Engineering student but no job? are you ready to pay your 5th year tuition fee?

If you want to annoy someone, we would ask if the chicken came first on earth, or it's the egg? The question has no clear answer, and it remains a conundrum. Talk to any job hunting engineering freshers, they would say nobody gives me a job, but they want to have working experience. To get that experience the freshers would gear up to spend money at job training businesses. But why is this happening? Is this something new or just old problem? Is this a win-win for both parties?

What is the problem?

Engineering graduates won't get jobs even with their good grades at their universities. I am not even talking about students with bad engineering scores or someone who has terrible communication or soft skills.

Why does dhbalaji want to talk about this?

Perhaps the timing, at the time of writing this post its Ayudha pooja here. It means employees give rest to their tools and go home with gifts. Even tools and machines are given rest in my society. I got a message on LinkedIn about someone looking for a job and he has no Ayudha pooja because he is not an employee. Technically someone is not happy. I want to help that person get a job because I had been there as an interviewee and interviewer many times in my career now.

Job is a 3 letter word which attracts the other 2 words love & money. So why not help someone get a job.

Why do engineering students won't get a job and it's a problem?

1. Students join engineering to have a middle-class life and not out of the passion to engineer products or solutions. Most of the time it's a unanimous choice presented to students after school education.

2. Colleges don't teach economics or finances or job hunting.

Why not dedicate one subject in any semester for job hunting when we know that we are going to be job hunting and working for the rest of our lives?

It's the job of parents and neighbors to remind the students to get a job and get into the economy.

3. Life skills cannot be taught. They have to be explored, absorbed, and gained from the words of wise. Students find the words of the wise boring.

What is the solution?

1. After spending 4 years at college and not finding a job? then take a shot by spending another year's worth of tuition fee (or sometimes lesser) at the job-oriented training businesses.

Downside You are going to be out of the job for some months after college and most likely to get an entry-level job with a lesser wage compared to campus hires. You are losing time and money.

There is no guarantee of a job after training. It's like extended and rigorous college again. Pay, study, learn but the things used at work. Mostly taught by IITians of India because IIT is a recognized & respected word in the Indian education system. It's like training straight from the horse's mouth (it's business right! they show the sunny side first and call it ads).

2. While studying at college you should have asked the right questions? The right questions would have been, what should I do to get a job. Of course, not every student is going to be in a premier institute in some computer science-related course. You might be a BSC in Computer science from a college built in the countryside that nobody is aware of. The answer while studying is to go
   1. take up programming classes
   2. get mentored by a working professional
   3. read books that are read by professionals.
   4. know the tools and languages the workplace needs
   5. Develop some application or product with the tools and languages identified above.
   6. Engineer & Execute the project.

If you have done any 2 steps mentioned above, your resume would be different from million other engineers out there looking for a job.

Good questions get great answers. But a question like can you refer me & he is my (give me a job) resume, is not a good one.

I missed the campus placement, what should I do?

Some of the freshers are going to get a job soon because their resume looks good, they have experience with tools and languages at work.

Experience beats inexperience every single time in the IT field.

A fresher with professional knowledge of java or javascript is going to get a job quicker than a guy who started taking up tutorials after college.

Bite the bullet, you are going to lose time and money. Instead of reading all by yourself, join a training house that can transform you from novice to job-ready professional.

Who is a job-ready professional

A job-ready professional can do the minimum viable product alone which he would be doing at work & getting paid for.

If you are a backend developer, you should be in a position to build web services, integrate with the database with ORM, handle minimum authentication and debug issues. That's the bare minimum expected out of you.

If you are a frontend developer, you should be able to translate mockup into a working web app

That said if you are going to be a tester or QA. Then you should be able to identify and write test cases for the product.

Why you will not become a job-ready professional?

1. Many people do not have the discipline to painstakingly think and take the right decisions required to get a job.

2. Many people do not have the discipline to prepare for a job interview in the right way. The right way is coding an app and learning in the context of the app.

3. Many people are not going to take the risk of taking money out for a training class. In step 1 you should have identified all possible options to get to your goal. If you are good at step 2 then step 3 can be avoided.

