IT companies in Maharashtra will soon have an option to campus interviews. The Software

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Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP) is planning a common entrance test (CET) for engineering students. This will also help students of colleges not visited by the companies.

“We will conduct a CET in Maharashtra and shortlist candidates based on their expertise and performance for IT companies to recruit,” Chetan Shah, SEAP president and managing director of Synygy India, told Financial Chronicle.

Shah said SEAP will initially target over 150 engineering colleges in Maharashtra and eventually tie up with all engineering colleges in the state.

SEAP is an association of over 100 IT companies in Pune, including companies like Cognizant, Infosys, KPIT, Nvidia, Redknee, Persistent System, Mindtree, Patni and Wipro.

“The first CET will be conducted for graduating engineers of 2011 batch from Maharashtra,” Abhijit Atre, past president and executive council committee member of SEAP, said.

Sagar Laddha, senior software engineer with Persistent Systems and director, Friends Union for Energising Lives (FUEL), said SEAP will conduct a pilot project with a select few IT firms to test the CET for fourth year engineering students in Pune shortly.

Atre, senior manager, finance, Redknee Technologies, said IT firms have given the green signal to SEAP to carry out the CET. He said talented students from lesser known engineering colleges which were not visited by top notch IT companies would stand to gain thanks to the new platform.

Shah said SEAP had signed a MoU with FUEL, a Pune-based non-profit organisation working with engineering students.