Mind boggling job interviews

Free Thinker *

Few moons ago there was a large scale employment drive. Due to paucity of time in many of the cases the written tests were done away with and only the deserving candidates were called straightaway for viva voce. The screening for selection of deserving candidates was done on the basis of the class VIII score , Matric mark , PU/PUC percentage , Degree quality , MA performance etc. etc.

Accordingly cut-offs were decided on the basis of convenient ratios (vacancies : candidates), many a times it was 5:1, sometimes 7:1, other-times 10:1 and rarely beyond that . In fact there was no uniformity of convenience.

The interviews were held in a very confidential manner rather in a clandestine way. Unreliably it was learnt that an interviewee was called over her mobile phone to come for the oral test. Perhaps they were asked not to disclose the venue and time of their personality test to others.

A few oral tests were conducted at night. We can understand the seriousness, secrecy and significance of such drive keeping in view our SEVEN lac educated unemployed in a population of 30 lacs.

Moreover this hefty recruitment drive was held in an arduous time; because it was coincided with the demonitization or remonitization period. The recruiters and recruitees had a grueling time to have a smooth recruitment process. Even though barter system was an available option; it was not very convenient.

In one of such interviews one gentleman was asked , what is the capital of Nagaland ? He replied with confidence "Dhimapur".

Then the interviewer took more interest and asked , what is the capital of Manipur?

Again, he replied in a fraction of a second , "Imphal West ."
Interviewer, " why not Imphal East ?"
Reply came , " all the important buildings like CM bungalow and Raj bhavan are located in Imphal West ".

He got selected because his graduation mark was too high.

For another candidate —
Q. What is the full form of LDA?
The candidate replied , Lilong Dramatic Association.

Q. What is the main work of LDA ?
Reply: Fund generation and drama.

Who is the chairman of LDA ?
Reply : Our chacha Latif is the president and I myself am the Secretary, no Chairman.

A youngman was arrested by the police for sleeping on the pavement of a bridge near the Impact TV Headquarter. After interrogation it was learnt that he came all the way from Lamka( Churachandpur) for a night interview at a office in front of Raj Bhawan. When the interview was over at midnight he had no place to go , so he was sleeping on the pavement waiting for the first available bus for Lamka.

An M.Sc. physics student appeared in an interview for cleaner. He was asked, what is the relation between cleaning and physics? The candidate was a knowledgeable student though from a poor background, replied, "all the dirt will be absorbed by the black hole, even the light-pollutants shall be sucked into it". The boy was rejected because he was too intelligent for the job.

What is the full form of AADHAAR? The candidate revolted and roared, "what is the relevance of such a question? I was told that only my name and address will be asked. I had already completed all the formalities, please don't bother me and call the next candidate". Later on it was found out that the candidate was a brother of a mighty person.

Chairman of the interview board was asking a question to a candidate: INA came upto Moirang , can you say something about it ?
Candidate, "Sir, fortunately I am from Moirang, International Netaji Army (INA) came to Moirang, they had difficulty to cross Loktak lake, because that time Loktak was big and deep. Today Loktak is small and shallow, anybody can cross it on foot. Then atom bombs were dropped at Imphal, and then they withdrew".

Dr Kamal in 'Madhabi', " huranbana huranba farabadi , kanana bichaar tougani"( who will do justice when a thief catches a thief ).

Today, Dr. Kamal's remark is applicable to all of us . Sometimes I wander to wonder whether we can really clean up the system and also stop buying and selling of jobs. Can we?