JU Campussing at hault..

April, usually the happiest month for engineering students of Jadavpur University awaiting job offers, could be the cruellest this year.
The IT behemoths who flock to the university around that time to pick up the cream of the crop seem too busy beating downturn blues to be bothered about recruitment this season.
“All the companies have responded to our invitation (to hold campus interviews) but none has finalised the dates for the interviews yet,” Siddhartha Bhattacharya, the placement officer of Jadavpur University, told Media.
The bulk recruiters — such as Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant Technology Solutions — usually fix dates for campus interviews at Jadavpur in December.
Last year, TCS and CTS together had recruited around 465 students from Jadavpur during the Slot Zero of placements. Wipro had recruited 16 students while others like Infosys and Satyam hired around a dozen each.
Unlike Jadavpur University and a few private engineering colleges, Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) does not have a fixed timetable for campus interviews. But Besu, too, is feeling the effects of the slowdown.
“We have been trying to find out from the firms why they want to hold interviews late this time. Is it because they intend recruiting less?” a member of the Besu faculty said.
Most private engineering colleges arrange for campus interviews between February and April. Till last year, companies would finalise the dates by the end of January.
“No company has said that it won’t hold campus interviews in our institution. But unlike in previous years, nobody has fixed a deadline either,” Kishan Kejriwal, a managing trustee of the MCKV Institute of Engineering, said.
Several companies, including Wipro, have even delayed the induction of students they had recruited during the last campus placement.
“When demand is low, supply will be affected. We cannot afford the luxury of benching workers, which is why our campus recruits are being inducted in phases,” a spokesperson for Wipro said.
Representatives of Cognizant declined comment on the effects of the slowdown on their recruitment plans. An official of another company said placements would be minimal across the IT industry this year.