Chennai: Of 1,200 students who have got placed so far in Anna University this year, nearly one in five of them bagged jobs for their participation in various competitions and niche skills.
Even at campus interviews, the multinational companies are checking with the students on their performance in technical competitions to know their skill levels.
"The recruitment scenario is slowly changing. There is a shift from generic skills to niche skills in campus recruitments," said T. Thyagarajan, director, Centre for University Industry Collaboration (CUIC), Anna University.
Earlier, the companies were looking into the generic skills like the programming language, basic concepts, communication skill and willingness to learn. "They will hire the students and mould them according to their needs. But now with less recruitment, they expect the students to immediately join the ongoing projects. So they look for specific skill sets from the students," he added.
Several competitions like Hackathon by Titan, Mobile App Garage by Daimler, Smart Planet by IBM, Code Vita by TCS, CIO Challenge by Cognizant conducted for the students.
Some websites like codechef.com, topcoder. com, codeforces.com are throwing up live challenges for the students. Students with specific skill sets can try and solve these problems.
"Generally, very few students are showing interest to learn the specific skills like Python, Informatica and Hadoop. If the students add these skill sets to their resume, they have a higher chance of getting placement," said T. Kalaiselvan, additional director, CUIC. "Students need to take the industry oriented one credit course seriously. During the summer and winter periods, they need to go for industry-related internships. They also can attend the online competitions like Code Vita, Code Chef," he said.
Even as the engineering colleges across the state are having fewer campus placements this year, the premier university's placement has not been affected by the slowdown in the recruitment. "This year so far 65% of the eligible students from the four campuses of the university are placed," Thyagarajan said.
