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Students have always been worried about being placed. But now, the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) has launched a placement portal, ‘makautplacement.com’ that solves the placement worries of its students at least in Kolkata and its surrounding areas. The portal will contain information from all the 196 colleges registered under MAKAUT and will try to ensure placements to students who are passing out or seeking employment.

MAKAUT has given the responsibility of developing this website to iLead, one of the biggest colleges under its ambit. Pradip Chopra, Chairman, iLead,spoke to BE’s Isha Chakraborty about the portal, its development process and its potential.

Q) Why do you think this portal is important?

A) See, I’ll explain why we require this portal. There was a time when the IT industry was in upswing and they were hiring heavily. But now, the IT industry is not hiring on the same scale and the big companies are reducing their manpower by adopting newer technologies, increasing automation and going for outsourcing. The students who are coming out of the middle level engineering or professional colleges, which are affiliated to WBUT or MAKAUT are not getting placed. Thus, the admission process is also getting slower.

The thing is, after spending three years for graduation and two years for post-graduation and spending around eight to ten lakhs in these five years, the students are still not getting placed. They can’t pay back huge educational loans. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the university or the affiliated college to make sure that their students get placed.

The second factor is that the industry is not getting proper candidates and many industries lack sufficient manpower. Many small and medium scale industries don’t even have a proper department, which is actually responsible for the recruitment process.

We have created a portal where around five lakh CVs can be uploaded. There are different criteria on the basis of which the recruiter can search and the portal offers that facility. Another very important thing about this portal is that it would showcase the freshers as well.

Q)  What type of organisations do you tend to recruit for?

A) There are more than two million SMEs in India and we are targeting all of them. We are basically planning to approach various industry bodies which are connected to these companies. We are trying to inform the companies that this portal is something available to them for free. We have also planned certain seminars where we would invite all these members and explain the working procedure of this software which is pre-loaded with enough data. At the moment, we are dealing with the colleges. We are conducting seminars and explaining the process to the placement heads. We will approach the chambers after this phase is complete.

Q) Are you planning to train the students in a certain way that will prepare them for interviews?

A) In this portal itself we are hosting pre-recorded videos that include lectures and activities where a student can see, observe and prepare as to how to crack interviews. It also has the important factors that they should keep in mind while preparing for an interview.

Q) Are you ensuring that the students will have jobs by the end of their courses through this portal?

A) See, this is an enabler but the student along with the placement head has to take the initiative in order to make it successful. The portal is about giving them information about possible jobs and at the same time we are also asking employers to post for possible job opportunities. The students are also notified when that is done. The website will keep on growing and we will keep on updating and make it more friendly and resourceful for the students.

Q) Are the course modules that are now being designed making the students more employable?

A) Right now, we have a very dynamic Vice-Chancellor who is revamping all the course modules. UGC has also realised that the students are not getting jobs and they are seeking employment generating courses. We are trying to create the entire curriculum so that it makes students industry ready. We are also reducing lecture hours and inserting modules that would excite and encourage students to be present in the classroom. We are trying to orient them for the real life scenario. We are also inviting professionals from the industry itself to give classes or give insights and hands-on experiences.

Q) How would you expect this website to work?

A) I think we should be ready to start within the next two months. We can then start approaching the industries and industry bodies. We need some time to upload the total data from all these colleges and we are trying to get it all done in two months. We are also trying to find out certain glitches that come with any new website and trying to solve them before we launch.

Partha Chatterjee, Minister in Charge,  Higher Education, Government of West Bengal, said, “I’m overjoyed that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) formally known as West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT), has pioneered ‘makautplacement.com’- a web portal which caters to procuring placement assistance to all the students of its affiliated colleges in engineering, technology, pharmacy, management, architecture and various other professional courses. I congratulate MAKAUT team members for their innovative endeavours. I hope that the students of the state will be immensely benefited from this placement portal. I urge all the affiliated colleges of MAKAUT to avail the best of this portal.”

Saikat Maitra, Vice-Chancellor, MAKAUT, said, “We are keen to showcase our talented students to the national and international job market through this portal. The resume of the students will be extensively visible to potential employers. Our academic curriculum has gone through an immense transformation and reformation lately. With the integration of MOOCS and emphasising on industrial training programmes, we are committed to improve the quality of our students. The portal will also enhance the linkage of academia and industries effectively.”

Mom Mitra, Faculty, Media Studies, iLead, told BE, “The plan is to make this whole portal very successful since the university is heading this whole portal and not a college in particular. So, the portal will cater to all the 196 colleges that are under MAKAUT. But then not all colleges have proper placement heads or placement cells and they were really deprived of this facility. So, this portal will enable all the students to have an equal opportunity in terms of getting placed. There is a standardised procedure for filling up the whole data into the website and there is also a format provided for filling the CVs. We will have certain sections on the website where MAKAUT is planning to put up videos that are essential for students who are approaching interviews. The companies also have the freedom to directly communicate with the students and the students can contact the employers as well. This makes the whole process easy and saves valuable time as students are instantly being connected to probable employers.”