maso

I sighed of relief as I walked out of the classroom.

After almost 5 hours of not peeing, I can say that it was the longest exam of my life.

I'm going to explain the title before you get any twisted ideas!! So I signed up for this Grand Concours Inspection Générale at Société Générale ( sounds prestigious right, how could I resist pffff) back in December. The recruitment process spreads over 6 months and several tests and if you make it through like a champion (25 out of like...2000 people) they offer you a position as general inspector within the bank and you go on missions in their branches around the world, and 1/2 of the time you're in headquarters in paris.  

They don't even look at your GPA, and anyone with a bachelor/master degree can apply.  Nothing to lose right?       Fast forward one and a half month later, I was selected for the first round, the written exam. So I woke up at 6 am on a saturday(this is the maso part) and headed to HEC (out of all the places in Montreal, they picked the Procter & Gamble classroom in HEC, fffuuuuuuuu)  as we were told to show up at 8 SHARP.   the person in charge arrived at 9. make up your mind people!

I looked around me, there were 5 indians, all dressed up, looking SO SMART T_T
I also met a sweet Italian girl who happens to be in Montreal because her boyfriend is here, she comes 5 times a year to see him. wow.   There was also this French dude, who told me he is doing his second master in Montreal and that he plans to stay here just like a bunch of his comrades because there aren't many job opportunies back in France.  (B*tch, so you come and steal OUR CANADIAN JOBS. double masters,how the heck am I going to compete with that)  After one hour of waiting, it finally started.  The instructions were simple. Analysez le dossier et rédigez une synthèse des idées principales.

the "dossier" was around 30 pages....of economic magazines and newspapers written in a tiny tiny font. I don't know about you but it'd take me at least half of the day to read 30 boring pages about public debt. But we had 3 hours to 4 pages to write... By the time I got to the last article, I already forgot the content of the first ones.  I had one hour left to write something that made sense, and just the introduction took me a solid half an hour.    I looked around me, the indian dude already started the second part;quantitative questions, and his sheet looked so clean, he wrote directly in pen, with such confidence.    As I reread my thing, I realized that the people at société générale will not even grab a GLIMPSE of my intelligence through the crap I wrote.  I myself couldn't find a fragment of intelligence in my text -_-

the exam is fair, and I believe it reflects what will be required from us at the job, rapidité et efficacité, esprit de synthèse, capacité d'analyser les chiffres, faire des liens, etc. 

well what can I say, I wish all the best to the Indian dudes!