Corporates come calling to colleges

Chandigarh colleges saw a spate of placements this year, emerging as the new talent-scouting grounds for India Inc, writes Chitleen K. Sethi

Catch them young! This is the new placement mantra for companies in the city, many of which are now scouting for raw graduates in their final year of college.

While this year saw the core engineering sector pushing down the IT sector many notches down in terms of the pay packets , it is now the low-end job market which is fast picking up the still-in-college BA, B.Com and BCA students. And lapping them up in hordes.

Wipro, Progeon (a sister concern of Infosys) and Dell have already picked up over 500 students from various colleges in Chandigarh and neighbouring areas in the past month. And the placement season is still under way. The company’ representatives are on a college-scouting spree and the response from the students has been overwhelming too.

These college drives had almost every final year student registering for placement and not many have been disappointed. The salaries vary from anything between Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 per month. And, no one is complaining. For, who dreamt of a Rs 10,000 job for a BA-III year student, with no additional skills, just a few years go?

Take the GGDSD College, Sector 32, Chandigarh. Dr Meeru Kalyani Sehgal, placement coordinator, informs that 31 students of the college have been offered appointment letters by Wipro, 90 by Progeon, 29 by Dell, 19 by Convergys, 32 by Kotak Mahindra Bank and 28 students have been short listed by AVIVA and 80 by Max New York Insurance for a final round of interview at their office. "Wipro has sent us the record of the selected students. Five BA students have been selected, while nine BCA students, three BBA, eight B.Com and another six B.Sc students have been picked up. The distribution is fairly spread out," she says.

And the packages offered are not bad either. "For those selected in customer care will be paid Rs 7000 per month during training on incremental basis and once regularised, they will be paid Rs.10,000 plus incentives. For those selected with technical wings will be paid Rs 8000 during training and Rs 12000 plus incentives when regularised. Those selected with the technical wings are mostly BCA and B.Sc (IT) students and some BA students too," she says, adding that out of these, five students with some additional work experience in varied technical fields have been given an even higher scale.

Similarly, a lot of companies picked up students from DAV College, Sector 10, Chandigarh. As many as 83 students have been given on-the-spot offer letters by the companies (Wipro-18, Progeon-48, Converges-12, Dell-5) The average salary is around Rs 10,000 per month, with some firms offering Rs 13,000 and others around Rs 9900.

Preet Kanwal, the placement officer at the SGGS College Sector 26, says three placements camps have already been held in the college, starting from November 2005. "Sixteen students of the college were picked up by Centre for Management Research and Development (CMRD) as trainee project managers.

"Progeon hired eight of our students, EXL Services from Noida picked up our students. The pay packages ranged 1.2 lakh per annum and Rs. 1.35 lakh per annum. The largest number of students who have been placed are from the commerce stream. In fact, our BCA and M.Sc (IT) students did not prefer BPO jobs," she says.

However, engineering and business management courses are still fetching dream jobs, with pay packets touching over Rs 9 lakh per annum for two Punjab Engineering College (PEC) students this year.

"One of these students is from the civil engineering branch. This goes on to show that the core engineering sector is overtaking the IT sector," says M.L. Gupta, the placement in charge at PEC.

Infosys offered Rs 6.6 lakh per annum each to 12 students of the University Business School (UBS), Panjab University. "TCS also picked up one student for a pay package of Rs 4 lakh per annum. Cognizant Technology Services (CTS) picked up two students and most surprising was the State Bank of India’s offer. They picked up four students at a salary of Rs 4.5 lakh plus while Citibank offered over Rs 6 lakh to the students. Also worth mentioning is the fact that our students got foreign job offers this year. Esys, an IT firm, picked up another four students. More than 95 per cent of the students here have been placed," points out Prof Sanjay Kaushik, in charge of the placement cell at the UBS.

Students of the 2006 University Institute of Engineering and Technology batch (the first batch) too found placements with Grape City, HCL Connect, HCL Technologies, Indus Logic, Infosys Technologies, L&T Infotech, Mahindra, British Telecom, NewGen Software, Polaris Software labs, Syntel and Virsa Systems. "The lowest salary offered to the students was Rs 1.80 lakh per annum and the highest Rs 3 lakh per annum. Even though this was the first batch of the UIET, the performance of the students was appreciated by the companies. All branches saw equally good placements. The placements for BE-Biotech have already started and we are getting a good response from the industry," points out Dr Gurdeep Singh, head of the College Placement Cell.

While these institutes are some of the big names in education here, the private engineering and management institutes in the city’s periphery too have a proud placement record this year.

The Gian Jyoti Institute of Management Technology in Phase II, Mohali, which is claimed to rank 62nd among the top 100 management institutes of India, attracted more than 20 companies . These included Max New York Life Insurance, Reliance Infocom, Standard Chartered Bank, HFCL, Star TV, India Bulls, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, Fortis India Ltd., Laurent and Benon etc. "All the 116 students of MBA final year have been interviewed so far and 103 have already been placed in reputed organisations," says DS Bedi, Chairman of the institute.

The salaries offered to MBA students varied from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs. 2.75 p.a. Gaurav Prasher, Jasraj Singh and Paramdeep Singh, all of MBA-IV semester, have been offered Rs 2.75 lakh per annum.

Similarly, the institute’s MCA students attracted 11 companies, including Persistent Technologies Pune, Solutions Beyond, Mobera Systems, Groz Backert Asia, Sebiz Infotech etc, and selected 21 of the 29 MCA final year students. "Students are yet to complete their sixth semester training in June 2006 and most of them have already been placed. Solutions Beyond was the major recruiter, selecting nine students. The salary offered to a fresh MCA varied from Rs 1 lakh pa to Rs 3 lakh pa.," says Karminder, the institute’s placement officer.

Students of Chandigarh Engineering College at Landran, almost a rural college, have also shown an impressive placement record. Starting with just BCA and MCA courses in 2001, the college is now offering a host of other courses, including MBA and engineering. Their first batch of engineers will pass out this June. Over 11 companies have already visited the campus and over 30 students have been picked up. The salary ranges between Rs 1.17 lakh and Rs 2.46 lakh an annum.

For instance, Harleen, an engineering student of the college, has been picked up by Virsa Systems for a package of Rs 2.4 lakh per annum.