Interview Experience (with SLB)

Just want to share one of my greatest life experience, which was the interview session with Schlumberger for my internship placement that will commence on the 20th of January next year.

Before I begin, I would like to thank one of my coursemate, Kirsanth for informing me about the call from SLB. Due to the missing of area code in my phone number, the HR from SLB could not reach me and luckily Kirsanth told me about this and gave me their phone number for me to call back. Couldn't reach them for my first trial though. Worries engulfed me for 2 days because I missed the call on Friday T^T

Good thing was that, my attempt to call back them was a success on the next Monday morning :) I was asked a few questions by the HR (including CGPA, sponsorship, course...etc...) and shocked to know that they did not even have our CV! She advised me to update my phone number with CSIMAL (I was thinking like how can this happen because I won't make such a big mistake for sure when giving my phone number to CSIMAL. Just don't know what's wrong with the database.)

The email inviting me to the interview session reached me 2 hours after my phone call. OMG luckily I called them at 8.30am or else I will sure miss the chance to be shortlisted for interview!
I was so happy, but then felt very tension when I saw around 31 candidates were shortlisted @_@ [chance to be selected has greatly reduced as the placements were very limited!] Our interview was 2 days after, at Block B, UTP.

We were required to prepare a self introduction of 3 minutes long, including some personal information, reasons for joining SLB, 3 personal weaknesses and also strengths. At first I thought that 3 minutes was too long for it but at last I found out that it was exactly the opposite!

The recruiter reached at around 10am and we begin with the self introduction session, skipping the company introduction because we were seriously behind the schedule. The recruiter was Mr. Sharizal. [a friendly guy :)] We were asked to introduce ourselves one by one in front of all candidates (very anxious!) Some of the candidates manage to finish their presentation within the time limit while I couldn't @@ I was stopped straight away when the bell rang >_< I did not manage to finish presenting my weaknesses. Good thing was that, I rearrange the sequence of my presentation content by mentioning about my reasons of joining SLB first, followed by strengths and lastly my weaknesses :P

After the introduction was completed, we were divided into groups for an activity. There were 5 members in my group: Joel, Abu Bakar, Chun Tat, Kirsanth and I. The task was to build a bridge that can sustain and allow a car (toy car of course) to pass through without corrupting. We were given materials : 10 pieces of A4 papers, 2 paper cups, 2 rolls of tapes, a pair of chopsticks and 2 wires. During the first 10 minutes, we need to design and sketch our product on the back of the instruction paper and build the model in the next 20 minutes. Our group chose to focus on the strength of our bridge instead of its length. Thus, our bridge only had the length of a chopstick >_< [Although your bridge might be very long, but once toppled during the test, you failed!]

During the assessment of our prototype, we felt very confident because ours looked the most robust among all :P But guess what? We were disqualified by Mr. Sharizal at the first sight, hahahaha! This was because I misunderstood the meaning of 'self-standing'. I thought 'self-standing' means 'able to stand on its own without us holding it' but then it turned out that we were not allowed to stick it to the floor as well! For me, I thought sticking to the floor simply means that it is not portable (which I have asked before we started to build the model) LOL... However, we showed that our bridge was able to stand without the support from the tape but still failed at last because our bridge did not provide an open path for the car to enter... >_< [Anyway, I felt satisfied with our prototype because it was the result of our hard work and it shaped like a trophy :P ]

Joel, Chun Tat, Me, Kirsanth, Abu Bakar

After the group activity, we waited few minutes before Mr. Sharizal came into the room again to announce for the shortlisted candidates to attend the last interview session. 11 out of 31 candidates were selected and THANK GOD I was one of them :) We were required to come back for the last interview session after lunch and my slot was at 4pm (the last candidate to be interviewed >_< )

Instead of 'interview', it was more like a chance for the recruiter to know more about ourselves, such as our preferred segment of work and the reasons. My interview ended quite early (less than 15 minutes) because the recruiter already knew most of my information from my CV :)

After that, I went back to my hostel 'tumpang-ing' Abu Bakar's car.

P.S. Before the last interview session begin, I was so shocked that Mr. Sharizal knew my previous SV in SPT >_< [But of course, SPT is now part of SLB]

I knew the result quite late (on Wednesday) because there were a lot of public holidays in between. I was so tortured waiting for their reply >_<

Luckily, I manage to secure a placement in Labuan with SLB for my internship :)

Stay tuned for my next update, most probably about my internship experience in Labuan ;-P