CR&CS NEWS

SRM University-AP initiated its journey in the year 2017, and now it is time to bid farewell to the maiden batch of students. The university is proud to share that 100% of our graduating students are placed successfully. About 500 companies visited SRM campuses during the Placement drive, including Amazon, Adobe, Infosys, HealthRx, Bank of America, Standard Chartered and many more who have offered exhilarating opportunities. Students of the founding batch have received one or more job offers in reputed companies with the highest CTC of ₹29.5 LPA, an average salary of ₹6.2 LPA, and over 57% offers were Super Dream and Dream offers. The Campus Placement drive is still on and best efforts are put in to ensure that all the students are placed.

Dr P Sathyanarayanan, Founder and President, established this university with a vision of providing quality education to the students who will not only be able to secure a position of their choice but also add value to society. It has been an incredible journey so far, and the students made the university proud with their excellence in academics and extra-curricular activities. “Acknowledging the needs of the hour, SRM University-AP is dedicated to devising strategies to mould students to become global leaders,” said Dr Sathyanarayanan.

The university took it as a challenge to find the best job offers for its deserving students. The Department of Corporate Relations and Career Services (CR&CS) was deeply involved in providing students with the best training and placement opportunities. SRM University-AP believes that every student is filled with numerous possibilities, and they can scale greater heights if their potentials are explored wisely. The students of the maiden batch proved the vision.

“We always bring the best to our students when it comes to their training and personality development. The thoughtfully crafted training sessions, in close coordination with industry and corporate experts, rigorous aptitude tests, mock interview rounds help students to excel in the interviews and placement rounds”, informed Mr M S Vivekanandan, Assistant Director, CR&CS.

Sri Ritika Katragadda, a final-year student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, secured the highest pay package. She expressed her joy, saying, “Though we were the first graduating batch of SRMAP, the outstanding experience in the past four years in academics and placement training made us so confident that we cracked the long hiring process with ease”.

Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP, opined, “Our university is the flag-bearer when it comes to inculcating quality, value and excellence among the students in order to make them an asset to the society. The maiden batch placement programme was bound to be a success as it was not a job hunting for our students, rather, finding opportunities to contribute to the society, putting into use their intellect and innovative ideas”.

SRM University – AP Placements 2021

Another proud moment for SRM University-AP when Kattamuri Sai Krishna Rohith bagged an envious job offer from ODCEM Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (OneDirect) with a CTC of 20 Lakhs per annum. He is pursuing his B. Tech final year in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Mr Rohith will be joining the company as an intern for six months with monthly compensation of Rs. 20,000. After six months of internship, he will be offered the permanent employee as a Full Stack Developer with a CTC of Rs. 20,00,000 per annum.

Mr Rohith went through rigorous placement training programmes conducted by the Department of Corporate Relations and Career Services to secure the job offer. The job hiring process for this role was conducted in four stages. After preliminary selection, Mr Rohith had to prove his ability in coding, aptitude and other technical domains. The Director of Engineering himself took the final call before offering him a position in the company to see if Rohith is a proper fit for their company.

Rohith expressed his gratitude towards the CR & CS department of SRM University-AP, saying that the training sessions strengthened his core skills and abilities. He was also taught to face interviews and critical questions. Mr Rohith said, “Placement is an arduous process. I was offered another position in other company before, but I was not happy with that offer. I had faith in my abilities, so I continued searching for better opportunities and improve my skill set to secure the Super Dream offer. Keeping nerves in control, not panicking during interviews, excellent communication skills are some essential qualities that everyone should master to get good jobs. I am thankful to the CR & CS department for all their support and customised, personal, need-based assistance, which helped me a lot to prepare for the interviews,” said Mr Rohith.

After five months of determination, Mr Rohith finally secured the job that he was looking for. “The University has provided us with numerous opportunities with a flexible curriculum and Global standards. In addition to all the training, my mentors encouraged me to participate in Hackathons, apply for research internships, and attend conferences. Thanks to the extraordinary faculty that we have, the regular classes were of great help in enhancing my technical knowledge,” asserted Mr Rohith. Mr Rohith was a proud track-winner of Microsoft and EthDenver hackathons and a research Intern at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore.

He has shared his mantra to success with his fellows. Mr Rohith believes that instead of panicking or comparing with others, one should focus on becoming a better version of oneself, and the success will find him.

SRM University-AP organised the grandest National HR Conclave-2021, the grandest conglomerate of Human Resource experts, on February 27, 2021, in association with the Global Workforce Management Forum. The theme of the conclave for this year was “Leading the Disruption- The HR Agenda for 2021 “. Senior Human Resource Leaders from reputed companies such as KPMG, Airbus, IBM, Informatica, Standard Chartered Bank, Flipkart, Shriram Bio-seeds, NCC Ltd, NOKIA, Infosys BPO, Volvo Group, Reliance Jio, Western Digital, Visa, Accenture, Grant Thornton LLP, Xperi Corp, Western Digital, Kromozones Software Pvt. Ltd, Shriram Bioseeds, SS&C Technologies delivered keynote speeches and participated in Panel Discussions in the daylong event.

