How I was fooled by TCS as a job candidate

One fine day in March 2011, I got a call from TCS - Bangalore. Caller introduced herself as Purva Bhalerao, asked me if I'd be interested in TCS. Being the No.1 Indian IT services company, I didn't have specific reasons to say 'No'. After a few calls and mails, I was asked to appear at white-field office on 16th April at 9AM.

With all documents I was asked to carry, I reached there by 9AM and realized that there are more like me. They gave me a form to fill up all previous employment details. Then I had to call a '1-800' number for my 'ep' number. I queued up in front of the Subhash building at EP-IP. There were about 50 people for all the skills. Once we hit the hall, we had to write our name in a paper based on the skill sets. The process began. I waited for my turn along with one of my colleagues - the only familiar face I found there.


Around 2 hours passed. The strange thing I noticed that they never called anybody with my skill. Finally I got up from my seat, thought to ask them what's going on. I approached the table, around which few guys sitting with the papers we wrote our names under specific skill sets. They are the ones designated to call candidates by their name and skill. It was 11:40 by that time, we were waiting for two and a half hours without a single guy from our skill being called up for interview. When I asked, one guy pulled a paper of my skill set, on which about 17 names were written (yes, I subitized it!). I asked him what's is going on. The summary of what he said was "Your interviewer hasn't come yet, so you have to wait," he delivered a fantastic rhetoric to say that in over 60 seconds.

A little flash back!
When I told my colleague, who is TCS alumni, about my TCS interview,  he said I am most probably going to waste my Saturday. He clarified like this: 'Saturday is holiday for TCS, those interviewers may not come tomorrow. They will call you later and conduct a telephonic interview before end of next week. This is what happens most of the time. Everything else is a mockery.'

So the whole drama didn't surprise me. But two little ignorants - the HR lady and this tech. recruiter, I thought, have to be loyal to the firm (I emailed her that later). When I turned around, back to my seat, one gentleman suddenly called up everyone for my skill. All of us gathered around him. We were about 10 at that time. He gently said "You can leave now, we'll call you on Tuesday or Wednesday." When I asked him if they want us to drop the filled-up form and other documents, he said 'Oh, yes, please,' and we left. I never thought these guys will be so careless as this.

Tuesday and Wednesday ticked away, no calls yet. I logged in to TCS career portal and floored to see my status as 'no open positions now' (something like that). I had no idea what went wrong, I mailed Purva, saying that I didn't receive any interview call. No reply. Few days later I sent another mail as feedback, to inform her what I think about the entire recruitment process. My friend has the same experience, too! I spoke to my TCS-alumni-colleague. He said 'may be, there were many referrals than open positions.' That was a logically satisfactory answer. And, still I don't know why they asked many people to come to EPIP office if there are many other referrals, and wasted a fine Saturday of ours if they have no plan to conduct in interview for us. It's fine if some job consultants called me and asked to go there and it was a walk-in, but it wasn't a walk-in and I was invited by TCS internal recruitment system (I remember she said fast-track).

My Side.
If TCS invite me for interview, they should conduct it. Now, from this incident, what I think is TCS will consider their job candidates are job beggars. Those two - Purva and the technical recruiter, must understand that candidates are gently appearing for a new opportunity (for whatever reasons) and they deserve answers to their questions. My three emails to Purva seeking info. were unanswered. I'm sure I am not the only one who has been stupefied by TCS. But, probably, others won't write this as they still have a dream to get in there later! I wish the dimwits could ever learn a lesson.

This is my side, I am open to your views, and ready to amend this post if you could prove me wrong, or something I didn't do right or you called my phone and it was not reachable. There are many ways if you want to disprove me. I may not be right but this is what I think of you and in any case, I won't be interested in a job with T-f-C-f-S in my life.

Disclaimer: All characters, corporates, organizations and places appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.