The global economic meltdown has resulted in a 10% drop in campus placements in city colleges this year. Though IT jobs have remained impressive with 80% of the total number of placements, but for those aspiring for jobs in sectors such as manufacturing, life science. journalism, psychology, advertising etc there was little to cheer about.
“Intakes have been low this year with many companies ruing poor business abroad. So far only 15 companies have visited the campus and nearly 150 students have been placed,” said Seema Ghosh, placement coordinator at Bhavan’s Vivekananda Degree College that has fared much better in the previous years. For instance, Wipro Technologies, which selected 70 students from the campus last year, restricted itself to 37 this time around.
While Facebook, usually among the biggest employers, has stayed away from campuses altogether, Deloitte has limited its recruitments to its IT wing. Unlike in the past, they have not signed anybody for its BPO and tax arms. “This time, companies are offering internships to students after which a selected few are being offered jobs. Around 30 students completed a four-month internship with Amazon, from which around 15 were shortlisted for further rounds,” said Anju Prasad, placement officer at St Mary’s College, Yousufguda.
At engineering colleges too, there is not much hope with companies cutting down on their placements. “Cognizant always selects the maximum number of students from our college. This year, though they are still the biggest recruiters, the number of students selected has gone down from 410 to 252,” said N L N Reddy, placement coordinator at Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT). At Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST) too, about 260 students have been picked up by Cognizant this year as against 360 last year. Similarly, Infosys recruited around 90 students this time around while last year the number was more than 160.
With most of the jobs being offered by IT and its related sectors, college officials lamented the lack of options for students from diverse streams. “There have been no offers for students who want to pursue careers in various other fields,” said Marie Thomas, placement officer at St Francis College Begumpet, “Most of the IT jobs are taken up by students of B Com, BMS and B Sc,” she added.
Seconding it, N L N Reddy said that the lack of offers from sectors such as manufacturing or even electronics had left students from these streams with no choice but to take up IT jobs.
Premier institutes like IIT, Hyderabad and BITS, Pilani Hyderabad campus, however, seemed to be insulated from this ‘poor show’. According to officials of these colleges, the recruitment season has been satisfactory with big names like Morgan Stanley, Samsung, Mercedes Benz,Ashok Leyland, Nvidia, Honda and Cisco conducting recruitment drives at these campuses. At IIT Hyderabad, around 45 companies have made an appearance so far and more than 100 students have been placed. The BITS campus on the other hand has been visited by around 65 companies and 90% of the batch has already been placed.
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