Sakshi Education
We have around 700 Engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh with nearly 1,50,000 students graduating out of colleges every year. When you are not coming from the top 50 colleges of the state, you have little chances of selecting through campus placements. Off Campus placement is another option for those not selected through campus placements but even placed in the top companies. Let us look into the major misconceptions and the avenues for off campus placements, which have become a new trend of recruiting freshers.
Common Misconceptions about Off Campus Placements:
Specific Off campus drives conducted by companies:
The services companies, product development companies and some core engineering companies will fill the requirements through off campus drives. The companies are finding good candidates in this process and 70 out of 100 applicants are generally invited for such off campus applications.
There are instances where there are significant number of openings and conduct off campus drives to the colleges where the companies have not visited for campus drives. These off campus drives happen generally during February to April months. There are some core companies which will ask all the students who applied through their career sites to come to the company on a particular day to conduct the test and interviews.
What should the student do:
Global trading competitions, web based simulated trading competitions, coding competitions, where students from all the colleges participate. It is a great hunting ground to recruit talented students. This helps the recruiters to rate the talent across colleges and universities.
The Top 50 called for interview:
The top 50 are invited to attend the interview directly waiving off the test. There are some students who could not clear recruitment tests but are able to clear the interviews and got selected. Generally, the recruitment cycle starts in August and goes up to January in some premier colleges. Because of these competitions and talent hunt, some of the tier one college engineering students are offered the jobs even before the placement season.
Participating in APPS festivals and coding and technical competitions:
Some of the product development companies and service companies conduct the application development festivals to hunt the technical talent and reward them by allowing the TOP talent directly allowing them to invite for technical and personal round of interviews without even conducting test.
What should a student do:
The first step is to register on the various technical competitions held by the company career sites and technical clubs, which will be on different names by different companies. You have to be technically strong in fundamentals to participate in such coding, testing or core technical competitions. Follow closely the dates and time lines on which the competitions are held by the companies. Connect with the recruiters through career conclaves and various competitions held by branded companies.
Internship and Pre placement offers:
Internship is the most sought way by the company where the recruiter will know the engineering student and take a conscious call on making a pre placement offer for the candidate. In general the internship duration will be for two months during the summer break. The internship is offered during the months May to July and make a pre-placement offer well before they start placement drive in campuses.
Have contacts with the employees:
Some of the companies will not visit campuses for Internships. For such companies you have to either apply through career sites or have contacts with the employees working in that particular company.
Internship programs leading to full time positions
Many companies have internship programs leading into full time positions .Companies have good conversion rate - 60% set up internship programs leading to full time positions - if the performance is there and gets hands on experience on the live projects. There are some companies which hire only through internships and not through campus placements. The reason is completely based on the kind of business they are into and the products they produce. You can apply to such companies through career websites.
Employee Referrals:
The perception is that most of the hiring through employee referrals is done for experienced hires. There are instances where the companies entertain freshers through employee referral schemes. In certain companies if the reference is from top senior executives, only then the applications are considered. Employee referrals are the key in some companies for hiring freshers. There will be a standard and exclusive drives that happen for employee referrals. If the number of positions is low, the easiest way for the company is to hire through employee referrals.
Through Finishing schools:
Some companies do not go through off campus drives directly. They give the requirement to finishing schools in different cities and the finishing schools in turn will approach the colleges and take applications. Those finishing schools have a separate entrance test and also conduct the training as per the requirement of the industry and company specific requirement. The finishing school then only sends those screened students to the companies. The entire initial screening is done by third parties. There would be some criteria for the students to clear the selection process like some certifications and some one to two week trainings.
By,
Ramesh Siddavatam
Placement Manager,
BITS Pilani,
Hyderabad Campus.
Common Misconceptions about Off Campus Placements:
- All the important positions are filled in campus placements. Very few and remaining positions will be filled through off campus placements
- It is waste of time to apply off campus. The recruiter will ignore and not pay attention on the applications received through career site of the company.
