Career Update: 2018 👉 2020

Hello everyone,

I hope you are doing well during these uncertain times.

With the entire world on lockdown, people are doing things that they normally would not do. And that includes me penning down this post on my blog! 😅

I know, right – it has been long (or should I say very long?) since I last shared a personal update on my blog (2017). I’m sorry about that – life’s been crazy and to be honest, I am lazy. My apologies!

Anyway, here’s a quick recap of what happened from 2018 (that is, after my graduation) until now. It might be a long read for some. But you can just skim through it if you’re really busy.

2018

I got my first job as an SEO Analyst at a firm in Chennai (absolutely no-frills). It was a mundane job with my routine involving researching the best SEO practices, implementing it, and trying to improve the website rankings on the search engines for our group of websites (mostly events related). It wasn’t a hard job since I was already quite comfortable with SEO and marketing. But, it takes a lot of time to produce visible results and it requires a lot of resources.

Without even a content writer to write the content for all the sites and a digital marketer to promote the pages I was left alone to do the job AND produce the results. My constant pleas for resources fell on deaf ears.

Eventually, I got fed up and quit because most of what I knew was never even put to use. Sad me.

2019

In April, just a month before my birthday…I bought my dream bike entirely out of my pocket and I am proud of it. Here’s me with my Thunderbird –

Soon after that I applied for a job at rtCamp and got into it. I enjoyed a lot during my time at rtCamp. It was a WordPress VIP Gold agency partner and one of the best WordPress related companies to work for. But you might be surprised at what role I took over there – Content Writer!

Yes, you read that right. I wanted to experiment with my life – I wanted to try different roles until I found the perfect one. And for some time I thought it was it. But sadly, no. I was working remotely and even though I’m an introvert, I started to badly miss having physical interaction with people. It got worse and I finally decided to quit.

2020

The Discovery

It was a fine November evening (2019) when I stumbled upon a post by one of my LinkedIn connections. He had shared a link to apply for Accenture’s off-campus hiring drive. To be honest, it didn’t make me feel any different – I wasn’t looking for a job at that time and I knew nothing about Accenture other than it being an IT behemoth.

I shared the link with my friends and asked them to apply. And I applied anyway just to give them some company. I hadn’t planned on attending it initially. But when I got the admit card in December, things were different – only one of my friends was eligible to attend the drive and it was on a Sunday. So, we had no one but each other for company. 🤷‍♂️

The Drive

It was one of the longest Sunday’s in my life.

The first round was an online test and it started late, in the afternoon. They had divided us into two batches and the first batch took the test in the morning. We just had snacks for lunch and gave the test. I wasn’t too confident and so was my friend. Since we were famished, we left the venue as soon as the test was over. Also, we didn’t know that we had to stay after the test 😂

We were just a kilometer away from my place and I got a text message on my phone. Fuck! I couldn’t believe what I saw – it said that I have been shortlisted for the next round and asked me to meet their representative at the venue for further instructions.

It was evening already and we were exhausted. And the worst part about it? My friend didn’t clear the test. 🤦‍♂️ But since he had left his bike at my place, we didn’t have any other option. I asked him if we can go back and he didn’t turn down my request. I’m so glad and thankful to have friends like him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made it back to the venue.

Luck

When we got back to the venue, it was already late because of the traffic. And I couldn’t find the other participants. I couldn’t even find a single soul who could guide me. I was literally running from block to block, floor to floor, room to room panting. I didn’t even have a number to call.

I was about to give up because the tiredness was hitting me hard when I finally managed to locate them. I was really tired when I attended the group discussion. Somehow I managed to put up a smile and gave my best. I could literally feel the tiredness in my eyes. I just wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep.

Two weeks down, I received an email regarding document verification. And finally, it was January when the offer letter landed in my inbox. 🥳

Finishing Up

I gladly accepted the offer the very same day even if it meant taking a cut from my current CTC. I would have been looking for a change in career anyway (since I was missing people already at rtCamp) and who doesn’t want to work at Accenture?! I must be crazy if I rejected their offer. In the meantime, I had read numerous reviews about them on Glassdoor and Quora that I was secretly hoping to get into the organization.

And here I am, a month at Accenture and now everything has been messed up because of this Covid-19 pandemic. I don’t blame the Chinese for this mess but I seriously wish this hadn’t happened in the first place. I was looking forward to my time at Accenture and now this has been put in jeopardy.

I’m still hopeful and I really wish things don’t get any worse than this and we get back to action real soon.

So, that was it, everyone.

Stay safe, and more importantly stay inside your house until everything gets back to normal.

Hoping for the best.

Cheers!

Antony.