Placement Day is the most important day in the academic life of an engineering student or for that matter any student in whose institution, recruitment from the campus by visiting organizations is a reality. To all the students, who are participants in the campus recruitment process of an institution, the Placement Day offers a chance to get noticed by and woo the prospective customers from the professional point of view. It also gives the candidates a first hand experience of not only the general and particular expectations from the candidate for a job but also the practical working of a system about which they have only heard in their training. The importance of this day is well understood when we consider that no candidate can afford to make even the slightest of mistakes and still hope to get away with it on this day. The length and continuity of the training of the candidates for this day points out to the amount of importance placed on the day by both the institutions and their students. For those fortunate and skillful enough to land a decent job for themselves, the immediate and the near future at least are safe professionally. Such is the importance of this day that it is impossible to either underestimate or overestimate its impact on a candidate’s future. For most of the students who study engineering, getting a job as soon as possible, once they are eligible to participate in the recruitment process, represents not only a triumphant achievement for the students but also provides a sense of security to the minds of their parents, waiting eagerly to get the worth of their investments back. It is a day on which pressure, expectation, nervousness and excitement compete amongst one another to make it the experience of a lifetime for the first-timers.
The importance of the day calls for a detailed preparation on part of the candidate to make it memorable for him / her. There are certain skills which the candidate has to develop over a period of time to perform well on this day. Most of the organizations taking part in the recruitment process have a three-tier process of selection. A Written Test to assess a candidate’s verbal, mathematical, analytical and reasoning ability, Group Discussion to check his / her breadth of knowledge, maturity of opinion, and fitness for teamwork, and Personal Interview to find out the depth of knowledge and decipher the personality of the candidate. Some of the organizations have a written round to check the subject or technical knowledge of a candidate while some others prescribe a Psychometric Test to lay bare the personality behind the persona and yet again there are some who conduct both the technical interview and the stress interview to judge the quality of a candidate.
For the written rounds, be they tests to determine subject or technical knowledge of the candidate or those assessing his / her verbal, mathematical, analytical and reasoning skills, the candidate has to follow a long term approach to prepare himself / herself. It is mainly because the questions in these tests are related to vocabulary or grammar or analytical understanding of the various branches of mathematics or logical or analytical reasoning, for which time is required. Regular attendance of the training classes aimed at developing the above-mentioned areas and skills, sufficient and sincere practice on the problems related to these areas and regular attendance of one’s daily classes as well as the classes dealing with non-curricular technical information related to one’s curricular subjects will prove immensely beneficial. The candidate has to not only attend the above-prescribed classes but also keep an open mind and learn as much as is possible for him / her. Apart from reading the newspapers regularly, the candidate must be in the habit of reading any analytical general awareness magazine of repute. Along with these, the candidate must try and acquire a basic knowledge of as many subjects as possible. Once the candidate is more or less aware of whatever is happening around him / her, he / she must try and develop his / her opinions on such matters. In developing his / her opinions on any topic or situation or person, the candidate must follow a rational approach and avoid extremes. Knowledge of etiquette, behavioral and other expectations of the professional sector and what is acceptable across various cultures is a must. The candidate must also take care to develop his / her communication skills and the willingness, ability, and patience to listen to others and avoid selfishness. All of these should help the candidate in getting ready for Group Discussion.
Preparation for personal interview requires the candidate to develop a persona that is acceptable to the recruiting organizers. The candidates must remember that since getting selected on the Placement Day marks the beginning of their professional career, they will be selected to the lowest position befitting their educational degree, in which knowledge acquired in the first six months or one year of training would be of much more importance (while doing their jobs) than that inculcated by the institution from which they acquired their educational degree after four years. To put it simply, knowledge about the subjects of one’s curriculum is important but what finally matters is whether one has those behavioral and mental attributes that are desired by the recruiting organization.
The candidate must not only have an unconfused understanding of his / her curricular subjects but is also expected to have some knowledge of related technical subjects. Since, the number of IT sector organizations has, over the years, surpassed that of the other sector recruiters, all the candidates who wish to go into the IT sector are expected to have a rudimentary knowledge of some of the non-curricular programming languages that are in popular use in that sector.
The candidate in developing his / her personality over a period of three and a half years must take care to include humility, patience, tolerance, endurance, ability to handle stress, inquisitive and energetic attitude, determination, honesty to oneself, self-esteem, perseverance, conflict resolution attitude and skills, willingness to obey directions, ability to adapt and adjust, smartness, discipline, methodological approach, result-oriented approach, punctuality, positive attitude, impartial judgment, problem-solving skills, discernment, moderation in outlook, willingness to learn, hardworking ability, ability of appreciation and confidence in self as well as others as elements of his / her personality.
