Multinational Companies visit technical and professional colleges to conduct on/ pool campus drives to recruit candidates for their futuristic manpower requirements. They select hundreds and thousands of candidates every year visiting different campuses conducting off/ on line tests to evaluate student’s knowledge, skills, aptitude (KSA) and their HRs see how far the students KSA match with Key Responsibility Areas (KRA) of the companies they represent. To see that many of their students get selected in these drives, the c o l l e g e authorities are taking every possible care, concern and strive every nerve to equip their students to be accepted by the Industry. Hence placement becomes very sensitive and prestigious and colleges can neglect it at their own risk. They have to plan in advance for placements and prepare the students to chalk out their road map or be prepared to perish in the process. There is a strong feeling that MNCs absorbing thousands of students every year are merely fishing in the colleges but not farming in the campuses. There is a wide gulf between industry and institutions hampering better career prospects of the students.
It is economical to the companies to opt for campus drives rather than go in for paper advertisements  seeking applications from eligible candidates and follow the recruitment process to make final selection. Paper advertisements are costly; conducting tests for lakhs of candidates on a single day is difficult and time consuming. In the campus drives, companies get all the support from colleges in short listing the candidates as per e l i g i b i l i t y c o n d i t i o n s , colleges keep all their physical and i n t e l l e c t u a l infrastructure at the disposal of the recruiting team for conducting tests, extending very warm welcome and hospitality to the company teams visiting the college. In fact, the company team members are very very important persons (VVIPs) on that day. The placement and training cell in the college headed by a qualified placement officer and its yearlong efforts in shaping and guiding their students with its sensitizing programs, in a way, make the job of the recruiting companies easy, as the students are poised and focused in the desired direction.
Lakhs of students are studying in professional courses like Engineering, MCA, MBA, Pharmacy, Fashion Technology etc, in many colleges with a hope that they get Placement immediately, after completion of their course. Due to Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation policies of governments of many Nations, the world is getting opened up with decent openings to our young technocrats with lucrative salary packages. However, the study of basic sciences/ humanities is relegated to background and high priority is being given to Technical & professional courses for their UG study by majority of XII passed students and their parents.
We see multiplication of these colleges throughout India especially in the south. The urge to study Technical courses is further abetted and supported by liberal funding schemes of state governments and other funding agencies. Hence these technical colleges become dream destination of all.
The private managements have entered this area of technical and professional education in a big way, investing crores of rupees, providing all Physical and Intellectual infrastructure, fulfilling all the norms of regulatory bodies like AICTE, State government agencies and affiliating Universities. These colleges are making earnest efforts to groom and mould the students by equipping them with branch knowledge, regular instruction of all papers of curriculum, providing them hands on experience to acquire skills in labs/ workshops/ internships, exposing them to real time experiences and expertise of industry stalwarts, broaden their mental horizon by guest lectures of eminent academia, industry higher ups, ignite their minds to search for solutions for practical problems, providing them with all facilities to quench/ cater to their inquisitiveness, by promoting start up clubs , incubation centers, taking them to industrial visits to have the feel of real time applications, works for the holistic growth of their personality to the fullest extent by providing them all avenues to showcase their skills of language, communication, creativity, originality, leadership, positive & lateral thinking, self confidence, team building, inter personal connectivity, value system, cultural ethos and concern for society at large.
The programs of tree plantation, blood donation, extension work done in neighboring villages, through NSS, forming and organizing student professional bodies like IEEE, ISTE, regular activities like fresher’s day, Annual day, Tech fests, national and international conferences, sports and games conducted on the campuses of the colleges promote the correct attitude among the students which is the most important requirement of industries.
These co/extra-curricular activities speak well and sincere efforts of college authorities, their genuine concern for the career growth of their students. Colleges are spending lot of money, time on their placement efforts to see to it that the bulk of their students get offer letters from reputed MNCs. And in fact that there is a mad craze for on campus placements, as it has become an important parameter to get prospective students and parents acceptance to those colleges. It became a determining factor and a trump card to get all the seats of all the branches filled up in a particular college.
In a way, the established colleges are having an edge over the newly started ones in campus placement. By virtue of their placement record, there is greater demand for management quota seats in such senior colleges having its tremendous effect on raising huge funds in those colleges by way of donations/ capitation fee. There are colleges with excellent physical and intellectual infrastructure, but newly started with a big push concept but they are not being favoured by the prospective parents and students just because of their Placement track record. The placement record of these newly started ones cannot be that rosy. Hence they are not being favoured by parents and students, though they have every facility for excellent learning ambience. The MNCs going for on-campus drives always prefer senior
colleges for their own reasons, like getting merit candidates in bulk on one campus with better EAMCET Ranks etc. Despite efforts of JKC, the newly started colleges and colleges located in mofsil/ rural areas are not favored by MNCs for campus drives. Thus these colleges suffer a lot in both the ways viz, getting all seats filled up and raising of extra funds. In the initial 6 to 8 years, these colleges are struggling a lot and with great difficulty they are inviting the attention of MNCs for campus drives.
