How to find good job when there are no campus placements

Lot of engineering students are concerned about ways to find a good job when the college offers no campus placements. India produces upwards of 7 lakh engineers every year and unfortunately, only a fraction of them are actually 'employable'. That's the reason, despite the industry needing engineers, there are several engineering students unemployed. This short article explores various ways to find and apply to jobs and get placed.

Expectation: I want a high paying job in an MNC

Let's face the reality - campus placements happen in only the popular engineering colleges. That leaves a vast pool of engineering students in lesser known engineering colleges without jobs. Many of these engineering students get depressed.

Fortunately, there's some hope!

Let's first lower our expectations about 'the start of our career'.

Most of the Indian engineers are basically not sure about their own expectations from their own career [Read: #-Link-Snipped-# ]. Most of the engineering students dream about getting a well paying job in an MNC; without knowing what it really takes.

Please lower your expectations from your first job. Because this opens up avenues for you to get 'entry into the industry'. Let's now explore the ways you can use to get a job.

I: Prepare a good resume & submit to popular job portals

First of all, prepare a good resume of yours. Look at your existing skills-set, knowledge and submit it to every popular website that operates in the job search domain. This is one of the first and the most basic steps you should take. You never know where the next opportunity will come from.

II: Look for contacts in your college's alumni network

If your college as an active alumni network, you should immediately get in touch with them. Your college authorities will definitely have access to the people who are occupying key position in the industry and can definitely make an introduction. They can use their powers to offer you an Interview call. I've seen this happening in real life; so I know this works! Give it a try.

III: Move to the cities where the jobs are

Unfortunately the jobs are concentrated in some of the major cities in India. Consider relocation to these cities, even if it might be financially burdening. Prepare to stay and manage your expenses for about a year and I'm sure you will get to know about a lot more opportunities - through newspapers and through your friends. Especially most of the walk-in advertisements are only published in these cities; so you may have new opportunities.

IV: Look for smaller companies, instead of MNCs

There are several smaller companies that are willing to give deserving candidates an opportunity. The recruiters in these companies are easily approachable compared to those in the MNCs. Start and hold a conversation with them. Check if they can allow you to appear for the test / interview.

V: Unconventional Way - But This Has The Most Potential To Land You A Job

I kept this way reserved till the last because it's got the most potential to get you a job. Unfortunately, it involves lot of hard work. The first thing to understand is that the industry absolutely LOVES experts over mediocre. You need to 'stand out' of the crowd so that the potential recruiters find you instead of you having to find a job. Trust me, the industry won't care how much you scored in 12th and engineering, if you have what they want.

...and they want an engineer who can 'deliver'. It starts with you working your ass off to make yourself exceptional - in any one or two skills of your choice. Let's say you are an IT engineer who is looking for a job in a software company. Can you make yourself awesome in JAVA or say C++? By awesome, I mean can you actually code a complex project ON YOUR OWN? Are you confidently able to rate yourself 8 or 9 on a scale of 10?

Start contributing to an open source project or build a project on your own and 'SHOWCASE' it on the Internet. If you are into programming, head over to GitHub. There are sites that show CAD CAM designs. Build a portfolio of your projects or work. Simply show that to the potential recruiters. I'm sure this would be way more impressive for the recruiter over the candidates they look for at campus placements.


I hope this helps. If you have questions or ideas or experiences of how you found a job when college had no placements; share them with us. I'm sure this will help a lot of our fellow engineers.

Replies

  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    This is meant to be a discussion. I'd appreciate questions, feedback, doubts, more ways to find jobs etc.
  • Manish Goyal
    Manish Goyal
    Nice one more by me

    Take your 6 months Industrial Training very seriously that part of your engineering is not fun only, This is the time when you don't have any load of any assignments, mst, passing theoretical exams, this is the time when you can learn as much as possible and enhance your skills. This is the time when you can get extra edge over other freshers
  • geetika1
    geetika1
    #-Link-Snipped-# #-Link-Snipped-#

    I'm confused with my career options:

    1) I should go for CDAC course DAC/DMC [Feb-July'15] from Pune, but it's a six-month long course.

    2) I should relocate to Pune or Bangalore and go for off-campus opportunities.

    Some of my friends suggest that going for AMCAT test doesn't really end up in getting a nice job in IT sector, so I should choose relocation as it would be a better option to me.
    Now, if somehow I couldn't get the job, it would be lead me to some depressed situation.

    PS: I have already tried through linkedin and sending several mails, it wasnt really beneficial for me.

    Other thought I have is if I go with CDAC then after 6 months I would still be looking for jobs but the difference would be I would be directly getting calls from companies based on my academic performance. So this may help me get a good job.

    please advice me something beneficial...

    Thanks 😀

You are reading an archived discussion.

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