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You’ve studied as hard as you could, but things didn’t go as planned. And you decided to join a Tier 2/Tier 3 Engineering College. At times you are jealous of your batchmates who are studying in IITs and NITs and wonder if you will ever get a dream job as them. Fret not! 😃
Here we will discuss how you can land a dream job, even if you are from a not-so-great college. By not-so-great, I don’t mean that the college is bad. It’s just that they are not among the most sought-after colleges because of various reasons – college is new or unheard of, no placement records, no great marketing (yes, in the era of social media, colleges need to market themselves to be famous).
1. Believe in yourself
The first thing you need to do is to not feel you are a loser because you didn’t get a great rank. Life provides a number of opportunities and you can always carve out a new path for yourself.
If you have a certain goal in mind, you can find multiple paths to reach there. Even if the path of a Tier 1 college is closed, you will always find another path. Stop thinking about your failure and focus on what you can do from here. Be positive.
2. Be Open to Learning
What is popular today need not be popular tomorrow and there will be new fields of study coming up. Those who are the first to master new skills are the ones who will get those opportunities. Remember the 90s when everyone including Commerce and History graduates used to enroll for IT courses and fly to Silicon Valley?
Enroll into Udemy courses, learn new things in addition to your college curriculum.
Analysts have predicted that the Chemical industry is the next big thing in India. Who knows, we may have the next lot of 12th standard students queuing up for M.Sc. Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, the way Computer Science is the most sought-after branch as of now.
No one knew about Digital Marketing in 2000, but it is one of the hottest skills in 2022.
Track the news, be aware of what’s happening in the industry and spot new learning opportunities.
3. Participate in Hackathons
Websites like Techgig regularly conduct coding challenges in partnership with leading IT companies. They offer attractive prizes too, which is a bonus. But these challenges give you visibility and challenging problems, which help you learn programming, even if you don’t win a prize.
Some of the winners even bag internships and PPOs at the company that is conducting the hackathon, so this could be your chance!
4. Have a social media presence
Everyone may not be comfortable with this, but this is the era of online marketing, and you also need to market yourself. It doesn’t mean posting everything about your personal life online. This is more of a professional presence on platforms like LinkedIn.
Create an impressive profile, with your picture and mention anything relevant you have done, even if it is revamping your department’s website or an app tor register for your college fest.
Join groups related to your field of study and participate in discussions by answering questions or commenting on someone else’s post in a polite manner.
5. Blogging
Consider creating a website for yourself and write an article once a week, or once a fortnight on whatever you have learnt. This applies to all branches of study, be it management, law, chemistry or electronics. Creating a website is very easy and there’s no coding knowledge required. But make sure you keep writing something regularly, as no recruiter would want to see a website that has no new content for 2 years.
Make sure you create one with your name/ catchy brand name and showcase all your skills, articles and portrays a clear image of who you are. Link your website to your social media pages and share your articles with relevant hashtags for more visibility.
Blogging will also help you improve your English skills, which is essential in today’s corporate world.
6. Take up Freelance Projects
In this era of remote work, it is not difficult to find freelance projects. LinkedIn has many start ups posting requirements for interns or developers for a pittance. Never consider your first salary as a benchmark.
Your first job is almost an internship, where you learn and get paid for it. It is on your first job that you actually get into the details of how the industry works. Our education system hardly teaches students practical knowledge. (which is unfortunate, but a discussion for another time)
Once you start working, you realise that what you thought was interesting is not interesting any more and you come face to face with the hard realities of life, with the share of office politics. You may find stuff to do that you didn’t know existed, while you were in college.
7. Move at the right opportunity
2 years into your first job or freelancing would have made you an expert in some skill. That’s the time you should look for a better opportunity. Here’s where the salaries of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 college students get averaged out.
A lot of Tier 1 students start off with a high salary and when they want to shift, companies may not be able to afford the high salary expectations. This is your chance! Ace the interview and you’ll be almost on par with your IIT friend. 😜
Final words
Remember that life is a big leveller. While there are geniuses in the world who get the initial thrust thanks to their colleges, people from lesser known colleges need to work harder to achieve the same goal. Many companies prefer to hire from Tier 2 and Tier 3 colleges, simply because they don’t come with the mental baggage of an IIT or NIT and sky high expectations. If you are sincere and dedicated, nothing can stop you from achieving success.
