A Reddit user made waves on Monday after sharing his elaborate six-month ordeal within the Indian job market. The MBA graduate revealed that he had applied for several thousand roles, attended hundreds of interviews — ultimately joining a firm as a consultant. The lengthy post outlined several tips for those going through a similar situation and urged them to not give up.
“I am a 2025 graduate from a Tier 2 MBA college with an average educational background (10th, 12th, and graduation – BTech). I did get a sales job from campus but didn’t accept the offer. I did not want to get into sales; I wanted to get into consulting. I thought that since I did an MBA, it would be easy for me to get a job off-campus — I was delusional,” the candid post began.
The user said they had not received a single call during the first month while applying “only to top strategy and consulting roles in top companies”. The second month saw a slight change in approach as the Redditor began applying to smaller firms and alternative roles such as product manager or business analyst. They recalled making an ATS-compatible resume and applying for around 600 jobs during the second month — getting some responses but “not a single convert”.
“In the 3rd and 4th month, I started reaching out to college alums and seniors asking for referrals. I created two email IDs — one for referrals and one for normal applications. I applied everywhere, around 1500 jobs in that period. I started getting calls from companies, gave interviews, tests, and finally converted my first offer. I was expecting around 12 LPA, but the company offered 4 LPA. I was disappointed,” the post continued.
The Redditor said they had applied for approximately 800 to 900 jobs during their fifth month of job-hunting and started asking Human Resources about the budget of roles before proceeding with interviews. The post revealed that this had led to three to four job offers with a salary up to Rs 10 lakh per year from “decent startups”. But the user had decided against taking up any of these roles — converting four more offers during month six and finally joining a consulting firm.
“Summary of approximately 4000 job applications: — 3000 on LinkedIn, 400 via company portals, 300 through Naukri.com, 200 through IIMJobs and another 100 through other means. Roughly 300 to 400 HR calls (one to two calls daily over five months, rejected more than half because of irrelevant role/salary). Gave 45 aptitude tests, did 20 assignments…” the user summed up.
The Reddit post noted that they had given a total of 60 first-round interviews and converted several of those into subsequent interactions with the hiring team. The avalanche of applications had ultimately led the user to eight job offers.