Christmas for students at the the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) may ring in early. The IITs which begin placements tomorrow have seen an impressive response from companies so far allaying fears of a slowdown in the job market.
At the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay for instance, around 300 companies have registered for the placement process so far. Around 35 companies would be on campus tomorrow. Last year 29 companies had participated on day one.
Placements at the IITs will begin on December 1, 2012. First phase of placement will be held between December 1 and 22 while the second phase would begin from January 16, 2013.
Consulting and IT majors including: McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deutsche Bank, Booz & company, Microsoft, Google Inc, Facebook, IBM, LinkedIn, Twitter Inc etc. US-based Blackstone Group and Digital marketing company Rocket Fuel would be visiting the campus for the first time.
"The response from companies has been pretty good. It does not seem like there is a job crunch in the market," said Avijit Chatterjee, professor in charge, placements at IIT-B.
IIT-B would be placing 1600 students this year and nearly 400 students would sit for placements tomorrow informed an placement officer. While the premier engineering institute declined to share salary details, it said it sees anywhere between 10 and 30 per cent increase in pay packages.
Last year, IIT Bombay had bagged the highest job offer from Microsoft for over Rs 52 lakh ($100,000) for a position at the company's head office in Washington. Core-engineering sector ruled the placements last year with many students declining lucrative finance sector jobs for jobs in engineering sector for job security and good pay.
According to IIT Madras, M/s. Samsung Electronics Company Limited has proposed to offer $ 150,000 (Rs 80 lakhs approx.) which will be the highest so far in all these years. At IIT Madras, a host of companies, including luxury car makers Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce and Toshiba Corporation would be among the first timers.
Nearly 100 new companies, including Procter and Gamble, Walmart, Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, MRF Tyres would participate in the placement.
Other companies participating in the placement programme are Boston Consulting Group, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ITC Ltd, Google India, Sony, Shell, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, IBM and Samsung Electronics, it said.
A total of 1,263 students would participate in the first phase of placement from December 1 to 22 while the second phase would begin from January 16, 2013, the release added.
For IIT Guwahati (IIT-G), the placement scenario might be "either same or worse than last year", according to a placement committee member.
"As against a compensation package of $150,000 (about Rs 80 lakh) last year, this year we might expect around $ 130,000 (about Rs 70 lakh). From what we have heard so far, the feedback has neither been positive nor negative from the recruiters. However, the silver lining is Goldman Sachs Strategy Group and Morgan Stanley debuting as fresh recruiters this year at IIT-G," the member said on condition of anonymity.
Last year, while in terms of compensation package, Facebook turned out to be the largest recruiter, Microsoft picked up the maximum number of students at IIT-G.
This year, day one of the final placements process at IIT-G will see about 10 of the total 100 invited companies visiting the campus. Most of the firms visiting on Saturday are from the IT and core sectors even as an entire batch size of 800 students from BTech and MTech programs participate in the process.
Meanwhile, refusing to comment on the scenario and expected compensation package, Kushal Sen, Head, Training and Placement and NPTEL at IIT Delhi (IIT-D) said, "About 25 firms representing almost all the sectors will be participating on the first day of the final placements process from tomorrow. In all, we have invited over 350 firms this year, which is the same as last year."
The total batch size participating in the process at IIT-D is about 1,300.
