The placement season is under way in the engineering colleges, but reports suggest that the number of jobs on offer does not match those in the past three years. The companies, however, are snapping up all the deserving students.
So who are the deserving ones and why are they in demand? They are the students who recognised early enough the need to be prepared for the placement process and put in the required work. All those sensible youngsters are landing jobs.
The companies relish the prospect because they can choose from a wider pool for a smaller requirement, making their recruitment processes foolproof.
The afterglow of the ebullient recruitments in the previous years has made the students a little overconfident of their potential and smartness, and the belief that they will get jobs come what may has made them lackadaisical in their preparation. So the shrinking of the job market has caught them unawares. The opportunities are fewer and the processes are tougher. It is a double whammy, and the students who are not prepared have borne the brunt of the hit.
So, what are the things to do for the students who sit for the placements next year?
Understand the macroeconomic and the recruitment scenarios well in advance from various news sources.
Know that the responsibility of getting jobs is not with the college and is with yourself. Many wrongly believe that the college will find jobs for them.
If the condition seems to be unfavourable, prepare harder.
Understand that a job in hand is worth two outside. It boosts self-confidence and helps you pursue your long-term plans without worry.
Reasoning
Most students get eliminated from the placement processes in the test of reasoning. Two months ago, I visited a college to help prepare students for this test. The overwhelming demand was to train them in a specific type of question paper and a specific area in that named probability. It did not occur to them that they have been studying this topic for the past five years and have not yet mastered the concept and they are asking for it to be taught to them in an hour. Such is the obsession with pattern recognition. This happens all the time.
Every test-taker seems to be hell-bent on mastering the technique to solve a particular type of question paper, whether it is campus recruitment or a test conducted by the Public Service Commission. This is called pattern recognition and it serves no purpose other than to master a set of questions.
If the person setting the question paper is shrewd, he can catch these students off guard. He will either introduce a new format or redefine the same questions in such a way that only those who know the basics well will be able to answer them. This may not be a possibility in government papers but in times like the present year, the private companies will definitely do it.
So in times of difficult placements, prepare the basics well and do not settle for pattern recognition. This will serve you not only to get jobs but also to have a better life because in life basics matter the most.
