Choosing campus placement software: a checklist

What placement software is for

Placement management software, sometimes called a career services platform, replaces the spreadsheets, email threads and messaging groups that placement season usually runs on. It should hold your employers, drives, eligible students, registrations, interview rounds, offers and outcomes in one place, so the numbers at the end of the year come from the same record as the work.

Which system suits you depends on how your office works. Many Indian institutions organise placements around company drives with strict eligibility rules. Other careers offices are built around job postings, advising appointments and events. Many do both. Use the checklist below, and weight each part by how much of your year it takes.

Placement drives and employer relations

• Employer records that keep contacts, past drives, offers and notes across years, so relationships survive staff changes
• Drives with dates, slots, rounds and venues or links, which students can register for in one place
• Round-by-round status: who registered, who was shortlisted, who cleared each round and who received an offer
• A way for employers to post jobs and drives limited to your campus, and to share shortlists without emailing spreadsheets
• Offer tracking that handles multiple offers, acceptances and your placement policy
• Careers fairs and events with registration and check-in on the day

Eligibility rules

Eligibility is where spreadsheets break first. Check that the system can apply your real rules automatically and explain its decisions.

• Rules by programme, branch, graduating year, grade or percentage cut-offs and backlogs, set per drive
• Policy rules such as limits on further applications after a student accepts an offer
• Students can see why they are not eligible for a drive, so your office is not answering the same question all week
• Staff can make exceptions, and each exception is recorded with who made it and why

Student readiness and practice

Placement results depend on how ready students are before employers arrive. Look for tools that reach every student, not only the ones who book an adviser.

• Advising appointments that students can book themselves
• Résumé reviews with comments, and tasks that advisers can set
• Mock interviews for the roles students are applying to, including technical and coding rounds where relevant
• Aptitude practice if your recruiters use aptitude tests
• Readiness that advisers can see, while practice stays private from employers

Outcome and accreditation reporting

Every careers office is asked for numbers: by leadership, by rankings and by accreditation reviews. In India, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) scores graduation outcomes partly on the percentage of graduating students placed or selected for higher studies over the previous three years, and on median salary. Its 2025 framework for colleges asks institutions for company names, the number of students recruited by each, and the minimum, maximum and median salary offered.

Your software should produce those figures without a week of manual work.

• Placement and higher-studies rates by programme, cohort and year
• Salary figures: minimum, maximum and median, overall and by employer
• Employer lists with the number of students each recruited
• Records that can be traced back to the student and the offer, for when a reviewer asks
• Export to CSV or spreadsheet, so you can fill any ranking or accreditation template yourself

Data, privacy and export

• Export of all your data at any time, not only selected reports
• A clear answer on where student data is stored and which providers process it
• Compliance with the law that applies to you: in India the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023; in the UAE the Personal Data Protection Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021), or a free-zone law where relevant
• Students told what employers will see before anything is shared
• Students able to download or delete their own data
• Role-based access for staff, and a log of what staff do
• What happens to your data if you stop using the product

Arabic and English

For careers offices in the UAE and the wider GCC, check that Arabic is part of the product rather than a translated layer. The interface should work right to left, reports should be readable in both languages, students should be able to practise interviews in Arabic as well as English, and names should display correctly in Arabic script.

Questions to ask every vendor

• Can you run last year's placement season end to end with our programmes and rules?
• How do we set eligibility rules for a drive, and how are exceptions recorded?
• Can we export everything today, in a format we can open?
• Where is student data stored, and who can see what?
• Which parts work in Arabic, and which only in English?
• How is it priced: per student, per year or by volume, and what is included?
• How do students sign up and join our campus, and how long does onboarding take?

Where Octrahire fits

Octrahire's university module brings placement drives with employer slots and registrations, a campus-only job board, adviser appointments, résumé reviews and events with check-in, including a kiosk mode for careers fairs, into one place. Students join with their university email and practise AI interviews for free, in English or Arabic, including HR, technical, coding and aptitude rounds. Outcome and accreditation reports show placements, salaries and employers by programme and cohort, and export to CSV.

It is free for students; universities are priced by volume. As with any vendor, ask to see it with your own programmes and last season's data, and check it against the items above that matter most to you.