Yes , I am a FRESHER..Will you Hire me ?

“We are sorry; we cannot hire you. We are looking for an experienced candidate”.

“Hey yar that company has 15 openings but all of them are for experienced ones”.

“Walk-in for so and so profile in so and so company (Minimum 2 Years Exp. required.)”

“Off-campus for Engineers (Experienced)”

“You are not selected. They got experienced candidate for same salary”

“Your experience does not meet out requirements”

I was fed up with these lines when I shouted on one of the job consultants, “how the hell I am supposed to get the experience if nobody is ready to hire me as a fresher?”. Any of these statements was ever intended or quoted for you as well?? Yes, most of us have faced it at least once in our lifetime.

I got admission for graduation and I started my journey with new city, new college, new teachers, new staff, new competition, new friends, new hostel, playground and new canteen. 4 years, 40 subjects, piles of files, seminars, monthly tests, annual sports, competitions, parties, movies and thousands of other activities becomes part of my new life. I started making these things my routine and started preparing for the battle I heard of. That battle was known as Final Exam. I kept myself prepared for the final exam. And in no time the final exam of final year came. Four years finished like 4 days and the new life I was just offered with became a yesterday’s dream.

                On last day of the college I packed my memories in the bags and started walking home with heavy steps. While going home I went back in the memories. I reached to the page of my diary where on the first day my parents had dropped me to the college. I remember the words of my mother, “son, look where you are standing. You are going to be an engineer soon. We made it up to here, now it’s your turn. We cannot afford high living, we may not pay you for better classes but this is what all we can do for you. But, you don’t care what we are suffering from until you reach your goal. I know you are aware of our situation and you don’t need any of these words, but that’s all I can offer you today. Make us proud son. We love you a lot.” Four years finished for that day and today I am returning home with nothing measurable but little bit of something in my mind called “Engineering studies”.

                I passed out. I was new to the world outside, unknown to the competition, unaware of the expansion of the term RACE. I was soon forced to go to the city. Hardly a week after my college finished I was in a new city to search a job. I was feeling good, feeling like an engineer already with no real post of engineer though. I was charged with lots of energy, enthusiasm, hopes and dreams. The city was welcoming, full of thousands of things happening around. Students going to the school and colleges, professionals going to offices and workers working on the sites. There was one more category people roaming on the road. They were called as “Fresher’s”. The other day when I came across this term Fresher, I was in front of a consultant in his office. The consultant seemed more like a god to me when he called me in his office for some discussion. While introducing to a job opening to me, he said “see, you are a fresher. You should be flexible with the employer’s conditions”. I caught his word when he mentioned me as a ‘Fresher’ and needed no additional explanation to understand what it actually stands for. Couple of hours after our discussion started I was out of his office when he started making my mind to pay a large amount of money to become part of premium membership offered by him. I stepped out of his office with a new tag on my head. FRESHER.

When I had come in to the city I had separately prepared a list of things I wanted for myself. The list was getting bigger and bigger as the days passed. The list held things like Perfumes, Better shoes, better formal cloths and many such small things which I didn’t care much about when I was a student.

Every time when I called home I was left unspoken after the call. The reason was that, I had no reason to explain for my unemployment. Unlike many other parents my parents motivated me to stay active and keep searching the job in all possible ways. I was far away from the situation where parents yell at their child and ask “if Pravin from our neighbor can get job, why can’t you?” I don’t know how hard it would have been for that child to explain why Pravin got a job and he didn’t. Although my parents never yelled at me and never asked to do whatever kind of work I get unless I really feel to join it. I knew what they were suffering from. The situation had no better progress than what it was before I was admitted for graduation. It had got worsen though but not progressed for sure.

“Reference” was the other term which I came across while I was in a discussion with my friend when he said, “Suresh, Vishal and Amol from our batch had references in companies so they joined immediately after the college”. Which means if you have someone working in a good company he can give his reference to you and pull you inside his company. Now that was the second worry. First one was that I am Fresher and second that I don’t have reference. Hardly couple of the people in my contact including my friends and relatives were working in the scope of my degree. I called everyone whom I could ask for the job but what I got from all is “Send me your Updated Resume I will try something”. Practically I never got any help from anyone apart from a free advice about what to do and what not to.

I joined every online job portal, subscribed to news letters from every career website, spent hours and days on finding the Company websites, finding the HR contact information and Job Openings. I was tired of searching the job now. I was totally running out of money. It had been 3 longer months that I didn’t get the job. I could not ask money to parents when it was the time for me to give them money. So, that led me to compromise my useless expenses and some in-use-expenses too. Twice or thrice in a week I use to have lunch and dinner in a single day. Rest of the times I just let the day go by eating some snacks or mostly cheaper but tasty food like Vada-Pav, Samosa etc. I was worried about the Education Loan that I had got from bank, broken economic health of my family, my responsibilities towards my family and other personal economic problems. Everything was now getting concentrated at the money.

The nice and active city started seeming like it is not for me. I was losing the active and creative person in me. I was pushing my mind back. It was then that I realized, reading those thicker reference book in the graduation and scoring the exam was much easier than the things which I am facing outside the college. Spending parent’s money in college never told me its value. Another month was about to finish and I was not having any job rather than checking mails, sending resumes, making calls, visiting the companies from their gates and getting kicked out of it by the security person. I had now prepared my mind to do any job than comes in my way. My wish list now literally had a wish saying “want to have nice food for the full week”.

Another day when I was heading towards the room, I accidentally met my childhood friend who also was in search of the job. Watching him searching a job gave me a relief, may be because he had higher score than me and he graduated from high graded institute and he was still searching job. My ‘average marks and college’ and his ‘higher marks with top college’ were experiencing the same scenario here. He informed about a walk-in which was about to set up in one of the well-known firms. I could attend the walk-in as it was near to my place. I would not have attended it because of lack of money if it would have been at farther location. I entered in the office, registered my name at the reception which already had 37 names above me who had come for the same post. Few more candidates joined later to hit the list target to 54. Addition of every new name in the list was growing more worries in my mind and reducing probability of me for getting selected.

The waiting room was now full of candidates with experience varying from 8 years to so called FRESHERS like me. Within an hour I realized that the candidates were being called inside according to the descending order of work experience. That had led me to wait till the end of the day as I was among the last batch of candidates having no experience. Anyhow I had cracked 2 of the primary stages of the interview. The last round still had 10 candidates. The man standing near the door called my name for the last HR round. I was hungry from the morning and hardly had something yesterday. My body was resisting for the conversation and body movements. My legs were shaking because of the weakness. But I had to look fresh. I entered in to the room and I was quit nervous watching at two personals who were too professional in look and seemed talented. I was thinking about managing the money for today’s dinner. I don’t remember everything that I discussed with them for next 30mins. But I remember those lines which the senior guy said, “When can you join us Akshay?” Giving a shocking expression I said “sorry sir?”. He repeated, “When can we see you in to our office then?” Totally wandered on what I heard I asked him again, “Really?” to which he replied “Yeah, congratulations, you got selected!” The very next moment I saw tears rolling down my eyes witnessing that happy moment. I collected my documents, thanked them for the opportunity and headed straight to the Vada-Pav stall near the company campus. That was the only time when I was happy eating it. My initial long struggle had finally come to an end”. That day I had best dinner in a hotel for which I paid borrowed money given by my friend. …

I had now quieted my job of checking mails and was about to continue as an Engineer now…. I have seen the tough time definitely but that taught me so many life building lessons. To survive at worst time. Facing the problems whatever it comes about. Never giving up on something that you want. Being prepared for the worst situation and never losing the hope and faith in yourself.

Life Continues….