If I ask you to list down some of the key aspects on which the reputation of a college depends, then campus placements would certainly be in the top 3.
Most of the colleges today, irrespective of their stream (MBA, Engineering, etc.), have a dedicated placement cell to take care of the recruitment process for the students. The objective of these placement cells is to ensure maximum placements of students to maintain and improve the reputation and credibility of the college.
However, in making sure of maximum placements possible, colleges often lead their students to mismatched job profiles and interviews, which eventually results in low recruitment percentage than what had been targeted.
One of the main reasons behind this is lack of skill and knowledge assessment of the students. These interviews are the first ever experience for students and an introduction to the world outside campus gates. Facing corporate interviews without having a proper assessment of one’s self can catch them off-guard and lead them to fail in their interviews.
This is exactly where AMCAT turns up as the savior. To improve the placement score of a college, AMCAT suggests 2 layer assessment process.
Rather than leading the students directly into the campus interviews simply on the basis of their academic performance in the final year, AMCAT suggests that it is better to conduct their 1st assessment in the pre-final year and the second one in the final year.
To prove this theory, AMCAT conducted a study to understand the importance of preparing the students early to be job ready.
The study was conducted on randomly selected 10 colleges where the first assessment was done in the pre-final year and the second assessment was done in the final year. The result of the study is as shown below;
This was accompanied by another analysis on a different set of colleges where both assessments were done in the final year, with a gap of 3-6 months.
As can be clearly seen from the above figures, when both the assessments were conducted in the final year itself, the improvement in scores was not much in comparison to when the assessments were conducted in a two-layer process, viz., one in the pre-final year and the other in the final year.
The post analysis of the individual studies revealed 3 major reasons for this change in scores;
- Taking assessment exam in the pre-final year gives the window of filling up the gaps and work on the points where the student lacked. This sways them away from the pressure of preparing for both, exams and placements, at the same time.
- The score acquired during pre-final year can be used to crack summer internships which can be really helpful during placements and can add credit to their employability index.
- Colleges can use the assessment feedback to inculcate the required training programs.
AMCAT exams have proved to be extremely supportive and useful in assessing the knowledge and skill level of students looking to crack their first job.
With the help of preparation modules, such as PrepAMCAT, Resume Buddy, and MockAI students have the ease to master their exam with tremendous scores.
The same has helped colleges in assisting their students to do good during campus placements.
Another study conducted through AMCAT on the employability index of college students proved this theory.
It can be clearly analyzed from the two figures above that the percentage change of recruitment in the three highlighted fields is greater when the assessments were conducted in two-layer process, than when it were conducted in the final year.
In a nutshell, it is a better idea and highly recommended for all the colleges to conduct skill assessments for their students from the pre-final year itself. This would not only help in figuring out the current knowledge level of the students but also will help them in preparing well for the campus placements.
