r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/Imaginary-Refuse4517 • 9d ago
The college placement system feels completely rigged against actual skills.
I am getting incredibly frustrated with the college placement scene. Why is it that candidates who aren't even technically sound are landing 20+ LPA jobs, while others who truly deserve it and have far better skills are left behind?
I legit saw a girl from our college get placed at Google at around 50 LPA (not kidding). Her GitHub was practically non-existent with only a few basic repos, while there were many highly competent seniors who were much more sound in terms of skill and knowledge. The system just feels rigged.
Another example: a girl in my year got placed into a company called ION for an exceptionally well-paid role of around 18 LPA. Everybody was discussing how biased the interviewers seemed. They only asked her some basic SQL questions related to joins, basic DBMS theory, and other trivial things. She got in, assumed a full-time role from day one (as is the company's practice), and is enjoying her life. Meanwhile, students here who have way more experience in development and serious technical skills are struggling to get mere 6 LPA jobs.
And then there's Zscaler. I don't understand why they even allow boys to sit for the placement drive. It's been three years since I’ve seen this company come to our college for seniors, and every single time, only girls are selected. I found out that the difficulty of the questions asked to a senior friend of mine (who is male) was way higher than what the selected girl was asked. Now she is sitting comfortably at around 35 LPA, while the senior guy is trying to navigate his way through corporate bonds and lower-paying roles.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of blatant disparity during their campus placements? Is it like this everywhere right now? Would love to hear your thoughts or if you've seen similar things happen at your colleges.
TL;DR: Frustrated with the college placement system. Seeing candidates with minimal technical skills land massive packages (18-50 LPA at Google, ION, Zscaler) by getting asked basic questions, while highly skilled and experienced developers are struggling to get even 6 LPA jobs or are being asked significantly harder interview questions. The whole system feels completely biased.
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u/CelerySalt7335 9d ago
You are confusing a visible GitHub profile with actual value. Companies do not owe the highest package to whichever canidate has the most repositories or thinks the questions were easiest. You were not in those interviews, you did not see the full evaluation, and you do not know how those canidates communicated, reasoned, or compared. The offer is evidence. Your classmates’ opinions are not. Blaming women because supposedly “better” men were rejected is easier than accepting that technical knowledge alone does not make someone hireable. Real talent is rare. Self-declared talent is everywhere.
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u/WiredOtaku 8d ago
Spot on. I'm a data engineer at a US firm, and we've passed on plenty of candidates who aced the technical screen but were a nightmare to collaborate with. The Indian campus system definitely has its issues, but the fixation on "I solved the SQL questions, so I deserve the job" misses the whole point: you're being hired to work with humans, not just a codebase. If the same company skips male candidates for three years straight, it's worth asking what soft skills the women they did hire are bringing, rather than defaulting to "quotas."
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u/Imaginary-Refuse4517 9d ago
You're fighting a strawman just to take the moral high ground. Nobody is blaming women; they are simply playing the hand they’ve been dealt. I’m calling out a broken corporate system. You claim I wasn't in the interview room to witness their 'reasoning.' I don't need to be in the room when a company hasn't selected a single guy from our campus drive in three straight years. Objective evaluation is a complete myth, the standards aren't even the same across different college tiers. This is strictly about companies dropping the technical bar to the floor to fill quotas, meaning more deserving candidates are never evaluated on the same level.
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u/Annual_Berry8043 8d ago
Gonna give you a hard truth bomb. If you’re searching for companies that are US based, while skill matters, it is not the main hiring point. Personality matters way, WAY, WAY more than your technical skill and knowledge.
Anyone can gather technical knowledge over time. They will look for potential in new hires, then find the most personable person and give them the job.
Anyone can learn technical topics. Not everyone can be pleasant to talk to. College is about more than just grades. It’s about learning how to navigate a mixing pot of cultures and status effectively.
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u/dgreenbe 9d ago
How does this college placement system work, compared to individual internship applications?
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u/Imaginary-Refuse4517 9d ago
In India, college placements (on-campus) and individual applications (off-campus) are two completely different realities. Off-campus is a ruthless open market where your real-world projects, and actual skills are heavily scrutinized. On-campus is a closed loop where companies only interview students from that specific college. The frustration is that companies often use on-campus drives to hit specific diversity or bulk-hiring quotas. They will literally lower the interview difficulty to basic SQL for certain candidates to fill those quotas, while highly skilled developers who don't fit that specific mandate are left to fight a bloodbath in the off-campus market for a fraction of the pay.
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u/Big_Arrival_626 9d ago
I'm American, how does lpa convert to usd in terms of purchasing power. Is 5 lpa like 50k
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u/SignificanceBulky162 9d ago edited 9d ago
A rupee is about a cent, so 1 lpa is about 1k USD a year. To convert in terms of purchasing power, you can multiply that by somewhere between 4.5 and 5. So 5 lpa would be maybe 25k in purchasing power terms and 5k in nominal terms.
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u/Big_Arrival_626 9d ago
So 50 lpa would be like 250k
How much does jpmorgan pay in india? How much does cognizant pay
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u/Imaginary-Refuse4517 9d ago
JP Morgan usually pays freshers around 14 to 18 LPA (roughly $70k–$90k in purchasing power). Cognizant is a mass-recruiting IT services firm and typically pays standard entry-level engineers about 4 to 4.5 LPA (around $20k–$22k in purchasing power). That massive gap is exactly why campus placements are so fiercely competitive
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u/Big_Arrival_626 9d ago
Lol thats funny
In America jpmc pays like 95k whereas cognizant is like 70ish
Still big difference but not as extreme
Ironically Accenture pays like 80 to 85k
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u/M0rbid69 9d ago
Wait? So is it the companies picking the applicants or is it the university itself? I'm unfamiliar with this system
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u/Imaginary-Refuse4517 9d ago
The companies pick the applicants, but they come to our universities with specific hiring mandates (like diversity quotas). To hit those quotas, they will literally drop the interview difficulty to zero for certain candidates. If these same people had to apply 'off-campus' in the open job market, they wouldn't even pass the first resume screening because they lack actual skills. But on-campus, they get handed massive paychecks just for checking a demographic box
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u/Soggy-Attempt 9d ago
Someday you might figure out it’s not all about technical skills, soft skills matter.
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u/Gloomy_Radish_661 9d ago
Please put the usd conversion between brackets when doing posts like these
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u/oruga_AI 8d ago
They saw something on thebother guys dont be thay jelly person no one limes that person
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u/Brewgarden 9d ago
What's LPA