Title: English for placement purposes: understanding target specificities to develop professional competence of engineering students in Tamil Nadu

Authors: Jabbar Al Muzzamil Fareen

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Management, PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, Jabalpur – 482005, Madhya Pradesh, India

Abstract: In the process of on-campus recruitment, the unswerving demands of human resource managers and the skill shortage of engineering students has been a matter of prime concern of both software industry and higher education today in Tamil Nadu. This paper attempts to address those target specificities that they often demand in their prospective employees. The emic and etic perspectives of the human resource management executives (HRM-E) are elicited through undertaking qualitative research method. The findings reflect that the students need to develop adequate English communication skills to interact and discuss with the employers in their placement rounds and job interview. Further, this study informs about the relevant employability skills that can be practiced in their placement training. It can be implied that through analysing target specificities for seeking placement, the academics can take into consideration of those necessary communication skills that can be carried out in English for placement purposes (EPP) courses.

Keywords: employability skills; English for placement purposes; EPP; English for specific purposes; ESP; human resource management executives; HRM-E; on-campus recruitments; outcome-based student centered learning; professional competence; target situation analysis; TSA; target specificity; placement training.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHES.2021.120955

International Journal of Higher Education and Sustainability, 2021 Vol.3 No.4, pp.304 - 316

Received: 01 Jan 2021
Accepted: 22 Apr 2021
Published online: 18 Feb 2022 *

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