Placements an overview….

Pressed shirts, ties, suits and shiny shoes. The only time you see people dressed like that in iit is during placements time. Campus placements at iit are quite famous, the news covers it, relatives know about it ,… everyone has atleast a teeny weeny bit of iit placements.
Outsiders have the idea that everyone in iit gets a 7 figure paychecks. but this is one of those urban myths that keep floating about. only a selected few make it past the number.
The placement procedure starts way early in the start of the final year where a student passing out tht year signs an agreement abiding to the rules of the placement procedure. The whole procedure is managed by a student body that is elected in the 3rd year.

After signing up the agreements the studentis eligible to sit for the PPT(pre-placement talks). Attending the ppt is mandatory to sit for the company. Where all the companies come and feed the people pizza and coke in the vague hope of making their company look good. They ramble on for an hour or about what their company pays and the benefits they give.

After this comes the phase where the IITians make buffoons of themselves by running for the pizza and causing a stampede in the process. But still the companies come for picking up the select few with the feeble hope that they will make a difference in the company.

I will never understand this whole procedure where the company feeds 500 students when they are not even sure that they are going to pick up even one grad. They actually just interview 20 odd people, rather they take theses 20 odd people to some place decent and I am sure the attrition rate will drop even more. This façade goes on till the placement actually starts.

After the ppt phase it is resume time. People spend days in making their resumes. They are made remade and they again made, there are shown to friends family and seniors with the vague hope that an awesome resume somehow get them shortlisted in the dream few. Molehills are made into mountains and the other way round. Most of these amazing stories are cut down by the placement nominee who goes through all theses resumes and then edits them. The wish to sit for a company is expressed by signing the Jaf(job application form). After this IIT sends out the students resumes to the company. Then the company looks at all resumes and comes up with a short list.

For the name to appear on the short list the student should be part of ‘the pecking order’. First on the top are students who hold some office in the institute. Next come the DR’s and then come the sportsmen and finally the rest. Once the short list is made the whole process is open to the select few. All that matters after this is the few hours of interview performance by the candidate.

Preparations are made much before the interview. People start making amazing resumes that bring out their best side. People also work on their resumes so that they become impregnable to questions on their resume. People end up taking a lot of finance courses and they also do interns at financial institutions so that they can sit for i-banks and other consultancies. These people start brushing up their knowledge for the interviews.

An integral part of most of the IIT interviews is case study. These can be easily mastered by solving the cases over and over again.

Come placement time people are running around from place tp place trying to buy rent steal formal clothes, ties pens what not..

The interview procedure usually depends on the type of the company. A consultancy company usually has 3-4 rounds of interviews where 2-3 rounds are cases and one is a personal HR round interview. The short listing in such companies is usually the cream. People with high CPI and a lot of extra-currics activities and mega high positions of responsibility.

Next come the I-banks, data miners, analysis companies. They have 3 rounds where the first is a quant test and the next is a case interview with a lot of math and then comes a one on one with the HR. People that get in are the ones with high analytical ability and the ones that are really cool under pressure. This shortlist in not that CPI based, but rather based on the extra currics and analytical abilty.

Then come the FMCG. These companies have almost the same procedure as the I-banks but they have one more round of group discussions. This list is mostly the all rounders. People that are decent in everyuthing but not good at anything.

Next come the oil companies. These sweep out the sport studs and the people with a lot of other than academic activities. Then come the core and the software companies. They pay dirt and are willing to take anyone who is willing to join their company. After the short list comes out it is mandatory for the student to sit for the interview.

The most amusing part is that people who don’t have a bath for a month transform into clean shaven executives in smartly pressed formals.

The result of the interview come late at night(arnd 12 am). As soon as the results come out the party starts….booze flows and people are happily placed……….