The Hunters

Roughly 100,000 well qualified talented professionals leave India every year to seek greener pastures in the western world. What does that mean to India? I am not going to talk about it. I am going to share my first hand experience of the entire ordeal when an already successful professional transforms in to a new avatar of a student and finally ends up as a hunter. Hunter! Yes, a Job-hunter.

I can still hear the tinkling of bells and see the flicker of camphor flame during the little puja which was performed at my house, by a local pundit just 48 hours before I was to catch BA 147 from CCU to Heathrow. Many of our neighbours came to wish me luck and socialise on that Sunday afternoon. One of them with a mouthful of sweets said " Beta kyon jaa rahe ho parents se dur itna accha khasa naukri chor ke ?" and another lady in her mid fifties was more worried about the prospects of me finding a firangi damsel and settling down with her. Amongst these tangential concerns, My mind was occupied with another risky proposition round the corner. I had withdrawn every paise from my bank account, every rupee from my provident fund and sold of all the blue-chips that I had accumulated for the next boom. All that amounted to little more than Rs. 6 lacs or just £4800. To top it up I had taken a small loan of £8000 roughly Rs 6.5 lacs. All this was not for another degree but for the next big thing that I was desperate to deserve. I had never an iota of doubt on my abilities but I surely felt like Johnny Depp all set to find Neverland. Hopes of which dwindled with every terror incident that kept happening in London and its surrounds. 7/7 bombings in London was still stealing the headlines across the planet.

It was my day of departure, 5 AM and still I had an old friend, an ex-classmate to see me off at Netaji Subhash Air terminal. Amongst the usualities, all we discussed was if I would find an opportunity somewhere across the oceans to fetch a return on my investment. She assured me of all the success that was waiting for me. But I had a strange feeling within me...restlessness (much more than usual) and an unknown pressure even when the jet was scaling higher altitudes and pressure was supposed to dropped. Laws of Physics defied.

The very first thing that they mention in any top-notch b-school these days is a trite "Don't pretend that you have come here to absorb a knowledge explosion! Set your CV right, start networking and find yourself a job with a big pay-cheque." Any newbie in a strange land would be taken aback with this strange revelation. So was I. Unlike many others, my predicament inflated several times when I learnt about the work permit issues. "You can't get an interview call unless you have a permission to work here" said a Phd student who was lot more wiser (it was his 3rd year) as he had seen many before me struggle and fail.

I realized it in time, just before the icy winter of 2005. When my European friends were planning for Christmas feasts, I was finalising 48th version of my CV. I was not alone. Quite a few Indians were in the same league. Each day of Christmas vacation was spent on filling web application to most of the familiar names in the fortune 500 list. But no response. We found solace in the fact that it was vacation time and they will get back to us after January. But it was not to be.

I spent 70% of my time hunting. Hunting for an opportunity. Hunting for jobs can be very tricky. You might be the right person but not at the right time or may be at the wrong place or maybe with a wrong approach. All of these independently and in combination came to pass with every rejection that landed into my mailbox. The frequency of failures was increasing with every passing week but the impact of a rejection kept diminishing. Not that I was getting any stronger but I was getting impervious to this everyday pain.
I had my first interview in first week of March. It was GE Healthcare. I left everything behind and I was prepared to answer any question under the sun. It felt like as if it was Godsend. An answer to all my prayers. I of course chose my best shirt, better of the two suits I possessed then and had my longest shower in England until that morning. I trimmed my nails and I did every other thing that added no value but made me feel good and confident. Interview was fabulous. I clearly impressed my interviewer. He came out to the Amersham main road to see me off. Quite an unusual thing in England. He had kind words to tell and he asked me, if I really wanted to work as a production planner. I said “yes” with an effervescence that would match my enthusiasm if I get the Prime Minister’s chair. I am not sure if the gentleman was convinced though! I made my long journey from Amersham to Central London and then I was on my way back to Cranfield. Coincidentally, it was also my first train journey outside of India. Now after the interview, I was trying to come to terms with £22 which I had to spend for a displacement of less than 80 Km. Most of my train journeys would make me think of the ROI factor and about the oil politics and ways to make transportation petroleum free. But that I day I was telling myself that Britain is a weird country. Healthcare is free but travel inspires you to seek freedom from here. They lost their greatness long ago yet they call themselves “Great” Britain. What a highjackery of a simple word from their own language.

Every moment spent in the campus for next 24 hrs was like an dilated time frame. I was desperate for a good news. Finally, My phone rang and the HR manager broke the news in her sweet but unapologetic voice, “ We are sorry! Though Martin thinks very highly of you but you are obviously overqualified for the position”. I was shell shocked. I did no wrong. My performance was flawless. It took me a good few weeks to digest this. All wise me who failed and were now PHD students asked me to take it easy and said it was normal to get such responses if you didn’t have a work permit. The euphoria of being first in my class to seek an interview died a tragic death.

This was not the end for me. I decided to step up my efforts in my tryst with widely accepted destiny. I still had a lot of steel left in me. March 26th 2006, I had my first round with Mckinsey and my second train journey to london, in less than a month. Two very senior partners interviewed me and I was told on the same day that I made it to the next round, which was a month later. I thought at least there was some return on £22 journey back and forth.
I became a subject of discussion in my school, even in the teaching fraternity. I was convinced this was my chance and because it had to come, I was rejected by GE.
I was a man on the mission of my life. I read every single Mckinsey article that was present on WWW and two books – “Mckinsey way” and “the Mckinsey Mind” recommended universally. This all was happening alongside the regular tuition, examinations and some unexpected challenges that came along the way. I had stopped worry about the world and my mind was single dimensional – second round @ Mck. April second week – I see three more principals from their German and London offices and solved three more cases to their satisfaction. They obviously shied away from talking more on Lean manufacturing after they heard me for a couple of minutes. One of them went on to say that I should be through. I was again waiting for my phone to ring. I was delighted to hear it from the HR that I had made to the next round, which will be a mere formality. Though it was not going to happen until end of May. I was on cloud nine and very much in the “man on a mission” mode. The only problem was I had exhausted all that I could read. It was a tough to have an opportunity and time to prepare for it, but not a clue on what I should be working on. I would spend time preparing, mainly reading humongous articles on consulting, lean and Six-Sigma. Most of it was trash by confused practitioners. Also, I would spend my time dreaming about my future life – playing cricket; tennis, swimming, traveling, fishing, sampling desi cuisines in exotic London restaurants and an endless trail of imagination soaked in lavishness & extravagance.

