6 City colleges part of initiative to help students get placements

LinkedIn programme will also streamline hiring, aid employers

Six colleges in Bengaluru will be part of a pilot initiative launched by LinkedIn, the business social networking website, to make it easy for students to find their first jobs, for placement co-ordinators to streamline their placement processes, and ease the hiring process for potential employers and recruiters.

Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, PES University, Jain University, Kristu Jayanti College, Mount Carmel College and R V College of Engineering are among 14 institutions in four cities in the country that have been selected for the initiative called ‘LinkedIn Placements’.

M N Guru Venkatesh, vice president, Placements and Skill Development Center, Dayananda Sagar Group of Institutions, said the college would first involve a few students in the initiative before extending it to others. “This feature will cut down on the time and cost for recruiters to hire new talent from colleges. Then, it would make it easier for placement co-ordinators like me to understand the requirements of various companies coming for placement,” he told Deccan Herald.

Citing some aspects of the new feature, he said, “Placement co-ordinators can enter the percentage scored by a student that will in turn help them to organise candidates as per the company’s demand. SMS and e-mail services have been incorporated to notify registered students of potential recruiters immediately.”

Although PES University is yet to use the new feature, its placement head K S Sridhar hopes it will “simplify the entire process” relating to organising the placements for students. He said most colleges were using traditional means of organising placements that tended to be cumbersome. Organising data, keeping track of students and the nature of their placements or internships are some of the problems, he pointed out.

“LinkedIn approached us and took note of the various challenges we faced in organising the hiring process. We have received the product and will use it very soon. It will hopefully simplify things for us,” he said.

Some of the institutions elsewhere are Asia-Pacific Institute of Management, Faculty of Management Studies, both in Delhi, D Y Patil University, Pune, and ITM Group of Institutions, Mumbai.