more-in Harsha S.U., a BBA student at Airwing Academy, had reached Government College for Women here on Saturday for Niyukthi, a job fair organised by the National Employment Service Department, after seeing a notice on the academy notice board. Though she has six months left to complete the course, Harsha and a friend registered for the fair on the spot and perused a list of employers and required qualifications to see if they fit the bill. This was their first experience of such a fair, and they certainly were not expecting such a crowd. Hundreds of people had turned up for Niyukthi, the only mega job fair organised in the government sector. The mega job fairs are held every year through employment exchanges. This was the third fair to be held this year after those in Ernakulam and Kozhikode to provide educated people job opportunities in the private sector. Mayor V.K. Prasanth inaugurated the fair. Deputy Mayor Rakhi Ravikumar delivered the keynote address. M.A. George Francis, Joint Director of Employment, presided. Over 100-odd employers had registered for the fair. There were as many as 8,000 vacancies, with a majority of the jobseekers being those with qualifications such as SSLC, graduation and postgraduation. Every candidate could meet with three employers. Sanju C.U. who works as a freelancer in the media field, had worked in the loan section of a bank. This experience stood him in good stead at the fair, where he was shortlisted by the first employer he met with. He was not worried about the large number of candidates, and was confident that if one was competent, one would be able to land a job. At the fair, the candidates who had prior registration were assigned specific times when they needed to appear for easier crowd management. Spot registration was also done, though priority was given to those who had registered earlier. Nandini B.S., an instrumentation engineer, who is undergoing bank test coaching, said she had found a few listings for web designing jobs but would continue to look for something that suited her skill sets. No money charged Mr. Francis said the department was acting as link between employers and jobseekers without charging any money from either. The department would not only get a picture of direct placements through the fair, but also how many of those given offer letters at the fair finally got placements. This would take a couple of weeks though. At the end of the day, 1,439 people secured jobs in various private companies, and 3,460 were shortlisted.

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