The Beginning of a Journey

So I have survived the past 3 months taking various kinds of challenges from Harvey Nash Fresher Program to become a... Nasher (they use this word :p) - part of the Harvey Nash family.

It all started with a phone call from...

Wait! Let's get a while back to some time around June. Lemme see... Ah! It's June 4. That was when I started to look for a job. I created a résumé at VietnamWorks on that day. It took over a week until I received the first call from IVG Viet Nam. I was like "uh... oh..." during the phone call because I was just woken up and it was the one that did it. They scheduled the interview on June 16. Luckily enough, the address was the only thing I didn't remember so I visited their site to find it. And that day came. I was rather excited and curious as this interview stuff was all new to me. I didn't prepare anything but some things about object-oriented programming (OOP). Obviously, I was able to answer the OOP questions, but for the others, some I could and some I couldn't. The question I remembered most was "What are the differences between abstract class and interface?" Actually, there was a gap from the time I finished school to this moment. I just spent that time relaxing and almost didn't touch anything .NET-related so I kinda forgot what I could do before. As you may guess, I didn't make it.

So that was my first-ever job interview. There was also a call from NEC Vietnam. I admit that I wasn't well-prepared. They asked for a transcript which I should have requested my school earlier, along with a confirmation letter. But it was fine then, I got both and the interview was finally set up on June 18. NEC Vietnam is located at e.town. It was my first time there, I really liked that place. And I liked it more when I went to the office. Then the interview started. As usual, they asked me some OOP questions, it was smooth at first but things got worse later. I could just hope when I left there. But the opportunity to work with them didn't come to me eventually.

The day after, the 19th, was the day I was scheduled for the interview at FPT Telecom. There were 4 interviewers in the room. They looked serious enough to make me worry T_T. I was really in trouble when they asked what I used in my projects in the school because I could only name very few things. There came even more trouble with the SQL part, it had been soooooo long since I last wrote an SQL query. I realized what I wrote was a mess when the interview ended. And the result was... as you would think.

The next one was TEG Consulting. I took a test there on the 25th and interviewed on the 29th. This was a PHP position, all the others were .NET. There they asked some questions about the algorithms that I didn't know how to answer. I also had a feeling that this path wasn't for me so I knew the result.

Before that, I received a call from Harvey Nash Vietnam on June 23. They called to introduce to me the Fresher Program and invited me to a test on the 29th. This test was in the afternoon and the previous interview was in the morning so I was able to take it. Yay! It was at e.town again. After taking the test, I wondered why it took so long for the result so I tried to go to the Facebook page of the company and saw an answer saying one would get the test result within 2 weeks. So there was still hope and I decided to wait a bit longer. The interview invitation email finally came. I interviewed on July 15 and 2 days later they invited me to join the briefing of the Fresher Program which took place on July 21. I was really happy ^o^. So I attended the briefing and signed a 3-month contract with them, starting from the 3rd of August.

There was still time for me. An FPT Software recruiter found me through LinkedIn. I was curious and just wanted to know more about the interviews. This place is also quite far from my home. I passed the test on July 21 afternoon and interviewed on the 24th. Then I received a thank you email '_'.

And then, the kick-off day of the program came. That was also the day my team was formed. We took an office tour led by a lady. We got our seats at the end of the tour.

That was the start of the story. All was new to us from the company processes, the work, the environment to the people. However, we got to know each other rather quickly and became friends. Yup! I can call them friends. We learned, we worked, we had meals and hung out together.

Everyone in the team

It was our luck to join the program when there was about to be a company trip. That was really a fun time. We also enjoyed the gala dinner with the participation of 2 singers and a DJ.During the program, we had 4 presentations for the Board of Assessment. I was one of the speakers at the second one. Guess what? I was praised for my English pronunciation and fluency ^o^. I was soooo glad.

Part of the team at The Grand Ho Tram Strip

We then overcame the challenges and graduated from the program together on November 2. Some mates including me have been being assigned to different projects so we are separated.But that was not the only chance for us to get closer to each other. We also had a day for outing activities. We played a game that required us to walk a lot and I had a sudden cramp T_T. But that did not stop my team from taking first place :p.

Well, it's already late. This post is also already long. I guess it's time to have some rest.

This morning, my journey will truly begin!