The D day was there. I went through the usual ritual of making a tough selection on what to wear from a very limited set of options. Each option being a combination based on a new shirt which I managed to buy specially for this interview. Was it a worthy investment? I invested £22 again on my way to Jermyn street, very focused and determined to make it. After a quick interview, I met my second assessor of the day. He was a finance guy, who advised investment banks for more than 20 years. He knew nothing about what I was good at. He gave me a case to solve which was a typical corporate finance problem. Obviously, I had to do things from first principles and with a greater level of nervousness. I still managed it in less than 30 minutes with 15 more minutes to go. Now I was with this gentleman who was almost a braggart. He told me all the big things he did at Mck. So much so that at one point I was irritated. I asked him “ why don’t you start investing on your own, or why don’t Mck does that?”. He gave me a long explanation which I knew was fake. How on earth can a consultant admit that consultants have a low risk appetite, hence they make their clients take risks. However, it was good overall. Though the chemistry between me and my last interviewer was not great. I was told that final results will be intimated after 3 days. It was obviously going to be a long wait. I finally hear from them. I was rejected. They did ask me if I would like to join their India office as there requirements were met by then. But my concerns over ROI made me stay put to continue with my struggles in one of the most quite and heavy phases of my life so far.
Now it was a steep fall from cloud nine. I had hardly any time left in the university and I was very much without a plan B. I felt like I died and now I have taken rebirth in a well, from where there was no where out. The predicaments described by PHDs were almost looking like a certainty. Now there were at least half a dozen people around me with a firm offer. Local pub, the CSA bar was almost full in the evenings with someone celebrating, and I was locked in my little room. I had two choices. Give up or continue filling up obscure web forms endlessly and without much hope.

I chose to look for hope. I started sending 8 to 10 applications every day. What was pleasing was that I was getting more interview calls but all ended in similar fashion – “we don’t sponsor work-permits”. However, to cope with these new interviews, I moved to Milton Keynes, much closer to the railways station and greater ease to catch trains to obscure corners of England. I had spent close to £600 traveling for interviews, but the result was the same. I had nowhere to go within next thirty days. My count of applications have reached 700+ and now I had also reapplied to many of the firms. Getting a consulting role was long forgotten priority, now was ready to do any kind of work. I had around 7 different versions of my CV for different sectors but end result was still the same. For the first time in life, I felt helpless and understood the real meaning of frustration. It was a breaking point. I was almost losing it. I decided to take a break and flew to Zurich with a friend. After all if had to go back to India empty handed, at least I would have seen a shade of Europe. Earlier I managed to see Scotland as a tourist, rest of UK I could see only on my interview-trail.

I was back from Alps but without much change in scheme of things. The moment to jump off the hill was getting near, occasionally I would find myself brooding over my decisions and on few occasions with real tear drops. It was one of those days, probably in the second last week of my student life when I could take it no more. I was in tears when I was telling my predicament to a friend. Bull run of my life was replaced by a failure waiting for me, just 7 days away. I was humbled and soon after I was in conversation with an imaginary God, with a sense of submission. The hunter finally became hunted. That night I found it easier to sleep and It was the last night of uncertainty.

At the break of the dawn I got a phone call. Fairline Boats have made me an offer plus the commitment to deal with my work permit. It was the most ecstatic feeling of my life. I made lot of phone calls around the world. I never knew, that a 30K offer could make me feel so great.

The next day I got another phone call, this time it was Perkins. they offered me 40K plus the work permit. From nowhere, I had two concrete offers in less than 36 hrs.
Now, I was hit by the feeling that I wanted to a consultant. I started ringing active consulting leads. Three more days in university and I got my first consulting offer from Boxwood group and an interview invitation from Booz Allen. Now the new offer was twice my first offer, but the feeling of joyousness was not the same. First hand experience of Marshall’s law of diminishing marginal utility.

However, I joined Boxwood on 4th of Sept, which was supposed to be the last working day at Cranfield. I was again in a train to midlands, with little less that £500 as my net worth. As the train caught speed, I was again reminded of my return on investment theory. ROI was no longer a food for thought, for sure this journey had good returns in store.

Very soon I was traveling to parts of Europe for Booz interviews. During one of the interviews, the Savoy court building caught fire. The building was vacated and I had to solve the case on the Strand. My interviewer was clearly impressed and I secured the Booz offer before Christmas of 2006. I spent about 3 months at Boxwood and I join Booz on their Christmas celebrations. This time I could feel that Christmas is something special. It has a special smell and music, quite unlike the previous one.

Now this story of my chase is heavily blessed by extraordinary forces. In many cases these forces don’t interfere and a job hunter meets a different and not so pleasant ending. I want to leave all such souls who are contemplating such a risk to rethink their decisions, before they find themselves in an endless battle without any life. 2006 certainly was one of the most quiet periods of my life, when I did not play any cricket, didn’t enjoy new recipes and never felt like my usual self.