TADEPALLIGUDEM, ANDHRA PRADESH, 6^th July 2021: National Institute of Technology Andhra Pradesh recorded an increase in campus placement for the Academic Year 2020-21, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of students placed increased during 2020-21, which is a significant achievement in the current scenario. The entire selection process was conducted online.

As many as 78.7 per cent of students were placed through campus recruitments during 2020-21, for which placements are still ongoing. This compares favorably with the preceding year of 2019-20, which recorded 70.62 per cent placements.

Top Recruiters who came to NIT Andhra Pradesh include multinational companies and reputed firms such as L&T, Deloitte, Accenture, TCS, Infosys, ADP, Cognizant and Modak Analytics, among others.

Elaborating about the campus placements, Prof. C.S.P Rao, Director, NIT Andhra Pradesh, said, “Placements provide an opportunity to the students to test their employability skills gained for current industry requirements. Further, this outcome allows them to know better the confident level and decision making towards their professional career. NIT Andhra Pradesh emphasizes skill development through curriculum and promotes interdisciplinary studies and innovative projects among student community. ”

Further, Prof. C.S.P Rao said, “The departments are also engaged in placement process and conducted several training programs in their expertise. The curriculum has been revised for 2020-21 admitted batch onward based on New Education Policy (NEP)-2020 and future industry needs thereby to enhance the good relationship between academia and industry. We have strived to retrain the best performance in the placement record during pandemic. This young institute is overcoming the challenges involved strategically to present a head start in the students’ career.”

Elaborating about how the Institute adapted to an online placement process, Dr. Karthikeya Sharma, Associate Dean (Training and Placements), NIT Andhra Pradesh, said, “Due to the pandemic, companies started the recruiting only when there is a project in their hand, which was not the case in the previous years. Companies used to hire students and showing that manpower they used to get the project. Identifying this scenario, the Training and Placement Cell reached out more number of companies for hiring. During the pandemic, every company hired fewer numbers than the previous years but reaching out more companies helped NIT Andhra Pradesh to secure a good number of placements.”

Measures taken by the Training and Placement (T&P) Cell of NIT Andhra Pradesh include:

• At the beginning of the Academic Year, the T&P cell prepared the calendar of Technical sessions (Revision of Technical concepts and Mock Technical interviews) with the help of the respective Department faculty Coordinators.
• Along with the on-campus drives T&P Cell of NIT Andhra Pradesh gathered the drive notifications (off Campus) from various sources and notified them regularly to the students and encouraged them to participate in those drives also. This helped few more students to get placed.
• Compared to IT Companies there was a drastic reduction in the hiring numbers of Core companies (Mechanical, Civil, EEE, Chemical, Biotech, ECE and Metallurgy related). Identifying this scenario, students from Non-IT (Core) branches were also alerted to strengthen their coding skills, so that they will be placed in an IT company if they are interested instead of waiting for core companies. This made many non-IT branch students getting placed in IT Companies.

Keeping in mind the students preparing for the higher education and competitive exams with the association of top coaching centers the Institute also conducts the mock GATE, CAT and GMAT examinations.

NIT Andhra Pradesh starts training and encourages the student during their third year of UG and encourages them to get Internships in top companies and to work on some mini projects besides registering for online courses, which will strengthen their resume and provide exposure to the students about the corporate world.

Workshops and webinars by Industrial experts on resuming building, Cracking HR and Technical interviews are also conducted frequently. The objective is to reduce the gap between the Industry needs and the students’ skillset and to make the students Industry ready at the campus itself.

The Training and Placement Cell, NIT Andhra Pradesh, makes students ready to meet Industry requirements through several initiatives, including:

• Soft – skills Training workshops.
• Resume building sessions.
• Internship Opportunities and guidance.
• Aptitude, Reasoning and Verbal skillset Development test.
• Technical concepts revision sessions by respective depts.
• Technical Mock Interviews.
• Mock HR, GD and JAM sessions.