IIT placements: ISRO, Navy, PSUs steal the show on Day Zero

Beating conventional wisdom, students at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are increasingly preferring profile over package, going by Day Zero placement trends.  
 

The number of government and manufacturing firms making campus recruitments has risen by 10 per cent at IITs, with several engineering students preferring manufacturing and research jobs over those in information technology.
 

“We had pushed for more government and manufacturing companies to visit our campus and the results are encouraging. Students have also shown interest in these profiles,” said a placement source at IIT Kharagpur.

An ISRO official said while the organisation had been visiting IIT campuses over the years, “interest among students is relatively higher this year”. Participation of public sector undertakings (PSUs) and government organisations had waned since 2012-13 after a petition was filed in court against their recruitment process.

The Madras High Court ruling recently allowed these companies to visit IIT campuses for recruitment.

Commenting on students’ interest in diverse profiles, Manu Santhanam, advisor, training and placement, IIT Madras, said, “We have seen a good start to the placement season. The interest from recruiters has been very good, and students are also very enthusiastic about the extensive set of profiles they can apply for.”  
 

Microsoft, Uber and Oracle made one offer each to students at IIT Madras. The Navy made four offers, ISRO six, and ONGC five. Some IITs have been ensuring students are interviewed by PSUs along with marquee infotech and consulting firms. IIT Roorkee has placed at least one government company in each of its slots this year.
 

“From Day Zero we are trying to keep at least one government recruiter in each slot. The target is to provide exposure to students to government jobs. We thought it was not the salary that was the decider but the choice of profile and mindset,” said NP Padhy, professor in charge of placements at IIT Roorkee. Microsoft, Oracle, Goldman Sachs, ONGC, and ISRO are confirmed for participation on day zero at IIT Roorkee.
 

Oracle and Microsoft made the highest international offers of $136,000 (Rs 93 lakh) and $135,000 (Rs 92 lakh), respectively, in the first slot of day zero of final placements at IIT Guwahati. The institute had seen the highest offer of $140,000 last year, made by Oracle again.
 

Goldman Sachs, Whatsapp, Texas Instruments, Directi, Xerox, Amazon and Credit Suisse were expected to make offers on Day Zero at IIT Guwahati, which has seen more than 50 offers being made by marquee firms in the first slot.  The day zero placement process is expected to run until late Thursday night.  The number of firms on Day Zero at the institute was 32 this year. 
 

IIT Kanpur too expects 35 firms to mark their presence on the first day of placements.  Mastercard, Uber, Microsoft, Oracle and Visa made offers on Day Zero that began at 6 am at IIT Kanpur.
 

Start-ups were noticeably low in numbers on Day Zero. In the first placement season after 31 start-ups were blacklisted by the IITs  in August for revoking job offers, IIT Madras is expected to see 74 of these entities participate in the first two weeks of December. This is 24 per cent less than the 98 start-ups that made campus recruitments last year. The institute says this is not a major decline, considering the issues involved. It said most of last year’s companies were coming again. 
 

IIT Madras stated that so far 308 companies had registered for the initial phase of placement and 1,327 students had registered for these opportunities, of which 206 were female. The institute has 71 pre-placement offers in hand.