Chennai: It was 9.30 am. The state government’s mega job fair held at the Babu Jagjeevan Ram sports stadium in Tondiarpet had only been officially on for about 30 minutes yet Javed Ahmed, a resident of RK Nagar, had all but given up.
“These companies are looking for freshers. I have three years of work experience and I can’t find a company interested in hiring me,” said the ITI graduate. A. Chandru, a resident of Vaniyambadi and a B.E.(IT) grad, said that most stalls turned the engineers away. Retail sector, clearly, were the biggest draw.
They had the most vacancies but the jobs on offer were clearly at entry level and in the sales front. S. Srinivasan, HR Head of RMKV silks, said that engineers should shed their ‘academic image.’ “We offer a nice package of Rs 8,500 for a 10-hour workday plus allowances, but for some engineers that is not enough. These youngsters should ideally work really hard for a few years. In due time, around five years, they can easily earn a respectable Rs 25,000 at least,” he said.
By 11 am, stalls stopped entertaining employment requests and were collecting resumes, with the promise that the candidate would ‘receive a call’ from them in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, the police were working over time to keep order at the venue.
But for those who did land a job, it was a feeling unlike any. S. Ramu, a Namakkal native, who had been working at a Sriperumbudur-based firm for a year at a monthly salary of Rs 8,000, earned himself a pay packet of Rs 10,000 from a new firm.
“It is not much but the allowances are nice. I only have to pay for the rent,” said the son of a power mill operator mother. “It is a good start for freshers,” said Senthil Kumaran, a parent. “The fair made it possible to bring a few hundred companies in one spot which, otherwise, the kids should have gone to individually in search for a job,” he said.”
