‘I failed to get placed in the first session of IIT Delhi placements’

By Anonymous

BENGALURU: I am someone who failed to get placed during the first placement session at IIT Delhi. I was by no means alone and this year, engineering graduates from all over India had difficulties in getting placed, even in top branches. To make matters worse, we were dealing with a slowing job market, intense competition from not only our contemporaries but also our seniors and an uncertain future due to the advent of AI-based technologies.

For students in colleges like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the impact of this ‘failure’ was even more acute.

I distinctly remember how I felt my years of preparation while working were a waste of time, how I squandered all the resources my college gave me, how I disappointed my parents and above all, myself. It was also a matter of shame that I was one of the few people in my batch who had not been placed, compounding my sense of frustration.

As time went by, I understood that many people were in the same boat as me, all of us victims of bad circumstances, all of us having to deal with an uncertain market, with the prospect of not getting called for interviews hanging over us and burdened by other responsibilities toward completing our degrees.

IIT Placement 2024: ‘My mental state was a mess’

Fortunately, IIT Delhi gave us the option to spend the last semester on completing a project which many took in order to be able to focus on securing employment. The months starting from January 2024 were seen by many, including myself, as earmarked for preparing our resumes and sending them out to seniors for referrals. This enabled many to secure placement employment within February itself. I, unfortunately, was not one of these people.

As time went by, many of the others who were unplaced started getting placed through off-campus placements, by getting an interview and cracking it, no matter how many rounds were thrown at them. Others started to focus on completing their projects so that they could focus on placements later in the year. I was one of the few who was not able to focus on either as the frustration from being unplaced was compounded by my frustration with not getting a single interview call despite numerous applications.

I had even stopped revising and studying as I had begun to doubt if I was even good enough to begin with and my lack of success is a result of my insufficiency.

In this period, my friends, including those who were still looking for jobs, tried to counsel me against stopping my studying but to no avail. My mental state had become a mess.

IIT Delhi placement cell in ‘overdrive’

I started to focus more on the project with a view to at least secure my degree and would spend time trying to complete the requirements of my project. In the meantime, IIT Delhi’s placement cell had gone into overdrive trying to get more companies for their unplaced students and, by the middle of February, many new companies were coming for campus placement almost daily.

As I was focused on my project, I ignored the many companies I was eligible for as I did not want to get distracted. In retrospect, this was a poor decision as there were many companies I could crack.

For the few companies I did apply for, in primarily consulting and software roles due to my past experience, I was not able to convert even good interviews to job offers.

In retrospect, other than the skill mismatch between the role and my resume, that was tailored to a core semiconductor role, my frustration and lack of confidence were very evident to everyone and this, no doubt, hampered my chances.

As April and May rolled around, I focused fully on my project and put off all job-related activities. The frustration of my failures in the first phase, off-campus job applications and for the few non-tech roles, had basically diminished any hope of getting a job before graduation.

IIT Delhi Placement 2024: Preparing for job interviews

I gave my final presentation at the end of June after which, I was shortlisted for an interview with a prominent semiconductor company. By now, many people who were unplaced in December had been placed due to the tireless efforts of the IIT Delhi placement cell and I was one of the few still remaining. At this point, I gave my all to be as prepared for the interviews as possible.

Due to my project, I had managed to stay in touch with at least some of my core knowledge. Armed with the insights from the interviews many of my colleagues had cracked for this company, I went forth to give the interviews.

I was shortlisted for interviews for two different teams in the company. For the first set of interviews, I floundered at many logical reasoning-based questions and messed up some concepts and hence, failed.

Instead of getting frustrated over this failure, I tried to learn as much as possible from this and gave the interview for the next team. I was able to answer everything properly and within a few days, got confirmed.

IIT Placements 2024: Self-belief and hope

Looking back at this whole ordeal, the importance of self belief and hope become more evident. While there was a lot we could not control about the misfortune that happens to us, we can all have belief in ourselves and hope that our efforts will lead to a fruitful outcome.

This, in the end, is what separated me, a person who managed to secure a job at the very end of his college career, from those who got it earlier.

I hope that anyone who is reading this, whether they are unplaced or whether they are preparing for campus placement, will keep believing in themselves and not lose hope, no matter what.

The author is a fresh MTech graduate of IIT Delhi and requested that his name be withheld. All contributions to The Workplace are checked for authenticity and their authors are known to Careers360.