PUNE: While the engineering stream has been moderately affected by the economic slowdown in the country, the traditional streams like arts, commerce and science are flourishing during this placement season. 

The campus placements at several city-based colleges are still going on and will end by May. In engineering colleges-- mechanical, civil and production are sectors where recruitments were lower than expected, whereas in commerce -- finance sector, in arts-- language and in the science stream-- lifesciences, chemistry etc. have got good response from recruiters.

ENGINEERING STREAM
At College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP), around 400 BTech students out of 685 have been recruited till date i.e. 58 per cent. While, 115 students out of 369 Post-Graduate (PG) have been placed i.e. around 31 per cent, said CoEP’s Training and Placement Officer (TPO) Meera Murali.

“The demand for computer science (CS), information technology (IT), electronic and telecommunication (ENTC), electrical and instrumentation students has been more this time, with 79 per cent of students from these branches already placed. Whereas, the demand for mechanical and production students is slow this year,” said Murali. 

Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) TPO Karthick Subramanian said, “On average, the placements were good, as the other sectors compensated for the mechanical and automobile sector which, compared to previous years, this year had less recruitments. Big automobile companies have stayed away this season from the campus placement process. Except for these, other sectors like IT companies-- L&T Infotech, Infosys, Cognizant and Banking and Finance services etc have hired in more numbers. Even for mechanical engineering, other industrial players like Atlas Copco, Alfa Laval, Forbes Marshall have hired.”

Federation of Training and Placement Officers Chairman Santosh Borde said, “Pune students are blessed with IT services. IT recruitment has been democratised and this has enabled students from irrespective of any college getting placed there. Two years ago, this wasn’t the scene.”

“Students of non-IT streams now understand that core sector jobs aren’t available, but IT services have good propositions to hire them as well. But democratisation of placements has a negative point as the colleges have lost hold on placements, hence, students aren’t taking offers seriously-- the value of the offer has reduced. They wait for several companies and choose from them whichever suits well,” Santosh Borde said.

“This isn’t the case with rural students - they value job offers more. There are no specific courses in demand among rural students, but since many students are the first generation in engineering, they face few barriers. Whereas, urban students can pick up coding and analytics easily,” he added.

Borde also stated that the civil engineering sector too has been facing a huge crisis. 

TRADITIONAL COURSES - ARTS AND SCIENCE
“The scenario of recruitments in traditional courses like Arts and Science stream has definitely changed a lot, over the last several years,” said Fergusson College (FC) TPO Prof Nandani Kotharkar. 

“In the Arts stream, most companies come for the human resource (HR) domain - they pick students from the psychology department as well, for languages-- catalogue developers are at forefront, especially German, French and English. Even students of vernacular language courses like Marathi, Hindi get good placements and they are offered package of Rs 4.5 lakh and above. NGOs too visit campus to recruit teachers from core groups like botany, zoology, chemistry etc,” she said.

Kotharkar said that the industries want to hire under-graduates more than post-graduates. “The companies can then train the UG students according to their need. Usually, it is observed that PG students are rigid about the domain or technology they want to work. It is not the same scene with bachelors students, as they can be moulded.”  Till now, FC’s 150 students in Arts and Science stream have got recruited so far. Between 100-150 students of PG courses have got internships, who will be later offered jobs.

COMMERCE
The horizons for commerce graduates have increased to sectors like finance, insurance, pharmacy, marketing, ITs, said Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC) Principal CN Rawal.

“Today, technology has impacted every sector including the commerce sector. Earlier, 10-15 years ago, recruitments would happen for departments like account or personal or stores section only, but now recruitment culture has changed. The recruiters demand commerce graduates with tech-savvy skills. They have expanded their requirements to data analytics, data mining, the student has to have knowledge not only of tally but also the skills to analyse the balance sheet, financial accounts etc,” he said.  

“Along with accounts and finance departments, the marketing department too has demand for commerce graduates. In the first round of placements, around 13 companies had arrived on the campus and about 50 per cent of the recruitments have been completed. The rest are accepted to be placed in the second round where 14 companies have been invited,” he added.