HNLU Raipur’s graduating batch of 2020 has released campus recruitment figures for the 50 students (out of a batch of 150) who took part in the official campus placement activities, which had fortunately managed to hold its first ever Day Zero but was nevertheless partially hit by the impact of Coronavirus pandemic.

Corporate law jobs made up nearly 20 job offers, as at November 2020 when the figures were compiled by the campus recruitment committee (a few additional but unaccounted other jobs might have been added since then).

Out of the highest-paying law firm and corporate recruiters, AZB & Partners Mumbai hired four from HNLU, while ICICI Bank hired two students.

Other law firms that made hires include Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (2), Singh & Associates (4), Tatva Legal (1), PSL Advocates (1) and Aarna Law (1).

Six senior advocates and advocates’ chambers were also listed as placements that the recruitment committee had assisted on.

Outside RCC

Not all accounted-for careers were scored through the committee, with others who were not accounted for in the released figures having also opted for litigation and chambers.

Academia was strongly represented in the batch of 2020, making up 24 of the non-corporate career choices accounted for, with two opting for overseas universities and the rest pursuing further studies in India (see below).

Also outside of the placement process, a total of 10 students were preparing for the UPSC and PSC public service examinations, while 12 were stated to have opted for judicial exam preparation.

Climate change

In 2018, HNLU had placed around 62 out of 150, with the state law department having made up the biggest single recruiter.

But in 2020, recruitments were eventually negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic, explained one campus recruitment committee member.

The committee member said: “Because we were still trying to reach out to recruiters when the pandemic hit and our college was shut down. Had the situation been a little better, we could have gotten some more members placed.”

“Also, since the lockdown, a lot of firms started WFH [work-from-home] and initially, they were themselves struggling with the new normal,” they added. “So it resulted in recruitment taking a hit. And later on, the firms went on hiring freeze.”

Fortunately, alleviating some of this, the 2020 batch was the first HNLU batch ever to conduct a Day Zero of recruitments, said the committee member, which resulted in several job offers.

Day Zero for the 2020 batch had been conducted between 4 April 2019 to 6 April 2019 and had seen AZB, ICICI Bank and Mundkur Bharucha attend.

The campus recruitment committee at HNLU for the 2020-graduating batch included Harsh Bajoria, Soumya, Ankitesh Ojha, Aditi Nandanwar, Ekta Kumari, Arunima Dandwate and Pintu Babu.

Further higher education