Although the candidate in preparing for the interview must take it sincerely and seriously, he / she must never consider it as a burden. Rather, he / she must learn to enjoy it. Some amount of nervousness before the interview in the first timers is considered positive and implies seriousness on part of the candidate so he / she must not be afraid or ashamed to show it or speak about it when asked about it. The candidates are advised to develop in themselves an attitude of cooperation and not confrontation or argumentation while preparing for the interview. Though a smile on the face and humor in speech helps the candidate to no end in an interview, he / she must remember that the interview has a formal atmosphere where no degree of misplaced familiarity or casualness has any place.
Because of the kind of work ethics and degree of pressure associated with the professional sector of the present era, in almost all the interviews, an attempt in some form or the other will be made by the interviewer to disturb the composure of the interviewee due to which the candidates are expected to prepare themselves to keep their cool and equanimity even when the interviewee appears to be losing his / hers. Apart from preparing himself / herself on the expected questions for the interview, the candidate must have some respect for the intelligence of the interviewer and, consequently, avoid bluffing when he / she does not know the answer to a question. Thinking on the question for some seconds before coming out with its answer is considered a positive trait as it indicates not only the importance that a candidate pays to the question but also his / her desire and effort to provide the best possible answer to it. The candidates must try to not only follow all the tips and pieces of advice of the placement trainer regarding interviews but also glean as much information as possible on the experiences of their own seniors in it.
The candidate should avoid the temptation of copying and using the cheaply available Resumes or Curriculum Vitas on the Internet and must prepare his / her Resume or Curriculum Vitae only after a proper and honest SWOT (Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Tests or Trials or Threats) analysis because he / she should understand that in most of the cases, it is not only difficult to convincingly defend and explain someone else’s viewpoints, experiences, and language as one’s own but also very easy to identify the insincerity, laziness, dubiousness of whosoever tries to do it. Preparation of the Resume or the CV is a serious affair and the candidate must give some time and thought to it.
Special care must be taken of and utmost importance should be paid to the dress to be worn on the D-day. Without decorating and dressing himself / herself in the way that he / she would undoubtedly do on his / her day of marriage, the candidate must take care to remember the emphatic formality that is generally attached to this day. Accordingly, the candidate must present himself / herself in proper formal attire after getting to know from the placement trainer what formal attire is all about. In spite of hearsay or the advice of rumormongers or foolish taken-for-granted insulated individual knowledge about the dress code prescribed by the recruitment organization, the candidate shouldn’t wear any unnecessary article of clothing if the organization does not specifically prescribe it. Wearing a three-piece suit in the month of May is eye-catching but for the wrong reasons.
All said and done, the candidate must remember that as the most important preparation for the Placement Day, he / she must secure pass marks in all the papers of all the semesters till the Placement Day to be even eligible to take part in the selection process. Though a candidate may get a chance, in spite of having backlogs, and also get selected on the Placement Day, he / she shall not be considered eligible by the recruiting organization for the final call letter if he / she does not clear all his / her papers by the end of originally stipulated time period of the degree. The candidate must also be conscious of his / her attendance in the regular classes and the training and placement classes and behavior in these classes as well as the institution to avoid any last minute hassles through which his / her institution may be forced to prevent him / her from taking part in its placement program. All the students of the institution are also advised to put forth their best behavior on the Placement Day for the simple reason that if the visiting organization is not satisfied with the standard of discipline prevailing in the institute, it may not think it worthwhile to come again, a decision which will strike off not only one organization from the list of recruiters but also a few others if the word gets out. Every candidate must understand that if he / she pays importance to the Placement Day, he / she shall receive his / her due importance on that day.
Postscript: It won’t be wrong to compare the activities in an institution on the Placement Day to those in the market on any day. The Placement Day represents a buyer-seller scenario, in which products which can satisfy the demands of the buyers are bought by them at the demanded price. It is all about how well the candidates can advertise, package, and market themselves before and convince the recruiting organizations into buying them on the Placement Day. But, we should also remember that if a product is unfinished or does not have any quality then the question of any of the activities mentioned in the previous sentence does not arise. When the seller has nothing to offer, he / she better not come to the market. This is what the candidates must understand about and why they should prepare for the Placement Day.
At Indic Institute of Design & Research we prepare our students continuously for the placement day; it's a big day that can take the career of our students to dizzying heights. We therefore pay attention to overall preparation and grooming of our students right from day one in our college so that they are not left wanting at the crucial hour.
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