The corporate ticket
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Campus interviews throw an academic challenge to students to flag off their career. How productive are these corporate exercises? Akhila Seetharaman finds out...
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THE NEW crop of engineers has almost arrived. Armed with engineering degrees, four years of applied science slung on their shoulders, and carrying bags chockfull of dreams, 2004's batch is almost upon industry.
This is the time when colleges intensify their year-round placement efforts; students begin to sweat on the job hunt, and the war cry "corporate on campus!" works magic on both students and faculty.
"Campus recruitment becomes more frequent from March to July," says S. Mohamed Tajudeen, in charge of placements at St. Joseph's College of Engineering. Most students pin their hopes on campus recruitment, according to Arvind Ranganathan, a final semester student at the college.
Predictably, software companies are coming in droves for the pick of the lot, and not only from the software branch. After studying electronic instrumentation, Arvind is set to join Cognizant Technology Solutions Limited as a Programme Analyst Trainee.
"Recruiters don't seem to be looking for specialised knowledge, I think they are looking for people with a good understanding of fundamental concepts," he says. "Companies don't have much time to evaluate each candidate's technical knowledge, so communication skills become very important," he says.
Students, for their part, look for brand names. Companies like Infosys, Cognizant, Sathyam, as well as multinational companies like Dell, Microsoft and Tata Consultancy Services are crowd-pullers.
But K Balu, Dean (ACT) of Technology at Anna University, believes that the golden `standards,' such as Hindustan Lever Limited, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) and Larsen and Toubro still hold sway.
"Our students are very smart — many of them prefer ABB, involved in power generation and distribution, over DELL, and BHEL over Microsoft because although the demand is high in the IT sector, it also fluctuates a lot more."
According to R. Lokasundaram, placement officer at Dr. MGR. Janaki Engineering College, the sector with maximum demand has changed over the years. "At one time the pull was strongest from leather industries; later, it shifted to the automobile sector," he observes. "Two years ago, Information Technology became everything; now we have a flurry of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies." He believes that the future lies in IT and IT-related service sectors, as they are the best paymasters, he says.
The mood at campus recruitment drives is almost always competitive. "But it is healthy competition," says Akarsha Ramani, a seventh semester student at SRM Easwari College of Engineering.
For those in the running, it is a long haul. Every round of evaluation is also a round of elimination. In most cases, an aptitude test is followed by a group discussion and subsequently, a round of technical questions. "If you pass all these, you go through a personal interview where they evaluate your attitude and personality," says Akshara.
At most engineering colleges, being selected by a company means you cannot participate in other campus recruitment drives. "One student, one job, is the policy," says Dr. Balu of Anna University.
This rule applies in all colleges, across the board. Irrespective of whether you find a job or a job finds you, once selected, you have to retire from the race.
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