The event was started with the opening remarks of Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP. In his speech, Prof Rao explained briefly how disruptive innovation had benefitted several industries such as the telecom and communication industry, automobile industry and others so far. It is high time to explore the opportunities in the Human Resource sector. “Covid-19 has provided us with many opportunities. Post-COVID era is the era of changed perspective and innovation, enabling the commoners to reap the benefits of technology,” said Prof Rao. He also stated the University encourages students to make use of the opportunities such as undergrad research, semester abroad program, student run-tech labs, etc to enhance their creative and innovative thinking.

Advancing the proceedings of the event, the founders of GWFM gave a brief understanding of their organisational structure and operations. Global Workforce Management Forum, founded in June 2014 by Dr Shiva Kumar and Partho Ganguly, is the world’s first WFM Forum. It is a non-profit professional organisation comprising of a group of Senior WFM & HR professionals committed to promoting the WFM movement on the global platform. Mr Ganguly set the tone for the conclave by addressing the present stagnation in Human Resource and opportunities to move forward.

In the first Keynote speech of the conclave Mr Unmesh Pawar, Partner – People Performance & Culture- KPMG India, explained how workforce reshaping is going to be a key element as we move forward. COVID-19 has changed the HR perspective globally. Mr Pawar took some realistic examples from whatever is happening worldwide and how it is creating shifts in overall organisational behaviour and operations.

The event progressed with a few panel discussions. Commenting on the importance of Digital, Data and Disruptions, the panel agreed that data analytics is crucial in today’s world, where we are standing on the verge of digital transformation. Predictive data analysis is being used to make business decisions. It is very important to have a sharp and clear objective to move forward in this field with countless opportunities.

Advancing into the event, Mr Suraj Chetri, Director HR Airbus India illuminated the audience with his strategic keynote on The Future of HR. “Start-ups are the future. Larger conglomerates will break into smaller companies with the abolishment of hierarchy. A lot of focus will be in healthcare and safety with special emphasis on mental health,” said Mr Chetri. According to him, a smart workplace is going a play a major role in the future. Technology will support employees to carry out several activities in a seamless way. It is going to impact the workplace culture and office management. Machine learning, data-driven automation, physical as well as virtual connectivity and Team collaborations are going to sustain in the future.

In another discussion on HR strategies to build flexibility, adaptability, and agility, the panel agreed on that every crisis goes through a time of recovery. This is a recovery phase. What is needed is adaptability as a skill. People are now looking for adaptability as the most important tool and hiring criteria. There are many tools and technologies to aid the recruitment process. But that is for ease of administration. More important is how one positions himself? Students should be focused from the beginning to create their own brand, deciding their selling points and USPs.

While speaking on the Future-proofing workforce 2020: Upskilling employees for future-oriented career trajectories, Mr Augustus Azariah, Human Resource Leader IBM mentioned that organisations used to build skills, capabilities, competencies, risk appetite among the employees. These skills are now being used to stay afloat in the storm called COVID-19. Analytics says storm riders are highly adaptable, willing to take risks with the resilience to get teams together. “If we walk through a journey of how HR has evolved over the years, we will find that it used to be process-driven, but now it is experiential and result- oriented. Conversion of data into actionable insights, design thinking, awareness of market trends, proactive learning and upskilling are the tools that employees of the future will need. To be an essential part of the future, one has to be digitally aware with a work experience consistent with his customers’ experience along with proper sensitisation in the workplace with the changed demographics,” advised Mr Azariah.

Over 25 Human Resource experts joined the conclave to share their view and usher in the way forward for the students. the conclave provided food for thought for the fellow recruiters as well as the students were highly motivated to listen to the experts speaking on real time problems with a solution. Mr Vivekanandan, Assistant Director-CR&CS, SRM University-AP, cordially thanked all the speakers, panel members, and the GWFM for their efforts to make the conclave a grand success.

Khushboo Sharma is one of the brightest gems in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. She is currently pursuing her third year in undergraduate studies. She has recently bagged an envious summer internship offer at one of the most reputed companies- Adobe India, a multinational software company. Through their women-only hiring challenge “SheCodes”, Khushboo not only bagged an internship offer but she may also have an opportunity of a Pre Placement Offer, upon successful review after this internship with attractive pay package. She will be joining Adobe India in May 2021 for the internship of 10-12 weeks with a stipend of 1 lakh rupees per month.

Mr Vivekanandan, Assistant General Manager, Department of Corporate Relations and Career Services (CR&CS), says “It is a proud moment for the university. SRM University-AP is full of bright students with huge potential. It is our sincere responsibility to bring out the best in them and help them find the right place in the industry.” Khusboo asserted that the training process in the Department of CR&CS was rigorous. Be it attitude development or interview preparations, the CR&CS department has extended continuous guidance and support along with mock sessions. Mr Vivekanandan further informed that the training programmes of SRM University-AP are designed by the experts to make students prepare for every challenge that they might face in a competitive world. They even organise some training sessions that are company-specific. Needless to say, that the placement department is not ready to leave any stone unturned when it comes to the future of its students. The placement team thoroughly guided Khushboo in the four-month-long hiring process in Adobe.

Khushboo expressed her gratitude, saying that it would not have been possible for her to crack this challenge without the continuous guidance and support provided by her teachers and the placement team. The modernised industry-oriented curriculum helped her gain the necessary in-depth knowledge to excel in her studies. Khushboo is also a part of tech-based clubs of SRM university-AP and always strives to think something out of the box. Her zeal towards scaling new heights and perseverance her made her achieve this offer.