Hope and jobs for students at Delhi University's job fair

By Nabeel A. Khan
New Delhi, Jan 29 (IANS) At a time jobs are becoming scarce and pink slips the order of the day with the global meltdown, there is reason to cheer. Delhi University's newly-launched Central Placement Cell has provided jobs to at least 200 undergraduate students with major companies, including IT major Wipro, pharma giant Ranbaxy and BPO major Genpact.
The first phase of recruitment took place between Dec 8 and 10 in which around 154 students got employment. The second phase, which began Jan 21 and ended Tuesday, ensured jobs to 45 applicants, while 440 short-listed students are awaiting results of their applications. "Around 4,564 students from 48 colleges participated in this job fair in which around 200 students have been ensured good position in top companies. The response of the students was good," Seema M. Parihar, chairperson of the university's Central Placement Cell (CPC), told IANS. Eight reputed companies like Wipro, Ranbaxy, Genpact, Dell, ITC, Barclays, ATS and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly participated. The CPC was launched in September last year with a view to provide opportunity to students of less known and off-campus colleges. The university authorities were delighted with the new initiative. "There has been overwhelming response from the students, who also felt encouraged after getting a good job. It has equally benefited the companies that came for the recruitment," said S.K. Vij, Dean students' welfare. Students were happy with the job fair and the opportunities. "After the global crisis we did not think we would be able to find employment so easily. Till now we have been getting news of retrenchments from everywhere, but the CPC of the university has come as a great help," said Vinod Mehra, a student of Aurobindo College. Company officials also felt satisfied that they were able to find the right candidates easily. "Getting a suitable candidate is not easy, but in such events we get an opportunity to interact with a large number of applicants, who can be scanned in a proper and convenient manner. The applicants were also cooperative," said an official of IT giant Wipro. "We expect the number of students and recruiters to increase manifold the next time. We will approach more companies to join this recruitment process," Parihar said. She said the eligibility criteria for students to enrol in the CPC was "any final year student from any course with at least 60 percent marks in Class 12". Every company held its own scanning process through written tests, interviews and group discussions at the job fair. Earlier, the companies would visit only the well-known colleges for campus recruitments but the CPC has ensured recruitment of students from any college, Parihar said. "It was our effort to ensure that placements are purely on the basis of merit and not on the brand value of a college," said Vij. "We could never think of joining such placements earlier, as companies would not visit our college. But now it's nice to see that we too have an opportunity to at least participate in the process of recruitment," said Aditya Sharma, student of Ram Lal Anand College.

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