The COVID-19 crisis has taken a toll on the campus placement prospects of B.Tech. students.
Hiring plans are likely to get delayed across sectors this year as recruiters reel under the financial impact of the pandemic outbreak. The majority of regular companies that visit campuses here have informed the authorities that the recruitment calendar will skip the usual October-November season this time.
“Companies are yet to give any commitment on their recruitment plans for the forthcoming recruitment cycle. This is the time that we usually start the registrations of students interested to appear for campus recruitment. Recruiters have informed that the pandemic has resulted in hiring plans getting stretched,” said Jacob Elias, Chief Placement Officer and Professor, School of Engineering at Cochin University of Science and Technology.
M.V. Rajesh, Training and Placement Officer and Associate Professor at Model Engineering College, Thrikkakara, said that companies continued to defer jobs offered to students who finished their course this year. “A leading company that had offered attractive placements has now postponed its plans stating that they lack clarity on when the situation will turn normal. Some of the students, who received such offers, had not appeared for other interviews as part of our policy on ensuring placement for all the students,” he said.
Placement officers said that 90% of the recruitment was being done by IT companies. Job offers by core companies had also dipped as the COVID-19 situation had affected their financial prospects considerably. “The skill levels of candidates will be crucial from now onwards as the pandemic has created more challenges and disruptions across sectors, besides cutting down jobs in a big way. We need to reorient the learning process by focussing more on skill enhancement,”said P.S. Sreejith, Principal of Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology.
The crisis has also hit the internship programme undertaken by engineering students. Most of them are not able to travel to outside the State to take up the internship in companies. Recruitment officers said that some firms had agreed to offer internship online. Students were being asked to undertake projects at their department-level in view of the present deadlock, they said.
