Inspired by the story written by Ramanuj Mukherjee titled ‘How I Blew My Interview With Amarchand Mangaldas’, we came up with an idea to do a How I Blew My Interview Series, while sipping a cup of tea and discussing work on Tuesday evening at office.

Here is our team member Mohona Thakur’s account of how she blew her interview with Star India.

If you’ve been following my writings by now you’d be aware that I have always dreamt of working in the FMCG or media space as an in-house counsel. So, naturally, in my final year of law school, I applied to a lot of media companies – from Disney India to Viacom 18 to the Times Group.

Star India was obviously one amongst them. I had heard from various sources that they are big on hiring and training freshers, the CTC packages were pretty much close to what top-tier law firms offered to their freshers, it was the fully owned subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, and do I really need to say much about the brand? It was my first choice.

This was one of the first companies I applied to. After a number of follow ups through five months, I finally got a call from the HR, right in between my final semester exams. In the excitement, although I had enough brains to push the interview date after the exams, I only pushed it to the very next day after the final exams got over. It was an HR interview, I thought. How wrong could it go? I had the choice of choosing a date, any date after exams got over, but I didn’t want butterflies in my stomach, so I chose the first possible day for the interview. The blunders began right here.

Soon, the back-to-back 100 mark final semester exams got over. For those of you who have studied under the University of Pune, you’d know how archaic the examination system is. We spend four to five days giving 100 mark law papers for subjects as vast as CrPc, Companies Law, Banking and Tax in our final semester. Students survive on excess food and red bull to keep themselves awake to revise the syllabus overnight to go give the papers the next day.

I do not think the magnanimity of the situation hit me till I realised that the HR interview was the very next day and to top it off, this was my very first interview for a job, ever.

As any prudent student would, I did what was required for the HR rounds. I prepared a list of probable questions that could be asked to me, soft questions like “Tell me about yourself.”, “Why law?”, “Why do you want to work with Star India?”, “What’s the CTC you’re expecting?” and the likes. I went the extra mile and did some quick research on the interviewer, read up about the recent developments of the company. In the limited time, I revised my resume. I focused on reading up my research notes from my internships that were media laws oriented. I knew I wasn’t a hundred percent ready, but I knew I was prepared enough for the HR rounds.

The next morning, I was ready logistically. I had requested my roommate to allow the room to myself for two hours, the wifi was smooth, I had a decent background with enough light. The only thing that felt anything contrary to ready was my stomach that was growling in nervousness. It was only when the interview started that I started to finally breathe.

Ms. Vibha Bhosale was across the screen, over Skype, quite ready to interview me. She introduced herself as the HR Business Partner to the legal team. The interview was going as expected. From “Tell me about yourself.” to “Why law?” to “Why Star India?”, until the dreaded “I see that you haven’t interned with any law firm, is there any specific reason for it? Or was it purely out of choice?”

This was a question the answer to which would lead to the next question: “Why do you want to work with a company as a fresher? Why not a law firm?” To be absolutely honest, I knew the answer to both these questions. But I decided that my honesty may cost me a job if what I said next made the HR feel that I wasn’t up for hard-work which was absolutely in contradiction to my personality. There is no way you want the HR to feel that you do not have it in you to put in the work. And this was a deciding factor.

Instead of saying what I have always believed to be a driving force behind the decision to be working in-house, I gave a standard and half-true answer: “I believe I have both legal and managerial skills, and companies would be the best place to put both of them to use and grow.” She didn’t buy it. She repeated the question again. I stuck to my answer, thinking this was a test to see if I crack under pressure and change my answer – to figure out if I was fickle minded about my decision to join companies and the reason behind it.

By the fourth time I was asked the very same question by Ms. Bhosale, I knew she wasn’t convinced at all. She could see through me, but I was in a position from where I could not return. And definitely, changing the answer wasn’t anymore an option. I knew that my chances of getting this dream job at a company that not only encourages young talent but also trains them (which is a gem to find in the legal industry) was almost gone.

So, I was more than glad when she moved on to my resume and began asking questions from there. I must say, I was impressed. You do not expect HR personnels to have any legal knowledge as such about the laws, but here Ms. Bhosale knew what she was speaking about. I was grilled on my resume as though it was a technical round. From questions regarding my post graduate diploma in media laws from NALSAR to my internship with Hindustan Times in my second year of law school, I was grilled on anything that remotely pointed to the Telecom, Media and Technology sector.

If you think that HR rounds are easy, treat this right here as a reality check. Most HRs, especially in companies with as much resources as Star India are nothing, if not well-trained. I had merely brushed through the technical parts in the resume, so I relied purely on my memory to give the right answers. It went great until I was asked about a telecom policy I had worked on in my last internship.

