Students' Speak: Placement Eligibility at Welingkar

By: Aaishwarya Avhad

Aaishwarya discusses various factors which play a major role in the placement processes of many companies that visit the campus.

Just like any other screening round, almost all the companies set eligibility criteria to select the best-suited candidates for a job. This is usually pre-specified for both the internships and final/executive placements. Fulfilling those criteria would mean that you are eligible to appear for the further rounds.

Good grades in the past major exams such as class 10,12, and graduation (post-graduation, if applicable) are taken into consideration. Some companies may explicitly specify a cut off which is usually 60% marks. But there are a few companies who shortlist candidates on the basis of an upward graph in academics too. For example, most of the IT-based companies have a criterion of 60% throughout the academics.

The graduation stream is another way to select their candidates. Some companies prefer engineers over B.Sc. B.Com, or Diploma. Similarly, the specialization that you have selected in your MBA or PGDM is also considered by the companies while short-listing. For the job of a product manager, for example, the companies would mainly prefer candidates who belong to the sales and marketing specializations.

Some companies prefer to have a fresher over someone with work experience. Further, in the work experience part, they may even add the number of months also as a criterion. When hiring for certain roles, it may require prior knowledge in that area and hence when companies are hiring for multiple roles, each role has different criteria. A sales trainee might need to travel a lot (both locally as well as nationally) and hence must be comfortable to do so during the entire tenure of his job. So those having location preferences are preferably excluded from appearing in the further interview rounds.

Shortlist based on skills and the level of expertise in them is one of the criteria that usually a technical job would require. For example, an analyst role demands one to have a basic understanding of certain languages such as R, Python, etc.

Hence, to conclude, I would like to remind the students that these criteria are in place to ensure that only the most deserving candidate is selected. And the expectations from the job are usually stated clearly at the beginning of the process itself. If you do not meet any criteria of a particular company, you are not shortlisted. All companies do not have all of the above criteria; hence there are still plenty of opportunities to apply to those companies having relaxed criteria.

About the Author:

Aaishwarya Avhad is currently pursuing her second year PGDM e-Business (Marketing) from Welingkar Institute of Management. She has done her Summer Internship with The Collective (Aditya Birla Group) and intends to make a career in the IT sector.