‘Overconfident’: L&T recruiter cut AM Naik’s salary to Rs 670 after hiring interview in 1964

Industrialist, philanthropist and the Chairman Emeritus of Larsen & Toubro, Anil Manibhai Naik, who has been credited for taking the company to new heights and referred to as a doyen of the Indian industry, following a career spanning decades, had no way of knowing in his hiring interview, how important his role would be in the trajectory of the company’s rise. You see, the recruiter dismissed him as “overconfident” and even slashed his expected salary. 

AM Naik’s recruitment interview for L&T in 1964 is what legends are made of. A new book titled ‘AM Naik: The Man Who Built Tomorrow’, authored by Priya Kumar and Jairam N Menon, and published by HarperCollins, narrates how that fateful interview in November 1964 went. 

Naik, who was 22-years old at that time, chanced upon a recruitment drive for L&T. But he was forewarned, a neighbour who worked in the company had told him that the ‘T’ in the name of T Baker, the workshop foreman who was to interview him, stood for ‘terror’! Nevertheless, Naik was confident he suited the role. 

After a series of questions, came the one that would make or break the deal. “Do you know how to design a boiler?” Baker asked Naik. But Naik not only knew how to, he was thorough with it. What kind of boiler was he thinking of, thin cylinder or thick, size, material, asked Naik. Baker was left impressed with Naik’s knowledge and command over the subject. 

The terms of appointment were agreed upon. But it was still not over – Naik was yet to meet the ‘old man’ – the “sharp, keen-eyed engineer Gunnar Hansen”. 

Hansen asked Naik how many people report to him. He had worked in a small Parsi-owned firm called Nestor Boilers, before L&T. Three hundred and fifty, Naik replied. “That’s a lot! Three hundred and fifty is a lot. It will be a looong time before you get that kind of responsibility at Larsen & Toubro,” said Hansen in his Nordic drawl. 

But English, for Naik at the time, was not at the tip of his tongue. He would translate English questions to Gujarati in his head, and come up with a Gujarati answer that he would translate to English out loud. So, following his usual drill, he said, “Who knows, time will tell”. Now that seemed fine to him as a Gujarati but Hansen took it as a cocky boast.

An unhappy Hansen ended the interview, asked Naik to leave the room, and then rushed out upset. He eventually called Naik back to the room, told him he thought he was “overconfident”, and that all the terms that he and Baker had agreed upon were revised down. 

The new offer was now not for an ‘assistant engineer’ but a ‘junior engineer’, in the ‘unionised’ category and not the ‘supervisory’ cadre, with a monthly salary of Rs 670, instead of Rs 760.

Naik was disappointed but never deterred. He told Baker that he would join the company nevertheless. Baker gave him a bit of advice then: “My sonny boy, work hard, work hard. And on confirmation, we will give you back all that we had promised.”

Naik worked hard from thereon, and became the one to break the mould in many ways, the book reveals. 

Baker too kept his promise. He eventually fought with the ‘old man’ Hansen to restore Naik’s original offered salary of Rs 760, and made him an assistant engineer. He soon fought more for Naik to hike his salary to Rs 950 per month, and eventually getting Rs 1,125.

But no one begrudged Naik his rise, and everyone believed that he deserved every rupee of it.