“Sheduled exam 9 am August 31, 2007 at Allied Bank main branch Makati. Exam will be held on the top floor, Penthouse and look for Mr. Lagamon. Please bring 1 2×2 pic, TOR and updated resume.” These are the details of the text message I received last Saturday. Opportunity knocks on me again. Yesterday, I kept my hopes up as I journeyed the 1 1/2 hour bus ride from my home to Ayala Makati. Inside the designated examination room, there are at least 15 applicants silently sitted, waiting for an HR to accompany us through the exam. An HR arrived and the start of the exam was initiated. Typical exams given to us includes logic and arithmetic. An essay was also given about our candid personalities/capabilities that could give us the edge on our chosen position and something like that. If you ask me, the exam was fairly easy. Before we ended our personality test, the HR called the names indicated on the paper stub to go back 1:15 after lunch. Only 12, including me, were handed out a stub bearing their name on it. The guy beside me spoke to me that he never got a stub. He assumed he failed the exam. Me, I don’t have any idea. So I decided to tag along with him. He is also going to submit his resume to Chinabank and thought that I do too. Besides, I’m in the business capital in the country, might as well submit my resumes. The more the merrier. We look for a fast food chain and eat before we head to Chinabank. As soon as we finished our meal, it’s almost 1:10. I should go back. So I left him my resume for him to submit and I headed back to Allied.

A new HR arrived and handed out the test questionnaires and answer sheets. Aptitude tests are the ones we’re taking under ITD department (since all of us aspire for an IT position). To say the least, it was hard. Not to mention the type of exam was “Right minus Wrong”. The math portion is the one I dislike from job exams. Next part, the much harder exam. There are 4 problems, each need to have a correct output based on the questionnaire. We must write down the sequence of codes to meet the problem that should produce the exact output. Any programming languages will do. I was planning to use C++ but as I was starting to move my pen, my mind went blank. F*ck! I forgot the basic codes. I concentrated hoping I could remember it, but to no avail. I decided to use C language instead of pursuing doing C++. There’s no time limit into this last segment of our exam so we can have enough time to finish it. No one finished the 4 problems. I did the 1st one but wasn’t able to finish it. Oh well! Before we left, the HR informed us that those qualified for an interview will be notified via phone call next week. So, I’ll wait.

I left Allied around 4:08 pm and attended to watch a movie instead before going home. I watched Rush Hour 3, just to relax my mind a bit from the pressures of the exam. Then after I finished watching, I went straight to Landmark to meet with Mae. I’m looking forward to the Chinabank application and hopefully the HR at Allied will call me some time next week. That’ll be cool!

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