You have taken admission in a good college. That’s good, but why did you do that? Did you take admission to get through a bunch of classes and exams so that you could get a piece of paper saying that you indeed took those classes or exams? Or you want these four years of your life to become one of the most important four years of your life. If the latter is your answer then probably you also want to know how to get a good placement with a decent package before you graduate. And that’s what we are going to discuss in this article.
I myself completed B. Tech in CSE from SRM in 2019, and by mid 7th semester, I had 4 offers. Three were from service-based companies(Wipro, Infosys, and Cognizant), and one from a big data science company (Nielsen). I am not giving information about the number of job offers I got to brag, but I am trying to tell I have gone through what you will go through and had some success. I did this with a CGPA of 7.6 or 83%.
Focus on your studies for better placement
You are paying a lot of money to the college. And you are spending four precious years of your life here, which would never come back. So don’t forget why you came here. You came here to study and gain knowledge. If it doesn’t interest you, don’t waste your time and money, do something that interests you, and if it does interest you, study well. Don’t become too dependent on the teachers, they are not here to give you all the information you need. You have to do that yourself.
The syllabus will be your friend, get a copy of that. At the end of the syllabus for each subject, you will get a list of books recommended for the particular subject, get the book from the library, and try to read and understand. If you get stuck, remember, you can always google it.
Companies coming for placement don’t know how much attention you gave to your subjects, they will only have your test scores. You don’t need to get 95 in all the subjects, but a very good score in a few subjects, average in most of them, and some times below average in one or two is okay. If you aren’t getting at least this many marks, perhaps you are in the wrong branch. Prefer thorough understanding over marks though.
Try to get hands-on last year papers for your preparation because smart work is always preferred over hard work get last year question papers of SRM here.
Self-assessment is very important for placement
The most important thing to do whether you are in the 1st semester or 7th is self-assessment. You have to know where you stand in the crowd. Remember you are a drop in an ocean. If you don’t know how you are doing, you won’t know what to fix. And you have to know what your potential employer wants in you.
Prepare for aptitude test for cracking most entry levels of placement
Aptitude is probably the underdog while sitting for placements. You don’t feel the need to prepare for it till you sit for placements. I used to get consistently good marks in aptitude during the college tests, but still was having problems while giving aptitude tests for placements. The problem wasn’t that the questions were too tough, but that the number of applicants was too high. Most of the students were okay with cheating during the placement tests, some would use mobile phones, while others would split the number of questions they would do with the person sitting next to and would help each other. I didn’t believe in cheating so many times, I would do good in the aptitude test, but still, most will do better than me. During my Nielsen test, as per what I remember, I had done almost all the aptitude questions, and that’s why I think I cleared that round.
Practice some aptitude question here
Focus on communication skills
I can’t stress this enough. If you aren’t able to convey what you have in your mind, doesn’t matter if you Einstein level intellect, it will be hard to get a good job. Although fear not, and believe me, good communication skills can be acquired. It comes naturally to many, but even if you don’t have it, you can have it. The best way to start practicing this will be to study a subject or topic thoroughly and try to teach that to somebody. Find a friend who also wants to develop communication skills, and work together. Get a list of topics, and make chits, and randomly pick one and start speaking about it. In the end, give feedback to each other. Slowly but surely your communication skills will improve.
Don’t fear, prepare
Always remind yourself that the companies are coming hoping to get the best candidates they can. They aren’t coming to mistreat you or to cause unnecessary problems. So don’t fear what’s coming, prepare for it. Start feeling confident about yourself, you are not just some pieces of meat held together by some bones, you are more than that. The human mind is still the most powerful machine on this planet, and you have one, so use it to conquer all fears.
What to do if I am in CSE or related branches?
If you are in CSE or related branches, focus on coding. If you don’t know how to write an if statement, that’s fine, there is still time, learn. There are resources like HackerRank, HackerEarth, etc where you can find programming questions from beginner level to intermediate level to advanced level. Start at the beginner level, if you can’t do them, take a step back, do some courses, and attack them again. Be patient and persistent. Believe me, you will start loving them. Follow the same steps even if you are not from CSE but are interested in getting a job in the IT field.
What to do if I am in CSE or related branches?
If you are in a non-CSE related branch, the first thing you should do is to look for a team of your interest. Try to get into that team. Start exploring all the options you have including higher studies. In branches like Mechanical, unfortunately, you don’t have much scope if you are looking for a job. So evaluate your options. Getting into teams will help if you are really into your stream. This will give you hands-on experience, which will the foremost requirement in the few core companies that come for placements.
I tried to fit as much information as I could while trying not to make this a super long article. If you find this article helpful or have criticism or suggestion, do give them in the comments.