Flurry of offers at IITs as placement season sets in
2 min read 02 Dec 2019, 07:15 AM ISTEach of the older IITs received between 80 and 120 job offers on day one of the placement seasonMicrosoft, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, and Boston Consulting Group were among the top recruiters in the first session of day one
PremiumThe Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) started their final placement season on Sunday with companies making more offers and also offering higher salaries in the face of an economic slowdown.
Each of the older IITs received between 80 and 120 job offers on day one of the placement season, with information technology (IT) and consulting firms making more offers. At IIT Madras, 20 companies made 102 offers till evening, around 20% more than the previous year.
Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, and Boston Consulting Group were among the top recruiters in the first session of day one. The placement on day one continues till midnight. While Microsoft made 20 offers at IIT Madras, Goldman Sachs made 11 offers and Qualcomm nine. Among other companies, electronics major Samsung and auto makers Jaguar and Bajaj Auto hired from the Chennai campus.
“In this placement season, IIT Madras has exceeded the number of offers achieved in session 1.1 of last year. We expect this positive trend to continue… The maximum number of offers came from the computer science and consulting sectors," said C.S. Shankar Ram, placement advisor and professor at IIT Madras.
At the IITs in Mumbai and Delhi, more than 100 offers each were made. Across older IITs, a handful of students got annual offers of around ₹1 crore, especially for global positions. Professors in charge of placements at different IITs believe that it is not only that there are more offers but also that IIT students will see around 10% jump in average salary this hiring season.
“Around a dozen students across older IITs have received job offers with ₹1 crore-plus annual salary, but IITs will not make this public officially because it impacts the sentiments of a large number of students," said an official at an older IIT requesting anonymity.
“The placement season has started on a positive note with big offers coming from both domestic and international firms. International offers come in dollar terms and we are not converting them to rupees. One thing is for sure. The economic slowdown has not impacted our students in this placement season," said Raja Sekhar G.P., head of placement at IIT Kharagpur. As many as 282 students had bagged pre-placement offers, before the placements started on Sunday, he said.
Sunday’s placement numbers at IITs and Sekhar’s comment comes even as a jobs cut is being reported from across sectors amid an economic slowdown. Several studies in recent months have shown increasing unemployment in the country.
On the first day, 30 firms recruited students of IIT Kharagpur. Overall, 220 firms will offer jobs to students of the institute. IIT Hyderabad bagged nearly 60 offers on day one, while IIT Guwahati students bagged 80 offers. IIT Bombay said 110 offers were made to its students, with Microsoft and Optiver offering around ₹1 crore to some students.
