Job Fair in Vizag leaves students disheartened

VISAKHAPATNAM: For job-seekers, the job fair organised by the Andhra University in association with Millennium Software Solutions under the Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu scheme of the state government became a damp squib, with thousands of youth returning home disheartened. The fair is just propaganda and not a sincere effort for providing employment, alleged many students.Around 25,000 persons flocked to Andhra University with the hope of landing a job but many returned home without submitting their resumes while others had to wait in long queues to submit resumes.Majority of job aspirants, who came to AU from East and West Godavari, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam districts said AU authorities had failed to provide proper information. Representatives of around 100 companies from different sectors including IT, pharmaceutical, insurance, automobile, hospitality, health care, marketing, manufacturing, retail and BPO services sectors participated in the job fair.The government had promised to provide jobs for 10,000 persons. "The fair is just trash. The company representatives neither announced any pay packages nor number of vacancies," said a job aspirant A Santhosh from Visakhapatnam. Very few people would get jobs through the fair, he added.Some companies rejected resumes from candidates, yet to appear for final year of their BSc and B Tech next year while the representatives of those companies did not clarify on the issue, said some students. "I came from Nellore with lots of expectations but I have no clue about the venue of the written test and interview," said a disappointed V Tejaswi, a BTech graduate.There are no volunteers to help and guide students, she added. Job seekers from neighbouring districts are having a tough time trying to locate the venues for the tests and interviews due to lack of any indicative boards inside the Andhra University campus, she said.Some job seekers said certain companies are offering poor pay packages, salary of around Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 per month.Also, there are very few opportunities for BTech graduates, especially graduates of EEE and ECE branches, said some students. Intriguingly, majority of IT companies are keen to rope in graduates in basic sciences than BTech graduates.