Case study: a college placement rate falling two years running
You are presenting to the head of the placement cell, who has heard several confident plans already.
An intermediate-level session of about 10 minutes. You present a decision and take 3 rounds of questions on it.
Recruiters visiting less, students not clearing later rounds, the wrong companies invited, preparation starting too late — four plausible causes, and you have to choose between them out loud on limited information. The head of the placement cell has heard fluent plans before, so a diagnosis that covers every possibility reads as avoidance rather than thoroughness. Say which cause you think is doing most of the damage and what evidence would change your mind, then make the recommendation small enough for someone to start it next week. Expect the question about what actually changes on Monday morning; a vague answer to that one ends the conversation.
Angles worth taking
- Ask for the two or three numbers you would want first — offers per company, the stage students drop out at.
- Pick one cause as primary and say so; a diagnosis that lists everything is heard as no diagnosis at all.
- Separate what the placement cell controls from what the hiring market does, and spend the recommendation on the first.
- Describe the opening week concretely: who gets called, what gets scheduled, what students are told and when.
- If the pushback contains something you did not know, take it in and say how it changes your answer.
Who is in the room
You play
A candidate presenting a recommendation
You speak with
The head of a placement cell who has heard confident plans before and asks what would actually change on Monday
Ready to speak?
Free to start. You need a TalkDrill account to speak — reading this page does not.
Browse all roleplay scenariosThe format
The situation
Placements have fallen from 82% to 61% over two years. Intake, fees and faculty are unchanged. Recruiters say shortlist quality has dropped. Students say the same companies keep returning. Two of the three largest recruiters cut their intake nationally last year.
What you must decide
What the placement cell changes first, and how you would know in one term.
Rounds of questioning
3
Modes
Learn (guided) · Mock (exam-real)
How a roleplay session works
Read your brief
Your role, the situation, and what a good outcome looks like. The counterpart has their own brief, and you do not get to read it.
Open the conversation
You speak first in most scenarios. How you open sets what you can ask for later, which is most of the exercise.
Handle the turn
Somewhere in the middle it stops going your way — a refusal, a counter-offer, a rebuttal you did not prepare for. That moment is the scenario.
Read the report
Outcome, the phrases you used and the ones you missed, fluency and clarity, and the specific line worth rewriting.
What you're scored on
Across every roleplay, the report looks at the same four things — because they are what makes a real conversation work or fail.
Diagnose before you prescribe, and make the recommendation specific enough to act on next week.
Task outcome
Whether you got what the brief asked for: the refund, the extension, the concession, the point conceded.
Appropriacy
Whether the register fits. A complaint that is too soft gets nothing; the same complaint too hard gets a manager and no refund.
Recovery
What you do with the unexpected turn — repair, rephrase, push back, or stall. This is where most of the marks move.
Delivery
Fluency, pronunciation and pace, judged in conversation rather than in a prepared monologue.
More roleplay scenarios
All roleplay scenarios · Case Study scenarios · All speaking practice