My job hunting experiences

While listening to debates and reading about lack of jobs in India and many other parts of globe, my mind went back to mid- seventies on how difficult even on those days to get job and that too when the entire family depended only father's salary.

With sole aim to support our large family my clueless mind started thinking of taking up job when I entered my final year B.Com from Delhi University .

My first job was tutor for a Class 4 boy on salary of Rs.35 per month.

I got this job through another tutor family friend younger to me as he himself was preparing for his final Class 11 exams (no +2 those CBSE days), though I was average in my studies, I took up this tutor's job as a challenge but to my surprise the boy did well and moved to next class and parents were so happy that increased my salary to Rs.40.

I was again on job hunt and landed up in a small subsidiary company of large manufacturer of Automobile horns . The job was to manage the factory with staff strength of about ten technical workers.

The owner used to be a tough Punjabi when gets angry would not mind using all north Indian abuses both Hindi and Punjabi. The fate did not allow me to continue as bout of malaria fever made me to stay away from factory, the owner probably thought I was angry and found a replacement.

Again, I was unemployed. Through one of my friends, I managed to get an administrative job on daily wages basis as leave vacancy in a large print media house and by sheer coincidence one of my cousins was working in a responsible position managed to push me in their advertisement section.

This was when I got to see my first appointment letter. It was just two months on this job, I got a call from Indian Air Force (IAF) for Ground Duty Officer (GDO) and the four-day test/interview was at IMA, Dehradun.

I was in a dilemma whether to attend or not as there was little scope of leave in my new job which was just few months old. I again opted to take risk to attend the all-expense paid interview without success.

After two years of graduation with no worthwhile experience, I was jobless. It was again through one of my friends I got an offer who gave me a lead of an administrative vacancy in a large century-old publishing house.

The Company Secretary just saw my resume with no worthwhile experience asked me to simply join and start working from the following day. Imagine I did have the guts to ask my salary etc.

I got this second appointment letter after nearly two months on a starting salary of Rs.220 per month. Since then there was no looking back as I stayed on to work with them for more than three decades where I not only worked but learnt what I could not in school and college.