Towards the Light

 Hello,

This post is mainly targeted to final year BE students. It is the most important time in our life as we have to decide our future. General options in front of us are pursuing higher studies in India or abroad or get into a job. I would like to discuss about the latter topic.

Most of the colleges offer campus placements. If u r lucky enough to be in one of the prestigious colleges which has good placements then you need not worry. But if u have talent and you were unable to get into one of the best institution(in terms of campus placements) then you need to work a bit to get the job that match your talent.

 Being in final year most of us will not be aware of what exactly we will be working on after completion of graduation. IT is very necessary for every fresher to have complete knowledge of the corporate world. Lets suppose you have got a job offer from one of the topmost IT company through your campus placement. Let me call this company as "abc". Before if you decide to stick to the job, you have to do a bit research on what the company is all about.

First you should know what type of company “abc” is. It can be either a service company or a product company. Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages. A service company might provide you good training but there might be long periods of “on bench period” especially during recession. Currently most of the service companies have lots of fresher engineers on bench. On bench period is a strategy used by service sector companies to manage time intervals between projects. In this period you will not be given any productive work but you will be paid. The darker side is your experience doesn’t count. If you are lucky you might get very good projects in service companies. Sometimes the work pressure will be too much. There might be no scope for innovative ideas. If you are into a product company, best part is you will have no bench concept usually. You will be put into work the day you finish your training. You will also gain domain knowledge. Suppose if a product based company “xyz” is a company providing solutions for travel sector, you will learn a lot of things in that domain. There is an opportunity to develop innovative ideas. There will be less work pressure. The disadvantage is its better if u work in the same company than to switch companies. You can change if you find one which works in similar field. Now it is for you to decide which one will suit you better. Usually the mass recruiting companies which visit campuses are service based companies.

Now what if you are from Electronics branch or any other non-IT branch but have got into IT Company. It depends on your passion. But most of them find it difficult to get a job in core companies as the number of vacancies in core engineering fields is far less than IT fields. What I personally believe is its good if u get a core engineering job but if not it is better to like the job which you have got. Electronics engineers can easily adjust to the software environment whereas mechanical engineers find it a bit difficult in the beginning. However most of the core companies pay you far less than IT companies unless you are from premier institutions like IITs, NITs etc. Job satisfaction is important than salary. So if u have a option between core company and an IT company with an attractive package I believe it is better to go for core company unless you have a great passion for software programming.

Coming to the salary package. You think you deserve a better job or better package? And you are not in one of the premier institutions? Can you get a company with a good salary package?? 

The answer is Yes! I will be explaining it in my next post. Watch out :)