Placement is one of my recent responsibilities. When I took over this assignment, one of my feelings was that students are not getting enough opportunities because a good number of companies are not for campus hiring.
When the placement activities started happening, I started getting new insights. One of the persistent objections by students is that " don't allow already selected students" for further campus hiring events. I went by the general wisdom that already selected students if allowed to appear for more companies, they are "snatching" jobs from others. To verify I did an experiment. For the last company that visited for campus hiring, I allowed only 80+ students who had not got single offer in previous events. In others words, this was chance to grab their first job. My thinking was that " since no selected student is in the race, many will get the job"
When the written results were announced, only 16 of 80 students who appeared for the test cleared it. What is more startling was that the cutoff percentage in written test was just 40% ( 16 out of 40 marks). The company actually wanted more people and had hoped to conduct interviews for two days. However they were disappointed because of the conversion.
The myth was busted. The real barrier for students not getting through is not the other "placed" students. Instead, it was their "ill" preparation. Who prevented them from scoring more than 40% in written test. It is time for students to make "real" preparation and see that they can clear any written test. They should be bothered about other students- either already selected or not- taking part in the selection process