4. Of course, you still have to get familiar with interview questions and answers from google.

5. Soft skills matter.

Common questions which fresher without a job asks.

1. Why can't companies hire and give training

   Your college did not teach you how IT companies work. IT companies have project timelines and budgets. Not all companies have the luxury to intake you, train, and give you a project.

2. Will I get the job if I learn Javascript/Python

   Nobody is going to give you a job because you learned React/python/JS. You get a job when you can demonstrate that you can build products with your learning or solve a business problem.

3. Why I won't get interview calls?

   Either the recruiters do not know that you exist or they do not want you.

4. Why recruiters don't call me back after the interview?

   As an interviewer, I have given feedback to a lot of candidates. Your interview boils down to numbers like your CGPA. If you are 3.5/5 and other candidates have 4.5 then that person gets the job. In few cases, other factors like likeability, because you are living close by or gender preferences, might also be an issue.

5. How to get a good job as a fresher?

   Take a look at senior IT professionals' resumes on LinkedIn or elsewhere. That's how your resume should look except for the employer history. You should have used tools and languages to solve problems rather than learning things.

Let go of the fresher tag, skip the junior dev role altogether by training for senior roles, bring real skills to the table.

6. I am technically good, but nobody gives me a job. Why?

   Who cares if you know technology 'X' 100 percent or not. What matters is if you can solve a business problem most efficiently.

7. Which tutorial should I use for learning Javascript

   If you are only learning, I do not think you are going to be a job-ready professional. Write some real code.

Questions that freshers rarely ask

1. Am I fit for the IT industry

   IT industry is a laborious industry. Sitting before a PC for many long hours is not for everyone. You should ask yourself if you are passionate about computers or tech. Many freshers look at IT as a job house instead of a career which is demanding and lucrative for hard-working folks

2. What are the hiring trends

• Hacker earth route
• DS and algo rounds
• white board coding
• blog checks
• github checks
• technical speaker
• oral communication
• written communication
• assignment round
• telephonic rounds

Each trend has its pros and cons but you need to prepare for as many of them.

3. what are the soft skills a candidate should have

   The candidate should be able to comfortably introduce himself/herself to the recruiter in less than 90 seconds in an impressive manner. Narrating a resume won't help. Obsessing about hobbies is not good either. It's a business pitch ideally.

   Don't bore the interviewer. Don't fake or fudge information. Interviewers can find out that you are fake.

4. Should I listen to that guy who mentioned back door entry?

   Backdoor entries are a no-no. You can be kicked out anytime or called for a re-interview which is going to be many times harder and embarrassing than the normal one.

5. How much should you learn for the interview.

   Learn 1x but prepare 2x. If you do not know the difference between learning and preparing for the interview then you are in serious trouble. Consult your mentor or read 5 books on job interviews.

6. I am job hunting for 6 months and exhausted all my options?

   were you using the same resume for 6 months? were you searching for the same job for 6 months? why not change something. I would do A/B testing and see what works and what would not. But most importantly change something. Stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

7. What should I do when hunting for a job

   Job hunting is not a job. So fill it up by building products or solutions or do open source.

8. Should I pay for getting interview calls?

   Maybe yes, because you do not have the guts to identify IT companies and walk into their office with your cover letter explaining why they should hire you. Some business owners would like you because they do not have to pay the middle man if you walk into their door with a good offer.

9. What are things freshers do not know about hiring

• hiring is an expensive business activity
• hiring numbers are decided in advance
• cooperation with the hiring team is important
• the more valuable you're skillset is to the business, the higher would be your pay.
• very rarely do people hire you because you learned one library. Because in production level apps, many such libraries are working together with each other.

10. How do I impress the recruiter

• Infographic resume
• Portfolio of past work
• Open source contribution
• High quality work experience
• Professionalism

11. Should I work for some company for free as a training?

The company should take you on a trial basis but with 50% pay that you would get when hired. In some cases either greed or lack of budget, things might go out of the way. Use your discretion but walking away with a fake experience letter is dangerous. It's equivalent to back door entry.

12. Should I sign 2 years bond after training?

Maybe yes but you should not surrender your career growth or salary hike during this bond period. Bond is only for retaining you but it should not be for bondage.

References

Books: What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles