is done and pointed towards R2.
R2: Aap hame kaun se jagah ghumana chahenge Karnataka me
(He was only one to speak in Hindi but that was broken it seems he was from south and I had put travelling as one of my interests)
Me: Ooty, Mysore to hai hi, Bangalore bhi, Mangalore bhi, Bi..dar
R2: Bidar me kya hai
Me: Gul..(Mr P thought I want to say Gulbarga)
Actually I wanted to say gol gumbaj in Bijapur but that was not coming.
Me: I do not remember one.
Finally W: you have mentioned two email id's here. When and where did it come from?
Me: Madam, internet was developed from US def...( I was interrupted)
W: No, No, I am asking about email.
Me: (with less confidence) hotmail from India, I do not know the year.
W: (she corrected me politely) An Indian developed it but it did not start from India.
Me: Alright madam.(they looked at each other and Mr P said )
P: Alright thank you Avinash.
Mr L1 did not ask anything. I was mostly interviewed by Mr President, other Panelist hardly each question each.
The way SBI conducted the process, it clearly draws a line and stamps that it remains the market giant or it may be, mine art of exaggeration.
There were no intimidating Questions and sarcasm involved but it will be naive to say that they were there to pamper me. The situation is like a double edged sword, when your head was taken off your shoulder, you will hardly get to know.
There were no questions from Banking and Economy but no question was at random. The interview revolved around Current
affairs, political personalities, Karnataka Circle and the Bio-data. But irrespective of what has happened ,they were great personalities and interacting with them was great learning experience, especially the way Mr president used to speak, with sheer clarity and immotility, only Vajpayee sahab could have bettered him.
We can only analyse what we have said but how we have said, just leave that only to assessors . So, to judge an interview is not always an intelligent thing to do.
The mistake I did was that I did not smile during the whole Interview. Sometimes I pushed way too far. I can only perceive and perceptions are bound to be wrong.
Long back I have stopped speculating the results because whether we pass or fail, we have to keep moving forward, if we fall back, nobody will wait for us."
Anyways it is almost the end of SBI PO 2014 for me and it will be unfair if I will not be grateful to the portals which helped in the preparation.
Sources of Preparation: Mrunal.org, bankersadda, Gr8Ambitonz, pagalguy
Thank you for reading the long post and all the best.
At the end- " If you can, you can only hang our bodies, not our dreams" (context- Mangal Pandey)