Date:06/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/06/stories/2006080614570100.htm

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IT majors on talent hunt in Tier-II cities

S. Ramesh

EDGING FORWARD: A group of short-listed students at the Anna University placement programme in Salem. — Photo: P. Goutham

SALEM: After the metros, it is now the Tier-II cities. Information Technology (IT) majors have started targeting campuses of various engineering colleges in Salem and Namakkal districts to source raw talents that are available in plenty here.

Till three years ago, campus placements here have been few and far between for the simple reason that the products lacked soft skills such as communication. These students, though academically strong, remained weak in these skills. It has been a costly slip between the cup and the lip for many.

Academic pursuits

Realising the need for equipping their products with soft skills along with their academic pursuits, engineering colleges here have started providing importance to the areas of lacunae. To stay put in the competitive arena these colleges have realised that placement ratio alone would attract the students to their campuses in future.

Hence language labs have been set up. Coaching on how to prepare for interviews has been organised.

Experts have been brought to address. And separate HRD and placement cells have also been established. This exercise has started yielding positive results. The number of students getting offers now in this region is going up steadily.

In the past two years a majority of them has got placements in IT firms. Nearly 70 per cent of them land in IT-related jobs while another 30 opt for automobile and other fields.

In Salem Government College of Engineering, for instance, of the total outgoing students of all branches, about 70 per cent of them have received offers.

Automobile sector

After IT, automobile sector is the second best preference. "With Chennai emerging as a major automobile hub, students are preferring jobs in this sector," says K. Sukumaran, Principal of Mahendra Engineering College, Mallasamudram.

But still there are a few grey areas that need to be addressed. Though the number of companies visiting here is on the rise, the appointment ratio fails to cheer up.

In the recent Anna University placement programme held at Salem Sona College of Technology a mere 250 came out with flying colours in the total of 1800.