Some MNCs and their HRs are resorting to unscrupulous practices like demanding money from the colleges, to visit them for campus drives. College managements in their hurry to provide placements to their students are succumbing to their evil demands. Even before the selected students complete their 4/2 Examinations, some companies are turning their boards and just disappearing causing great dismay and disappointment among the selected students.
Favoring senior colleges and discriminating newly started i.e., 5 or 6 year old colleges in respect of conducting campus drives/ pool drives by the MNCs is putting many colleges in great disadvantage. Similarly the colleges located in small towns/ rural areas are facing lot of difficulty in terms of getting placement drives conducted on their campuses. Another angularity in this process is preference to city colleges for campus drives. Meritorious students are available in colleges located in II tier and III tier towns also. The efforts of JKC are also proving futile as the trainers sent by JKC are of sub standard nature and those trainers are not in a position to command the classes. In some cases and in some colleges, they are being heckled and booed down by the students.
Some college managements having vision, commitment and concern towards the students are evincing keen interest and doing their best in providing all the facilities to enhance the employability of their students. They are conducting Assessment tests through Globerina, NACTEC, Aspiring Minds, Co cubes, Monster etc. and each assessment company is providing exposure to 5 or 6 companies to their registered students. To nurture and to nourish the students every effort is being done to provide value addition by organizing courses in cutting edge technologies in all emerging areas, campus recruitment programs, workshops on topics having greater potentiality for employment, organizing in- house projects, introducing E-learning, Digital learning and many more constructive and useful activities. They are spending lot of time, treasure and talent for enhancing the employability skills of their students.
It is felt by the managements and the academicians that the Industries/ MNCs are not extending the expected support to these colleges in moulding the students. Instead they are dictating terms and complaining about the dismal performance of the students in placement drives. Though they can, they are showing indifference towards colleges. They take away the best groomed students and feel that they are doing a great favour to the college/s. In fact, they can help the colleges in the process of grooming the students to make them industry ready. They can specifically mention the technical and soft skills they require from students instead of complaining in the last that the students are having many deficiencies. They can enlighten the students on the latest emerging areas/ skills that have greater employability. The summer vacation of the students can be utilized by these companies for student internships. They can even offer live projects to the students. Instead some MNCs of IT sector will not allow the students or the faculty to enter their premises in the name of security. The industry higher ups can visit the colleges to appraise the global development taking place in their field of activity.
Only a few initiatives are being taken by MNCs like Wipro, Infosys, Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft etc. to enter into college campuses for enriching the faculty and help the students in their pursuit of campus placements and conduct certification programs. In these days of fierce competition, the colleges are struggling a lot  to keep abreast with all developments to transform their students as industry accepted work force. The colleges are feeling that there is no adequate support from MNCs in this regard. The synergy of efforts of colleges and industry will go a long way in enhancing the employability of the students of professional courses. Though these MNCs talk loudly about their corporate social responsibilities, undertake many projects and programs for social and global causes like HIV, Cancer and Environment etc., little interest is being shown by these MNCs to curb the cancer of unemployability, lower levels of performance and efficiency of students. There is a wide gap between University curriculum taught in the class rooms and industry expectations thus victimising the students ultimately at the end.
Proactive, structured, deliberate programs are to be evolved by these industries and MNCs to save the students and convert them into useful products capable of serving globally.
Wipro has a flagship program; Mission 10X program, being conducted on various campuses is proving very useful for the newly recruited faculty to acquire many inputs on teaching methodology and pedagogy. The certification programs conducted for the students, WASE are also highly valuable to the students in improving their confidence levels and credentials. Wipro certification definitely adds value and it almost becomes a passport to be accepted by an employer. Campus Connect of Infosys gave in roads to the company to enter into many colleges to equip the students with many tools of IT. IBM, another reputed IT giant with its Academic Initiative program is doing its bit for enriching the teaching-learning ambience of the colleges. Oracle, under its Work Force development initiative is taking up programs like Train the Trainers etc. The Micro Soft certifications in JAVA, dot net etc are also proving useful to the students who could not fulfill the high end bench marks like cut-off percentage etc.
These efforts of a few MNCs are inadequate and many colleges are not taking advantages of the said programs as they involve some cost. Thousands of software and core group companies are just taking the cream of the college students and not paying back in any form to the colleges. The thinking of the companies in this regard requires change and review. They should positively help the colleges as they are providing trained, skilled technical manpower to these MNCs after strenuous and sustained grooming and moulding of their students for a period of four years. It is felt that such efforts, concern and care of the colleges should be properly paid back and recognised in the general interest of the students.
(The author is DEAN, ACE Engineering College, Ankushapur, Hyderabad)