The Placement Predicament

Recruiters, including startups and large corporations, are looking beyond engineering degrees and basic qualifications and questioning students about general aptitude and behavioural traits during campus placements.

IITs will see a host of AI and high-frequency trading firms and the regular consultants and manufacturing companies recruit students with skills in cognitive science, data scientists, quantitative strategists and developers.

For startups, this marks a U-turn from the last two years when the industry contracted out its hiring to cut costs. That also contrasts with the overall sentiment as colleges expect the placement season to be slow.

The demand for IIT graduates as teachers comes at a time when lakhs of students attempt to bag the 17,760 seats available at the 23 IITs.

With the AI excitement sweeping over the technology landscape, interest in conventional roles such as product manager and regular engineers appears to have ebbed

The startups that have gone to management colleges are competing with more established companies, dangling heftier compensation packages and niche profilesStartups are offering between ₹15 lakh and ₹35 lakh, on average, to management trainees.

Last year, some of the recruiters included Google India, Apple, Microsoft India, Procter and Gamble, Sony Japan, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Tata group, Ola and Reliance Industries

The premier engineering colleges are concerned about a repeat of potential delays in onboarding of students selected at this year's campus placements