Campuses see jump in dream, super-dream job offers in post-pandemic hiring

Overall annual average salary packages have nearly doubled at some of the campuses

Contrary to popular expectations of a tough year, placements at campuses have begun with a bang, as dream and super-dream job offers rise substantially and companies rush to hire engineers.

As against a normal year in which these campuses take some months to achieve such numbers, this year the number of offers have seen a spike as companies look to attract talent for growing digital needs and businesses amid the second wave of the pandemic still tapering.

"The rush for companies to hire engineers has gone up substantially. The number of companies that have come to the campus this year is almost up by 100 per cent. So far, almost 166 companies have made offers for our students. We have also noticed that students who were doing internships at companies have also been accepted by them. We expect this rush to hire more technical skills only rising for the next few years," said Dr V Samuel Rajkumar, Director, Career Development Centre, VIT. He added that more than 25 students have taken more than Rs 25 lakh per annum offers this year, which is the highest since inception.

Moreover, while recruiters offer a mix of jobs including some dream and super-dream offers at a certain higher salary threshold and additional benefits that vary from campus to campus, this year's share of dream and super-dream job offers from recruiters has spiked. As a result, overall annual average salary packages have also nearly doubled at some of the campuses.

For instance, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) has seen a rush of companies wanting to hire in the super dream and dream offer. Usually product tech, financial consulting and consulting firms hire about five  students in each category but for the batch of 2022 the numbers have gone up significantly.

Microsoft, for instance, which hired around 7-8 students last time, has hired 21 students in the super dream segment from VIT. Similarly, Societe Generale Group hired 75 students in the super dream category. Highest salary was given by startup Dyte that offered two students jobs with a CTC of Rs 75 lakh each. This also included esops.

Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (VNIT), which defines dream and super dream job offers as those above Rs 8-10 lakh and Rs 30 lakh respectively, has also seen a huge jump in recruiters, especially from the IT, consulting and data analytics domain, offering the same.

Oracle, which had hired 5-7 from VNIT last year in the pandemic, has this year made 25, most of which are dream job offers. In fact, as against a total of around 550 students placed in the whole of last year, VNIT has already placed 250 amid a four times jump in dream job offers.

"The number of non-dream offers is, in fact, less than the dream and super dream this year. This jump in such dream offers, above Rs 10 lakh, Rs 20 lakh and Rs 30 lakh, has come on the back of increased requirement of computer science, software development, AI, data analysis and other digitisation skills across sectors like IT, e-commerce and finance," said Kishor Bhurchandi, associate dean, training and placements, VNIT Nagpur.

Also, according to Bhurchandi, recruiters are taking pre-emptive steps to arrest future attrition that may arise with the job market opening in a post-Covid world by making an increased number of dream and super dream job offers.

While the training and placement office could not be reached for a comment, sources indicate that National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela too has seen a double-digit rise in such dream and super-dream job offers.

Despite the pandemic, three students were offered annual pay packages of Rs 45 lakh, the highest so far, while nine were offered Rs 43 lakh per annum. According to a statement by Umesh C Pati, Head of Training & Placement Centre, NIT Rourkela on placements, the campus saw 84 companies offering 253 students more than Rs 10 lakh per annum, resulting in an over four per cent rise in average CTC to Rs 9.36 lakh per annum.

Similarly, at VNIT, the average annual CTC has doubled from Rs 6.8 lakh last year to Rs 13 lakh so far.