Long Long Interview = Long Long Post

How should you react when you get called up for an interview???

i dunno... who said i was going to tell you anyway =)

Anyway, i received a call up on Thursday to go for Bank Negara Scholarship interviews. Apparently they had sent an e-mail to me and i was supposed to reply them. So i casually opened up my mail which is usually filled with facebook updates, and sure enough it was there in my deleted messages - dated the previous Tuesday. I shuddered to think of what would have happened if they hadn't called me.

I didn't know what to expect since the interview letter stated 7.30 am to 6.00 pm @.@ So i just did some research on Bank Negara ( an interesting read actually, finally understood some economic things i heard of before) and read an article about going through interviews i had pulled out of The Star a week before. Its really strange and amazing how God works. I saw the article, thought 'hey, this is interesting!', pulled it out and put it on the table. A week later, WOW!! A need fulfilled.

I woke up at about 5.00 am that Monday. Took a bath, had light breakfast and headed to Lanai Kijang where the interviews are held. When i reached there, i had a plan. I'd make friends, be friendly and have a good time. But the moment i reached the lobby, a wave of coldness took over me. I just sat there in the lobby with the others. Too frozen to do anything. I was so nervous and i don't know why. So i just said a silent prayer and tried to mix around. By the grace of God I was a bit more warmed up during breakfast and soon we were being briefed. We were told that out of the 2600 applicants only 37 of us were shortlisted!!! Wow, i couldn't help but feel a bit proud =)

The first stage, essay writing. 1 hour 2 essays 1 english 1 malay. Honestly, i wrote nonsense. 1 hour for 1 is not enough for me let alone 2. I struggled with the bm essay a lot not because i was rusty but because i just couldn't think of any points, well not in that time frame. So i just wrote whatever that popped up in my empty mind and pray it made sense lol. I really hope this part does not weigh much XD


Immediately after that i was sent to have my 3 to 1 interview since i was first in the orange group list. And you know what?? I loved my interview. It was nice since the 3 interviewers were really friendly and nice. It was more like a chit chat session i guess =) Come to think of it, i felt that the whole Bank Negara staff were really friendly. It wasn't that kind of put-on-fake-smile that you see everywhere but i really felt genuine warmth.

Next up for me was individual presentation where they would give us a case study to present. The case was 'Working at home through the internet' and i opposed it. I did this in MUET before but anyhow i was still rushed and i didn't really have time to compose my thoughts. As a result i think my presentation was a bit clumsy and cluttered. After that, i was bombarded with difficult and tricky questions and i was able to answer all of them but i wouldn't know how well i answered them lol. Overall i think i did ok here but it isn't a good sign when one of your points get questioned =)

After that i was pretty free. If only i knew i would have brought a book. I waited with my team mates as there was only the group presentation left. But some of my mates had not finished their interviews yet - pity them. Group presentation was the most challenging part of all. They gave us this case study of us being a SMCT (Special Mission Critical Team) of Sunrise Construction Sdn. Bhd. whereby we were supposed to propose several management initiatives to the company during the current economic crisis. Our list of to do's

Take up specific roles and explain our job (project manager etc.)
Present our ideas to the management
Suggest problems that may arise and how to solve it.

Problem was we had 20 minutes to prepare while they watched us @.@ and... after reading the really long question twice... i was still blur... I didn't dare open my mouth. But somehow we managed. After our presentation, they fired us with questions and gosh some of them just made me freeze because i just didn't know how to answer them. But i guess we did well in the sense we covered up for each other well. =) Love my team yeah!!

So that was it. The entire interview process. Just wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes, prayers and concern. Really helped!! I omitted tonnes of details because i know this is a really long post and its so dry... Anyways, until next time. Praise the Lord!!