Work struggle level 1 over

Hi guys my name is Devansh, here i tell you a little story of my career struggle

Like everyone else I want to to get rich & what a better way than getting those big packages one gets from top B schools, but I want to get MBA from US not from India for many reasons, if you research about US MBA you will find that all of them require a min of 2-3 years of exp & the avg class work exp is 5+, so I had to get a good 5 years experience for getting in a good US b-school, secondly I had have enough of studies in my graduation & I wanted to see reality of job life. Thirdly I wanted not only to mug MBA books in management but to learn practically what is really management, I wanted to appreciate subjects like management, finance, operations that everyone speaks of , I wanted to see how things actually happen in real life, how big corporates really work.

When I graduated I was 20 years old & wasn’t eligible for any exam like PO/UPSC as min age is 21 in all of these, & I had already at hand 3 offer letter from my campus placement but I didn’t like any of that & went for a financial profile in Barclays, I got a job as Process Advisor, my designation being FSO(financial sanctions officer), when I joined Barclays I had no idea what my job really was, while in training I got to know that its in one of the riskiest job in international banking, I had to perform anti money laundering operations of Barclays, which means that just 1 wrong decision & you are fired, the job wasn’t tough in starting but required hell lot of attention, accuracy, knowing & applying sanction laws , I was comfortable in starting & performed quite well, I was even promoted to the 3^rd  (final) level of this process, I was shocked at this as the L3 advisor in that process is like a detective job, you can not only be fired but also be prosecuted for a single mistake, by this time I had turned 21. One day one colleague of mine told me that he is resigning as he has become assistant manager in UBI bank, i knew of the PO exams as my father is at IAS level post in GOI  but I didn’t knew of learning opportunities in Indian banks & of the massive hiring,  so after being motivated from my colleagues success & evaluating my strategy I resigned from Barclays. Initially I thought I had kept a time frame of 3 months for PO exam preparation, I bought some BSC  books, asked about various coaching institutes, I joined one institute called Paathshaala in south ex market.

I took some classes there but I found them useless as the teachers weren’t professional , they couldn’t solve my doubts, luckily before leaving that institute I contacted one guy who had given reasoning class on a particular day as a substitute, I called him asked him to guide me, his name was Aman  & had himself qualified as PO in SBI 3 years back but out of foolishness left the job & now he was preparing for PO exams again & had started coaching as a part time job.

I took about 30 classes from him, he had learnt some unknown short cut tricks from some other chap & told me those happily (for $$ though) , during all this time I was gruelling myself studying everyday about 6-8 hours,  I had a bit problem in GK as I forgot most names, I was good in reasoning & maths but lacked the much needed speed, I used to worry about the same a lot as my 3 months time was coming to an end.

During this time I gave 3 PO exams, (Allahabad bank, Andhra bank & IOB) & I didn’t expect call from any one of them as i hadn’t completed by syllabus. By the end of 3 months I had completed the syllabus but lacked speed also notification for SBI,SBI ASSOC,IBPS was out which were gonna held in September so instead of resuming work life I decided to give IBPS,SBI exams as these were the main exams, I found that studying at home wasn’t easy & I got distracted easily so daily I went to a library nearby to study, I used to pack lost od books in my bag to the bursting point & travel about 5 km on bike to the library, I used to take difficult topics & coach myself on them, gradually I developed skill in handling nearly all types of questions, I also joined mock tests series of mahendras which I found very effective, but I had a problem that though I could solve all types of ques separately wid speed & accuracy  I was able to solve them for 3 hours like in exam, so I forced myself using all strength to solve complete the papers this was a very tiring affair & I did only 2 tests a day, I bought nearly all competition magazine for bank PO practice & also bought all BSC books, I was aiming to get in SBI PO exam as it’s the toughest & I had finally an edge over most candidates, but in the exam day of SBI I got a little disoriented as I gave too much importance to reasoning, solving all reasoning ques but leaving no time for marking my answers on OMR sheet, I was devastated.

I promised to cover for my silly mistake by cracking SBI ASSOC exam wid very high marks, my SBI ASSOC paper went awesome!!! I was delighted & confident of my call in that exam, so after easing for few days I started to prepare for IBPS exam, on the same day I was returning home for studying that I met with a major accident , I was lucky to survive but I experienced the worst pain ever, my left leg femur bone cracked apart in many parts as a vehicle from behind hit leg at high speed, I had to go immediate surgery & was bed ridden , but I couldn’t afford failing in IBPS just of an accident so I started practising again while in bed, I had to struggle a lot during that time as I couldn’t move my legs on my own, on the exam day I sat on a separate chair wid my legs on other benches in a separate  room, my IBPS exam was good but I didn’t give much importance to descriptive paper as I knew it was easy & my English was good ( though handwriting is terrible). After about 1.5 month of IBPS exam I was able to walk again!!!! I felt as I had been born again, I learnt how short life can be & not to postpone any important tasks, many which I had been postponing for many years!!!

Now I have been selected in IOB(Indian overseas bank) as assistant manager & I feel that my efforts have paid of, I have qualified for SBI ASSOC interview, I scored 186 in IBPS!!!! But some nerd gave me less than 24 in descriptive & so I haven’t qualified in it. Stage 1 struggle over!!!

I will share in a separate post of why PO? about this particular job & another post of my brief history.