- Only three tier college students apply for off campus placements.
- The salary offered for off campus placement is lesser than on campus recruitment drive.
- Market dynamics and Industry
- To reach out to all the talent in engineering colleges
- Constant review of the performance of students in engineering colleges
- Identify the colleges which produce technical talent from various perspectives
- Promising route for the talented student to get into the DREAM job and DREAM company.
Specific Off campus drives conducted by companies:
The services companies, product development companies and some core engineering companies will fill the requirements through off campus drives. The companies are finding good candidates in this process and 70 out of 100 applicants are generally invited for such off campus applications.
There are instances where there are significant number of openings and conduct off campus drives to the colleges where the companies have not visited for campus drives. These off campus drives happen generally during February to April months. There are some core companies which will ask all the students who applied through their career sites to come to the company on a particular day to conduct the test and interviews.
What should the student do:
- Identify the top 10 companies where you are interested in and watch closely the company career sites.
- Send your resume and register online in the career websites of companies
- Connect with your friends who are studying in other key colleges where the companies invite such colleges.
- Ask your campus placement team / department to closely touch base with the recruiters of the preferred companies.
Global trading competitions, web based simulated trading competitions, coding competitions, where students from all the colleges participate. It is a great hunting ground to recruit talented students. This helps the recruiters to rate the talent across colleges and universities.
The Top 50 called for interview:
The top 50 are invited to attend the interview directly waiving off the test. There are some students who could not clear recruitment tests but are able to clear the interviews and got selected. Generally, the recruitment cycle starts in August and goes up to January in some premier colleges. Because of these competitions and talent hunt, some of the tier one college engineering students are offered the jobs even before the placement season.
Participating in APPS festivals and coding and technical competitions:
Some of the product development companies and service companies conduct the application development festivals to hunt the technical talent and reward them by allowing the TOP talent directly allowing them to invite for technical and personal round of interviews without even conducting test.
What should a student do:
The first step is to register on the various technical competitions held by the company career sites and technical clubs, which will be on different names by different companies. You have to be technically strong in fundamentals to participate in such coding, testing or core technical competitions. Follow closely the dates and time lines on which the competitions are held by the companies. Connect with the recruiters through career conclaves and various competitions held by branded companies.
Internship and Pre placement offers:
Internship is the most sought way by the company where the recruiter will know the engineering student and take a conscious call on making a pre placement offer for the candidate. In general the internship duration will be for two months during the summer break. The internship is offered during the months May to July and make a pre-placement offer well before they start placement drive in campuses.
Have contacts with the employees:
Some of the companies will not visit campuses for Internships. For such companies you have to either apply through career sites or have contacts with the employees working in that particular company.
Internship programs leading to full time positions
Many companies have internship programs leading into full time positions .Companies have good conversion rate - 60% set up internship programs leading to full time positions - if the performance is there and gets hands on experience on the live projects. There are some companies which hire only through internships and not through campus placements. The reason is completely based on the kind of business they are into and the products they produce. You can apply to such companies through career websites.
Employee Referrals:
The perception is that most of the hiring through employee referrals is done for experienced hires. There are instances where the companies entertain freshers through employee referral schemes. In certain companies if the reference is from top senior executives, only then the applications are considered. Employee referrals are the key in some companies for hiring freshers. There will be a standard and exclusive drives that happen for employee referrals. If the number of positions is low, the easiest way for the company is to hire through employee referrals.
Through Finishing schools:
Some companies do not go through off campus drives directly. They give the requirement to finishing schools in different cities and the finishing schools in turn will approach the colleges and take applications. Those finishing schools have a separate entrance test and also conduct the training as per the requirement of the industry and company specific requirement. The finishing school then only sends those screened students to the companies. The entire initial screening is done by third parties. There would be some criteria for the students to clear the selection process like some certifications and some one to two week trainings.
By,Ramesh Siddavatam
Placement Manager,
BITS Pilani,
Hyderabad Campus.
Published date : 03 Oct 2013 03:43PM
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