“What work did you partake while formulating the policy for the telecom sector? What exactly was the policy about?” I answered rather reluctantly, stammered a bit, and said, “Since the Act that the policy was made for has not been passed by the Delhi Government, I can’t specifically give you details, but it was to do with regulation of telecom towers. I was given to review the entire Act and prepare a report on where the statute lacked and what could be the possible solutions.” I would call this an evasive answer, while I did answer the question somewhat, I made it very clear that I didn’t know enough. My memory definitely did fail me here.

Every interview has those moments – when you know whether you’ve made it to the next round, or not. While I had already lost the trust of the HR by bluffing about why I wanted to work with companies with a predominant fear that I would be misunderstood, not knowing a crucial piece of work I had worked on not six months ago showed poor preparation.

The interview lasted for about 45 minutes, and Ms. Bhosale bid her goodbye saying the usual – “The next round will be taken by Mr. Deepak Jacob. Our team will let you know if there is a next round.”

This was my very first interview for a job. Ever. And I screwed it up. In fact, I was so sure that I wasn’t making it that after the two-week mark, I didn’t even bother following up.

Two years down the line, today when I look back how I blew up that first interview, I can point out a few blunders:

Blunder #1: Stupidity

When I was called for the interview, instead of taking time and thinking a date through, I made the quick decision of doing the HR round right after my final semester exams got over. I didn’t even think of giving myself a breather after the exams. In spite of knowing that Pune University exams are physically tiring and most students are sleep deprived by the end of the exams, I made a choice in hurry rather than buying time – due to the fear of losing an opportunity.

This is nothing but career defining decisions made in haste. Yes, I had been following up with the company for months, but rather than jumping at the one opportunity I got for an interview, I should have thought it through, asked for a couple of hours, maybe even a day and gotten back with a calm mind.

Blunder #2: Lies

HR personnel are trained to hire people. They can see through your lies, even if you are the best at keeping a poker face. It is best to be honest with them, and frame your answers in a way that would convince them of who you really are rather than portray a picture of you who you’d want them to hire. They can see through it all, I believe so.

When I was asked about why I wanted to work with a company and not a law firm right out of law school, I freezed. There was a time in my fourth year while interning for Godfrey Phillips India, when the Senior Manager there had asked me the same question but in the context of internships – “Why do you intern with companies only? Why haven’t you interned with law firms yet?” I had very honestly answered her question back then. “Because I believe that companies give you stability, work-life balance, financial resources and a great amount of work. Everything I could ask for as a lawyer.” In reply to this, I was asked, “Are you sure this is the reason? Or is this your easy way out, of putting in hard work and hours?” I was offended, but then that also gave me glimpse into how a number of lawyers themselves look at in-house jobs.

Working with companies to the middle class has always been equivalent to stability. And, why not? You have steady flow of income every month, you have provisions for House Rent Allowance and a PF and Gratuity account that takes care of you post retirement. To a lot of us lawyers, most of them on the top of the pyramid, after having worked days and nights for years moving in-house means work-life balance resulting out of a stark difference in terms of the quantity of workload.

I wanted this very stability and work-life balance from the beginning of my career. I didn’t want to make the switch from law-firms to in-house after I was exhausted of the law firm life. It was a conscious choice that I was making. And there is no shame in admitting it. Is it a crime to want a work-life balance? Does working in-house mean you’re having it easy in the legal field?

Instead of saying the truth, I gave a half-baked answer presuming my answer would be construed against who I really am.

Blunder #3: Undermining HR Rounds

Right from the moment I was told that it would be an HR round to my preparation for the interview, I didn’t pay two heeds to preparing for the technical side of my resume in and out. I brushed through it, barely enough to recall what I had done in various internships, diplomas and publications.

The HR rounds may be presumed to be a test of your character, zeal, potential to fit in the company, but it is as important as to know your stuff while you sit for this round. Knowing your resume thoroughly, whether it is the HR round or the technical round is mandatory. And in case you do not know the answer to a question, have the ability to say you don’t know or don’t remember. Do not give ambiguous answers to dodge the question.

A lot of lawyers, more often than not, and especially freshers think of the HR interviews to be “just a formality”. This is a reality check for all of you.

I screwed up the first and the most important interview I had bagged in spite of having a more-than-decent resume because I was under prepared, sleep deprived and clearly not thinking straight enough to admit truths while being interviewed and it showed. As rightly pointed out by Ramanuj in his story, blunders genuinely do not begin in the room where you are being interviewed but much beforehand. Mine began from the moment I got the call for the interview.

We are writing our stories in an attempt to bring awareness about where one could go wrong during interviews. We hope there’s some take away and you gain from these attempts. As a small part of our attempts, we have made a course on how you can excel at internships and crack PPOs and interviews. You can check it out here.

In case you have your own stories to share with us, do reply to this in comments or write to us at [email protected] with your own story on #HowIBlewMyInterview. We would love to hear from you and even publish some of your stories.