Building the right team is one of the most challenging tasks of running a company. One weak member can cause havoc and leave behind a trail of damages in his wake. Recent studies show that majority of engineering graduates are not employable. This indicates that fresh grads have no idea about what a company expects from them.
Here are some important traits a company is looking for in every fresh graduate applying for an entry-level engineering job-
Cultural fit: No company wants to hire people who are unable to adjust to the culture of the company no matter how great a person is at what he does. You have to be an excellent team player to land the job. If there is a choice between an arrogant 10X coder and an agreeable guy that people love to work with — that isn’t quite as talented yet, most people would choose the latter. You can build these skills by organizing events and volunteering during your engineering studies.
Basic Knowledge needed for the job: An engineering graduate is expected to have a good understanding of basic programming concepts and fluency in at least one programming language. In our case, you’re expected to be fluent in Python programming. Knowledge of any Python frameworks will be a plus and it is even better if you are an open source contributor.
Learning Ability: The technology is evolving at lightning speed and you are falling behind if you can’t learn things fast enough. Your ability to learn technology is vital. At Datahut, we test the learning ability of a candidate by asking him to solve a problem by learning a technology he is not familiar with.
Demonstrable Skills: The final year engineering projects are a big comedy in India. Most students just buy the finished project with a report from some local company and get it over with. Employers know this and they expect the engineering graduates to be different. You have to demonstrate your coding skills. One way is to do this is to build a small application using a programming language you’re familiar with. Having a GitHub account with a small application gives the interviewer more confidence in you.
How can you improve the chances of getting hired?
Invest time to learn technology: You have to invest a significant amount of time learning and practicing the skills you need in order to land an engineering job. With the help of online tutorials, it’s easier than ever to learn new technology and be a step ahead of the crowd.
Here are a bunch of great resources to refer from:
Codecademy: You can learn the basics of programming languages from this website for free.
Edx: Edx has a variety of free courses offered by top universities in the world.
CodeChef: Codechef has a lot of programming Competitions. You can use this platform to fine tune your skills.
Do internships: Doing internships is a great way to land jobs. Companies always prefer people with industry experience. At Datahut we use Internshala to hire interns. Datahut offers from office and remote internships for a limited number of students. Keep following us to know when it is available.
Contributed to open source: Companies value open source contributions a lot. It is very easy to get started using free resources on the internet.
You can help nonprofits by developing technology and make a social impact. Here is a website that is initiated by the united nations – Online volunteering.
Participate in competitions: There are a ton of programming competitions like hackathon and google summer of code. You can participate in those competitions from the comfort of your home.
Here are some other similar websites.
https://www.catchafire.org/
https://www.freecodecamp.com/nonprofits
Find a mentor: There are a surprisingly high number of people who are willing to help you. You can use local developer meetups to find similar minded people and mentors. They can help you learn technology and also introduce you to companies looking to hire engineers.
Use apps like Meetup to find a local developer meetup near you.
Learn Developer tools: There are a ton of free developer tools available to make the life of a programmer efficient. Learn these tools and mention this in your resume. There are many freebies like Github and Postman.
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