World record placement?

Back at the campus. It hasn't started raining yet, and weather is so-so, but it feels great to be in the second year.

That aside, while I was cozing back at home, I was discussing about the current placement scenario in the engineering colleges. I knew that three years is a long time, especially in India, but I just couldn't believe what I heard. I came to know that CTS (or TCS?) went to the Anna University Chennai campus, allowed 1000 students to take the entry test, shortlisted 800, and wanted all of them. It apparently settled with 500 odd candidates. I'm not sure about the authenticity of this piece of info - and I personally doubt it - but I've heard it from multiple sources. Isn't this a world record or something? 500 candidates in a single batch from a single institute into a single company? Did anyone say there are unemployment problems in India? On the surface, yes there are problems, but I've always believed that candidates are really not so good for everyone to be employed. I repeatedly hear reports about long queues for employment interviews and companies going in for a 50:1 selection ratio et all, but I've always felt it was ok. I was involved in the interviewing process for sometime in Oracle. Its true that thousands apply for a single job, but when you start digging deeper and look into the skills, you could throw 900 out of the window in a jiffy. The real selection would be among the 20 or 30 candidates.

The shortlisting process was one of the worst things I've ever did. 90% of the candidates applying would've a skill-set running into two pages. It would ideally take ten years to know them all. Don't even start questioning them. All resumes would be alike. End of the day, its only the college name and the school-college percentile that differentiates candidates. And we were always disappointed with the quality of candidates even after going through thousands of resumes. Well, all I'm saying is: the reports about thousands attending is only 25% of the story. The number of worthwhile (subject to debate) candidates would be 10% of that figure.

Now, getting back to the original issue, although I'm glad that job market is good, this information sounds crazy. Agreed that students from Anna are good et all, but 500 in a single massive shot? Would be interesting to see the development in the coming years, what with all companies expanding like crazy. For one thing, India seems to be the place to be, and 'now' seems to be the time to be.