Remember those days when you used to just toss the term “placement” all around while choosing a college during your admissions? A few months from now, you will realize that there is lot more to campus placements than the statistics you see. After having gone through it all, this realization has doomed upon me too. Aspirants even today constantly ask – “How are the placements in this college? Will I get placed?”. To which I reply “It’s complicated.” As if someone has asked me about my relationship status. Being single hardly counts as complicated. Anyways. Moving on…

Up until now, placement was really just a term. In the days ahead, it will be a living, breathing character in your life.

Which is why the official orientation from the Placement Department leaves you a bit unsettled. The thoughts of “Will I get a job after all?” will run through your mind several times. And, most importantly, you will realize you’re a student no more. It’s time to face the actual, real world. The “corporate life” as they say.

Let’s hold that thought for now, because you are still miles away from the main event. You have ample of time to work on your weaknesses and harness your strengths.

I will post a preparatory guide later during your holidays. For now, you have one major task to complete :

HOW TO CHOOSE MY PC?

I will answer that later. But first, there’s another million bucks question that needs to be addressed :

IS PC THAT IMPORTANT?

Quite frankly, no. From the experiences that I have heard, the Preferred Company list did not help anyone in any way. You may read this a lot in my posts from now : Companies are unpredictable. You simply cannot predict in any which way whether the company you want to opt for will come at the campus or not. Even if they did, they should have a job profile which would make your branch eligible to appear.

We were asked to fill 3 companies for PC : one of them didn’t make my branch eligible, one didn’t come at all and I was already eligible to sit for the third one when it came. So the PC system didn’t help me. That might be the case for you as well.

But I won’t deny the possibility that it can help to some. Just to think about that one (or two) company which you really aspire for, where you want to start your career, is surely a fascinating process! Though you should constantly remind yourself that keeping a company as your PC doesn’t give you a leverage in any way other than making you eligible for appearing.

Now before we move on, there’s this tool that you should use to get any kind of placement data. A simple one, but worth mentioning once.

THE SC GROUP SEARCH BAR

Want to know which companies visit here?

Want to check the number of selects for a company?

Want to know who all were selected?

Want to check on when the company normally arrives in the campus?

Your answer to all this and many more questions is the search tab on the SC group. For the past 5 years, the officials at Placement Department have been posting this information. It’s not for them to brag about it, but for you and future batch folks to know about the companies that visit here. A simple search of the keyword (company name) would let you know a lot of things and help in gauging whether you want to join the company. The #BhaiKiPlacement tags and comments will help you find all those who were selected.

You can access the search tab only in your desktop/laptop.

Here’s how you can use it to choose your PC :

• Check when does the company usually comes at the campus. Look at the month its results were posted. It makes more sense to prefer a company which comes during the last leg of placement period (probably during 8th semester).

 

• I would suggest you have one company which you know you can get, and one company which is way out of your league but you want to try anyways. Choosing one company for the former is tough. If you have multiple companies to choose from, do an external research to find out what profiles do they offer for freshers. If you find a profile of your interest in the company, go ahead. As I said, it’s not necessary that they will come for the same profile. But you have to take chances somewhere!

 

• It is possible that a company that has never come here yet, may come during your time. If you take that possibility, you will have a ton of more companies to look into. Use the previous point over here as well. But keep your expectations in check, guys. Don’t take the words “Dream company” in the literal sense and choose a Tesla or an Apple.

 

• Keep a lively discussion with your friends. There is no leverage in keeping your choices a guarded secret. If your friend knows a bit or two more about a company, you can certainly benefit from that info. Sharing is caring, as they say.

 

• Companies with too many or lesser selects are always a risky bet. A bigger number of selects (above 20) in the previous time means they had the requirement for a particular project and will most likely not have the same requirement next time. With lesser selects (1 or 2), there are lesser chances of the company coming at all. So as far as possible, avoid such companies in your preference.

 

• Don’t put any MRCs (Mass Recruiting Company) like TCS, Infosys, Accenture as your PC. Our placement rules allow us to sit for these companies regardless of any non-spot offer you get. You will be in a fix if you do get an offer from these companies and you want to sit further.

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I hope I’ve covered all that you need to know before going to the placement portal. Don’t scratch your head too much on this. Just go with your gut instincts and choose the 2 companies keeping the above points in mind.

We’ll meet in yet another Placement Cell post soon. Until then, if you have any queries regarding placements, you can comment down here or leave a message on the facebook page. Please refrain from placement rules related questions. There might be some changes to it and I cannot advice you based on the rules that I know. The placement department can help you with that.

So until next time, all the best! Fill your portal cautiously and start with your preparation for the big battle ahead!