Back in 2004, I was in a bad state. After chucking the job at Financial Express, I was desperately searching for an opening. While, I was employed with an e-learning company, but it didn’t excite me much, since I wished to be in journalism. Being the first in my family to venture into the fourth estate, I was finding it hard to get a break in the mainstream media, since there was no god father to back me up and also since all of my previous stints had ended on an acrimonious note, I did not have good references either. What goes around, comes around, and I was just about realising that.

Sometime during that period, I chanced across an opening at Rediff.com. It was (and still is) one of the premier portals in India. Also, the fact that I was much addicted to it, the prospect of getting a job there excited me all the more.  There used to be an HR head, Inderjit, who spoke to me over the phone and subsequently had me interviewed by the editors there. The interview with the editors, I think, went off fabulously well. The gentlemen were pretty cool, in fact, one of them even sported a pony-tail (considering that my editor at a previous stint coerced me to snip my off, it was a big thing). We discussed many things under the sun, right from philosophy to sports and I think I had bagged the job, when they got down to the basics about the notice period and salary slips. It all ended on a high-note, so even when they stated that they will get back to me later, I was much at ease.

After a few days, I received a mail from Inderjeet, he desired a few clarifications and posed a few queries and asked me to respond to them over the mail itself. It was sort of a final interview over email. Since, I was pretty confident that I had the editors impressed, I took the test a bit lightly and answered the questions in one-go, candidly.

Post the interview, all that I got from Inderjeet’s end was static. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and finally, I buried the last shred of hope that I carried with me. I WILL NOT BE GETTING A JOB AT REDIFF. The message was loud and clear. On introspection, I think I goofed up in the final stage. Or probably the vacancy got filled up or just disappeared.

Some days back, I chanced across the mail exchange, in which the interview was conducted. And somehow, even though I blamed my naivety for spoiling the chance, I did not feel the same about it now. The answers were honest and any one would have gauged that. I do not think that they were a reason now. Probably Inderjeet found someone better at a cheaper salary. Continue reading …