I Had Skills When I Graduated, But Could Not Get A Job For Months

And I was not alone, there were many like me

That’s no joke and it’s a reality.

I graduated with a Computer Science degree. I was a decent programmer, had good knowledge of the concepts. Being in a tier 2 city and in a market that was going through the recession, there was no campus placement.

Within a week after my final semester exam, I decided to head to Bangalore. Two of my close friends decided to join me.

I had heard a lot about Bangalore from a friend who was studying there. He used to say — “Just come to Bangalore, there are a lot of jobs there. I have seen my seniors who are dumb could get a job easily”.

Within a few days, 3 of us boarded the train to Bangalore in the hope to grab a good tech job. We thought we would get a job within a few weeks.

The friend who asked me to come to Bangalore arranged a room for us to stay. And the struggle started.

First few days of the job hunt

We had no clue how to reach out to the Software organizations that were spread across the city. We were naive. We printed out our resumes and started visiting the offices of the software firms.

We laugh at it now, but back then we had no idea how to approach it.

It took us a few days to realize that this way we would never get a job. We started to look for people who can refer us to their organizations. We found a few seniors and relatives who referred us, at least we think they did. But we did not get any call for an interview.

We kept applying online but had no luck. Soon it was 56 months since we landed up in Bangalore and we were frustrated. One of my 2 friends lost hope and left Bangalore for higher studies. Soon we started questioning ourselves.

Hope of Light

When we were thinking of joining a BPO for a while, my friend and I got 2 and 3 calls respectively. The irony is all these interviews were scheduled on the same day. We both appeared for 2 interviews each, out of these one was at a common organization.

We got no response from these organizations for quite some time. It was almost a month and both of us received a cryptic email from an organization where both of us were interviewed. After reading this email we were not sure if we were selected or not. We were invited to their office.

The day I got my first Tech job

The next day we went to the office. They gave us computers and a bunch of problems. We had to write and execute programs to solve these problems.

We did well and both of us were selected and finally got the offer letters.

My friend was very happy but I was not. I was not sad but not happy too.

This job was something I was pursuing for months, but after getting the job I felt I was not happy. I still think about this. I think to me getting job was the destination before I got it. Then I realized it is the beginning.

Final words

My intention was not to tell my story but to mention there are various fresh graduates in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and towns that have the talent and caliber to do well in the Tech industry but they don’t get fair chances like the students in the tier 1 cities.

I am not saying all the students in these cities and towns are bright, but at least 10% are great and deserve a fair chance.