Disappointed Jobseekers

The scene in front of HCL Technologies on a January Sunday morning provided the big picture of the growing disenchantment among the educated youthFor many in their homes in the aspirational Electronic City in Bengaluru, it was a lazy Sunday morning. But for 8,000-odd youth, most from across the country, it was a nerve-wracking day that started around the time sun was just out. Within hours, the morning in front of HCL Technologies office in E-City lay bare the huge unemployment issue among the ‘educated’ youth in the country.A day after a survey titled Aspiring Minds National Employability Report — based on a study of more than 1,50,000 engineering students who graduated in 2015 from over 650 colleges — pronounced that 80 per cent of them are unemployable, the ever-growing queue for a walk-in interview for 1,200 vacant posts in HCL seemed to just drive home that point.The combo of unemployed engineers and the new-age advertisement through online/social media that spread the word about the job availability made for the chaotic scene at HCL: 1,200 posts and 8,000-plus candidates lining up on the not-so-broad Velankani Drive in E-City. The post on offer — Engineer Trainee — came with an annual package of `2.75 lakh. The candidates invited were 2014/15 grads of information technology, electrical and electronics engineers, electronic and communication engineers and BTech. The interview was scheduled for 10am to 2pm, and when the company saw the queue starting to pile up around 7am, it began the written test at 9am. Around 800 took the test, which is when, around 9.30am, the company took stock of the situation.HCL obviously did not see it coming and as the crowd swelled, the company cancelled the walk-in interview.That led to more chaos, with the aspirants throwing a fit. Things could have gone out of hand, but the presence of security personnel, carbine-toting CISF men with lathis, was enough to scare the hell out of the engineers.A policeman in the Electronic City jurisdiction at the venue to disperse the crowd told BM, “The company officials have not intimated us about the recruitment drive; if they were expecting more than 500 people they needed to take permission for both security purposes and also for the traffic police to make arrangements. They called us in when they panicked about the crowd. We had to get our city armed reserve police to control the crowd after the company asked them to leave.”Harsh Pathak who had come from Gwalior in MP said, “I got to know about the recruitment drive through social media. Most of us were sent back without giving an interview. They could have just asked us to update our resumes online. We had to wait for hours in the queue and later they ask us to hand over the resumes. There are people from several states who left after the cops started using lathis to clear the crowd.”Nikitha S had come from Jharkhand; she said, “Only after the company anno-unced of conducting a walk-in recruitment drive a week ago, we got to know of it.There are a few jobs available for freshers. Had I any inkling that more than 8,000 would land here, I would not have come.”Sajid B from Bihar said, “This is not the way to conduct an interview for thousands of unemployed youths who stood there for hours thinking their turn would come in some time. Within two hours the whole crowd was scattered and it was utter chaos when police arrived and asked us to leave as the interview got cancelled.”Irked over this Shilpa L, an IT student said, “Almost 800 people gave a written test and it started an hour before the scheduled time. We thought they would conduct an interview for everyone but they informed us of the recruitment drive being cancelled.”A mother accompanied her daughter, Suman Singh, from Lucknow, and said, “Because of the company’s mistake our time and money is wasted. I could not let my daughter travel alone, so I accompanied her but the purpose was not met. It is sad that private companies take so many jobseekers for a ride by cancelling the interview and sending us back at the last minute.”A spokesperson of HCL Technologies Ltd at the venue said, “We did not expect so many people to drop in today (Sunday) for the walk-in recruitment drive. We had to stop the interview process and ask the jobseekers to drop in their resumes with us.”The Aspiring Minds report says, “In terms of cities, Delhi produces the highest number of employable engineers followed by Bengaluru and the western parts of the country. Tier-III cities too produce a fair share of employable engineers and should not be neglected from a recruitment perspective.”* Placement drives and campus selections are conducted only in top 10 colleges. Every year 45,000 engineering graduates pass out from Karnataka alone. Out of this only 10% get placed in companies. The remaining are either unemployed or have changed profession. On a national average, only 15% of engineering students pursue a job in the same stream. The rest opt for jobs on BPOs and marketing. We are producing engineers in excess without any reason. There should be a national survey on manpower requirement or else unemployment will increaseI got to know about the recruitment drive through social media. If they had asked us to update our resumes online this problem would have not risen. People from other states left the venue only after the cops started using lathis to clear the crowd.If I knew there were more than 8,000 people attending this recruitment drive, I would have never come here. They should have given importance to all people who came here instead of collecting our resumes and interviewing only a few people.This is not the way to conduct an interview for thousands of unemployed youths who stood there for hours thinking their turn would come in soon. Within two hours the whole street was crowded. It was utter chaos when police arrived and asked us to leaveAlmost 800 people gave a written test and it started an hour before the scheduled time. We thought they would conduct an interview for every one but they cancelled the interview. The management did not tell when they would get back to us