Which company were you obsessed with joining, but never could?

For me it was McKinsey It was the best job out of college, status wise. Did well in college and made it to the final shortlist. Was obsessed with it, read books and all about The Firm. Then the interviews happened, couldn’t convert. Was a downer. But 5 years later, doesn’t matter much. I feel life taught me better things. And my fascination of consulting jobs has changed drastically since :p

Bright Money, folks seemed very bright too. Good culture, great learning. The pay was the issue. Have I grown over it - no, not really. At times I feel my growth there would've someday compensated for the hike I was expecting.

HyperVerge, excellent team and ethics. Was eyeing them in 2019. Then moved to a different space so it didn’t make much more sense.

I got laid off from my dream company Microsoft which I had got after converting my internship into a PPO. Couldn't really understand why it happened because I had always achieved more than 100% of the targets and the layoffs happened when Microsoft was having its best ever quarter. The layoffs happened because some Partner of a VC firm penned letters to Google and other Tech CEOs that they need to fire employees. I never really got over it, and don't know how long it will linger. But I really hope other's find peace and I find it too. :)

For me Uber as a data scientist. Best pay master for my field I think. Funny story. Got laid off in Aug. Got a interview call from Uber in late Aug. Gave 5 rounds but couldn’t convert. Got a rejection in Oct mid. Just after that got a call from a company called Indium Software for their client Uber. Having converted it and sitting in their office as an ext employee with their laptop feels like “ so close yet so far” FML. Will probably try again after the cool off period.

None

P*rnhub

For me, it was Deloitte , though I am from tech field. As a college student , I had a positive opinion of them ( I still do but now I know the complete and bigger picture ) . They didn’t come for college placement in the year I was graduating.

any company that pays good is a dream company, hence countless rejections

Google : Was working in WITCH company just applied but to my surprise got a call but got rejected in the screening itself . Applied again after a year got rejected again . Atlassian : After seeing the JD I was not confident. Just appeared for the screening round , surprisingly I did well. Went through 2 technical rounds but got rejected . That was a very hard pill to swallow. Because after that they never shortlisted me. Sap : Applied for 4 roles. First one cleared 3 rounds then got rejected. 2nd one got through 2 rounds got rejected. 3rd one attended first rounds and rejected again after keeping my profile for 45 days.

No dream Company, only Dream Salary....

For me it was confluent, gave interview about 3 months ago and cleared all rounds as well but got ghosted after the final round. One week ago, their stock went down by 50% in one day and stock component was more than half of the ctc so it would have gone very bad. Maxe me really believe "jo hota hai ache ke liye hota hai"

Cred, but ik their design standards are so freaking high :')

Some gaming company like Ubisoft when I was naive. Now I know better and only hope of meeting good folks along my career journey that will vouch for me

Inmobi they just wont ever schedule interview multiple refferal and one tike they finally did i aced all 4 rounds and then they said hiring freeze when i kept on following for almost a month.. completely pissed me off

For me it was Microsoft. I never made it past the interview stage. I quickly got over it after a bad interview experience where an interviewer with a shitty internet connection kept insisting on having his video on and that caused his audio to break up and I couldn’t hear him. Even after telling him multiple times, he kept his video on and then rejected me. Also the layoffs where they threw out their long timers like trash also cooled my interest.

Amazon - couldn't clear the hm round, it was only "branded org" that I got an interview ;⁠)

JioCinema. got rejected in system design round.

Unilever - was always a marketing candidate abd Unilever was gold class. Got rejected in the HR round. Got over the company, but could never forgive the HR perso for making me feel like shit. Feedback - i gave up on an interview question, which honestly was a ridiculous one, too easily.

Atlassian. Went through all the rounds for the role I applied for and cleared them. Was then told the panel wanted me to interview for a role 2 levels above the one I originally interviewed for. I tanked that interview as I didn’t have the relevant experience, and the original role I interviewed for was not available anymore as well. A total of 8-9 interviews over 3 months. Never got called back after applying later for other roles. Still stings a bit, given how much I still admire the company.