So, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology has done it again. Over 3,500 job opportunities have been offered to 3,700 BTech students this year. And this is not even the end of their placement drive. They have till May and Saranjit Singh, Director, Placements, is assured that there is enough time to make sure all deserving candidates are placed in companies that offer good salary packages. But how have they managed to keep their track record of placing more than half of their students throughout the years? We get in touch with the Director of Placements to find out. Excerpts:
Tell us when you started focusing more on placements.
About five to six years back, we realised how important training as an activity is. So we started Career Advisory an Augmented Services (CAAS) and it caters to all career requirements of KIIT under one umbrella. It was also started to enhance our capability and build a more focused approach. Students aspire for different things, corporate jobs, government jobs, higher education in India or aboard, we do something for all categories of students. All the requirements of students were properly studied and programmes were created in-house.
What have you specifically done for each of these categories?
When it comes to students wanting to go abroad, whichever MoUs were signed with foreign universities, we ensure that there is a student exchange. So whether it's going abroad for semester programmes or after studies, as many as 450 students have gone abroad till date.
For students who aspire for a job in the public sector, we make them aware of the fact that government is one of the largest recruiters in India and we also teach them how to aim for these jobs. We have tied up with trainers from New Delhi, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, these are experts who can take classes. There are not many students who opt for this category, but since the last three to four years, we have ensured that more awareness about it is created. We have also tied up with entities like TIME, Career Launcher and more and we have jointly ventured with them to co-develop content and teach. We have also partnered with exam conducting agencies so that students can take exams in the university itself. For GATE too, we have tied up with several entities.
We are focused on strengthening corporate training through digital interventions. We have platforms through which students can take multiple tests online like communications skills, soft skills and so on. For those who are unable to perform in them, we have experts who can review their performance and guide them through the test. Because this is a self-learning test, it becomes a pull rather than a push method to encourage students to refine their skills. Every semester, we conduct Proctored Tests as well. We also have what we call clinics, diagnostic centres of sorts which are always open for students. They can share their reports and discuss their performance. For all this, we have a dedicated team which develops content and questions. We have been implementing these for a few years now and we could truly see the results this year.
What else have you done to keep the industry connect going?
We started an Industry Engagement Cell. We used to go to the industry and meet a lot of company HRs. Soon we realised that we need to meet technical people as well. And when we started interacting with them, we invited them to our campus to deliver lectures, conduct workshops or teach one whole portion of the syllabus from the industry point to view.
This year, we also plan on introducing major and minor. These are not specialisations, yet students will be offered more options in terms of courses.
What's the plan of action for next year?
We want to ensure more companies come to our campus, we intend to strengthen our interventions and we definitely want to encourage industries to partner with us to conduct hackathons so that they can identify and eventually absorb bright students.
A FinTech lab, in partnership with a Hyderabad-based company, is going to come up soon.
Talking about numbers
-3,500: Till date, the number of job offers that have been made to BTech students by more than 150 plus companies
- 50%: The percentage of students who have multiple offers
- Rs 6 lakh: The average salary of the top 25 per cent of BTech students placed
- Rs 39 lakh: The highest salary offered which was by Adobe System
- Rs 10 lakh: The CTC offered by 18 companies
- Rs 5 lakh: The CTC offered by 60 companies
- 175: The number of universities KIIT has a tie-up with
