Engineers in the city have been the most successful if the results of Civil Services Examination 2011 are anything to go by.
According to data from the state government-run All India Civil Services Coaching Centre in Anna Nagar, 22 of the 47 successful candidates from the institute are qualified engineers.
Other successful candidates from the institute include science and arts graduates, doctors, lawyers, and a social worker.
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The new syllabus of the civil services exam favours engineers, says P. Prem Kala Rani, principal of All India Civil Services Coaching Centre.
Rank holder Arunsakthi Kumar, MBBS student from Madras Medical College, says that competing with engineers was a challenging aspect of the civil services examination which included several questions testing numerical ability and analytical reasoning.
Arunsakthi Kumar had to undertake special coaching to handle questions that engineers find easy. A big chunk of the successful candidates from other private coaching centres in the city, too, are engineers.
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K. Sasikumar, an Electronics and Communication Engineering student at the College of Engineering Guindy, says he found the numerical ability and analytical reasoning portions easy. He has cracked the exam in his third attempt.
Most of the aspirants at private coaching institutes in the city are IT professionals with an engineering degree. Private and government coaching institutes have part-time programmes to suit the IT professionals. The financial slowdown in recent years and its impact on the Indian job market was an important factor that persuaded many engineers to pursue a career in civil services.