City job summit comes with hiccups

Though the response to city government‘s job summit here has been good so far, some job seekers are left confused about venues and dates due to a lack of proper communication by the Employment Department.

 The advertisements had mentioned four centres where the employment drive was taking place but they failed to list specific dates for particular centres, and other details.
For instance, the process was not on at the District Employment Centre, IARI Complex, Pusa on Monday. But scores of people thronged the venue after seeing the advertisements and media reports, only to be told that the drive was conducted here on August 1 and will again be held on August 7.

“I have come from GTB Nagar after reading in the papers that the job fair is on from August 1 to August 11. But after coming here I got to know that it is currently taking place at the other three centres,” said Neema, who has registered herself with the employment exchange.

Similarly, Pritam, who was at the Delhi Cantonment venue, said he had gone to the Vishwas Nagar centre on the first day of the fair, but did not see any such activity. He then came to know that there are specific dates for each centre.

The state government officials agreed that there was confusion regarding the specifics, but said the website mentions the complete schedule. “Most people did not visit the website for details and got confused regarding the venues and dates after reading the papers. However, this confusion was only among those candidates who were not called for the process,” an official said.

Explaining the process, he said, according to the qualifications required by the companies, the applicants are selected and sent a message informing them about the venue and other details.

“Suppose, for the job of a security guard, a company has some conditions such as height and weight. So we only call those candidates who fit in the qualifications desired by the company,” he said.

However, this information was not provided earlier and all the job seekers who have registered themselves with the employment exchange are thronging the venues with the hope of getting a job.

“I read that there is a job fair going on and decided to come here. However, the officials told me that the process is only for those who have been screened earlier. There was no information about this,” Rajender said at the Delhi Cantonment centre.

“There may have been some miscommunication,” another official said, adding that the summit was organised for the first time and better management will be done from the next year.

Meanwhile, the response from the private companies as well as the people has been “encouraging”. On the first-day of the 11-day summit on Saturday, 214 youths, including 142 differently abled, were shortlisted for jobs by eight multinational companies.

“We have this perception that people are not interested in private jobs, but the response has been very encouraging. Today, the number of people appearing is so high that we had to call police for better management of the crowd. The Delhi government is just acting as a bridge between the companies and the public,” he said, adding that around 27-28 companies were approached.

“This has been a learning session for us and we will be able to organise the summit better next time,” the official said.