How to deal with placement stress? Writeup - 1 | Story of my placement days

Vivek P
Vivek P
Jul 24, 2017 · 4 min read

Hey folks,

I generally use humour in my writing. But no, not this time. This is a serious topic, so let’s keep the content “crisp”, “clear” and “serious”.

I went through placement stress in 2012 in my undergrad engineering college PESIT.

Before we discuss how to deal with this stress, let me share the state of mind I was in during that time.

I have a document that I wrote when I was struggling with placements. I have pasted it below as is (with small grammar corrections).

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It feels like shit when you are not placed! When you notice that you are not placed yet but a lot of people around you are.

Right now around 60–70 people are placed, and I am not.

I just have one Internship offer. Don’t know if it’s any good!. I really hope that it gets converted into a full time job.

Just to get a job, do I stop chasing my dream? What is my dream anyway? To get into a good company and work like crazy all the time? Do something that I don’t like and end up with a good salary but no peace of mind? No that is not my dream. Before chasing the dream, I have to first find out what my dream is.

OMG I can’t even imagine working anywhere now. It’s so scary to think of jobs that these folks from careernet and elitmus do. It feels horrible. Come on, who would want a job like that just to get paid :’(?

I feel ashamed of myself. I should have worked very very hard all my life. I feel that, I always ended up getting good marks, I always ended up doing good projects only because of my friends and surroundings. No one cares about any of that now! All people care about is whether you are able to clear the first round or not. If you clear the first round, they’ll screw you anyway in the next rounds. You cannot clear unless you have great luck or you have prepared very well.

And to add to all this stress, I am not allowed to take tier-2 job now and then take a tier-1 job because of the stupid restriction of our college has that if one person has an internship, he is eligible for only one more job. WTF? Seriously!

Why should I sit for Tier-2 companies now? For job security? Is it all about the money? Don’t I have any say for the type of work I like?
I didn’t get through GSOC. I haven’t prepared for GRE because of placements. I’m not preparing for GATE because I don’t see any point in preparing so much and failing again.

I am just stuck with me, just me and it’s terrible. I’m alone.

I motivate myself everyday in front of the mirror and I tell myself, “You can do it Vivek”, “You can do it”. But it doesn’t seem to help!

If I ponder about it more, I realise now that it’s all my mistake. I did not study well when I had to. People used to tell me that to survive in PESIT, I have to work very hard! But I never did, still ended up getting good grades.

Who cares about a 9.15/10GPA? No one seems to give a f**k about it in campus placements! No one is looking into my projects either! All they care about is how well do I perform in their interviews.

All these days, I had felt good about myself. I felt that I am better than many people in the college. I score well. I’m smart. I have great projects. But it turns out to be a complete lie.

I’m not special. I mean everyone is good, everyone has done great projects. Everyone are placed already. And I feel useless, worthless.

This feeling that I currently have, I wish that no one ever gets this!

I feel that I am writing all this now to waste more time. I don’t want to prepare in this mindset. I don’t want to do a job which I don’t like just for the sake of money.

I don’t see happy people in software industry. Everyone has some or the other issue with their job. They just go because they don’t have any other choice.

God has a different plan for me, but I don’t know what his plans are yet. Life is hard and bitter.

Yes, I can work in dominos, but I didn’t have to study so much and make my mom spend so much money for my engineering. I feel really really ashamed to sit in front of my parents. My parents are very supportive, they tell me its okay not to have a job. But I hope you, the reader understand that I can’t live like that.

I have to do something. I have to do everything. I will do anything. I will be trained. I will become powerful. I will become knowledgeable. I will become unbeatable. I will be the one.

Hey all you companies out there! BRING IT ON. GEAR UP with your best Questions. Because I am not just coming for a job. I am coming FOR EVERYTHING.

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UPDATE (Many months later)

After this document, I was persistent and I got 4 offers apart from NI

  1. Red Hat (On Campus - Tier 2)
  2. Intuit (Off Campus - Tier 1)
  3. Ebay (Off Campus - Tier 1)
  4. Cisco (Off Campus - Tier 1)

I’ll talk about how I achieved this in my next article. I’ll also talk about how to deal with your feelings during this phase and the steps that you can take to improve yourself and your chances for getting placed soon.

Wish you all the best :)

Click here to go to 2nd article in this series

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