Outline

1. Journey from Home to Venue
2. Finding the Location
3. Three Rounds
4. Conclusion

Journey from Home to Venue

Due to my excitement for the ODOO Job Fair (Yes, it wasn't exactly an interview, but still), I woke up at 8 AM to make sure I could reach the destination between 10 AM and 11 AM. However, there was heavy rain and traffic. I tried to leave around 11 AM, but I got soaked and had to turn back. At that point, I thought maybe God didn’t want me to go there 😅. Strangely enough, it seemed like everyone who attended the fair had a similar experience. Eventually, the rain eased up, so I rushed to get transportation and head to the venue. Just before I arrived, the rain picked up again, and I got half wet, but thankfully, my laptop stayed dry, which was a huge relief.

Finding the Location

The Job Fair was held at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar. Once I arrived, I collected my ID and headed to Exhibition Hall 2, where the recruitment process was taking place. After reaching there, I tidied up since I had gotten wet from the rain. I wandered around for a bit and saw various start-ups and the ideas they were working on. It was a nice experience after the hectic rain. Finally, I reached the recruitment booth and got directions for the interview rounds.

Three Rounds

After reaching the hall where the three rounds were happening, I saw many people taking the test for the position. Naturally, I was there for the software developer intern role. I received the link for the first round—the coding round. The first question was about counting the words in a string, which was very easy, no problem at all. The next question was about SQL, so I decided to skip it and come back to it later. There was also a hard question about strings that I skipped initially to save time. The fourth question was to find the factorial of a number, which was the easiest for any coder. I solved it in 5 minutes.

In 20 minutes, I had solved 2 questions and was feeling happy and proud. Then, I returned to the string question, which was about finding the longest repeating substring. Confidently, I used the LCS (Longest Common Subsequence) approach and found the longest length, but then came the downfall—I couldn’t recall or devise a logic to extract the actual substring. I thought about it for almost 45 minutes and tried various methods, but every time, I landed on a wrong answer. Now, I was feeling depressed and devastated. I lost confidence for the SQL question, which was the last one. After reading it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to solve it. From the start, I’ve mainly used MongoDB, Prisma, and other NoSQL databases. Time ran out, and I couldn’t solve the 2 remaining questions.

Next came the second round, an English test. It was easier—I had to write an email, correct or simplify another email, and finally explain why the company should hire me. It was the easiest round for me, which should have been coding, but now I had to rethink. The last round was the logic round. I didn’t perform my best, but I didn’t do the worst either. It was an average round.

I knew after all the rounds that I wasn’t going to be selected, being a coder myself and understanding how interviews are conducted. So, I stood up, left Mahatma Mandir, and headed home. This was my experience during the Job Fair.

Conclusion

Although I didn’t secure a position, I’m feeling low but also grateful for discovering how much more I need to learn. I thank ODOO and the management for this lifelong experience. As this was my first interview, I will always remember this rejection and this feeling. I will try again. Thank you for reading my blog.