Despite the expected slowdown in the US and European markets, many of the major management and engineering institutions expect almost 100 per cent placement for their students in the present placement season. While the downturn may affect middle-level employees in companies, the fresh recruitments would not be affected, say placement heads of these institutes.
“The placement trend this year looks upbeat with IT majors recruiting more compared to last year in prime institutions. The caution is seen, reflecting the concerns on economic issues in US and Europe,” said S Ganapathy, dean-placement, SRM University, Chennai.
This year, the National Association of Software and Services Companies has allowed its member companies to visit campuses in the pre-final semester itself, unlike in the past two years when they were visiting in the last semester.
This year, TCS, Accenture and Wipro together made a record number of 2,336 offers in the first 15 days of the placement season and the institute expects to place over 3,400 students in 175 companies that have lined up for selections. Last year, over 100 companies recruited 2,400 students.
He added that this year, IT companies were looking for students under different streams to meet their requirement in verticals like mechanical for engineering services, biotechnology for health sciences, among others.
Gurumurthy Kalyanaram, dean, Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, said the global concerns would not have a result on the campus placement in the current year though it might be an issue later. “This year, companies are expected to continue recruitment and we are looking at a 100 per cent placement, leaving out some students who do not opt for campus interviews,” he said.
Even if various economic issues in the developed countries have an impact on the Indian industry, the fresh recruitments would not be the first to get affected by this, he added. This year, more recruitments are expected for the FMCG segment and consumer-oriented industries are recruiting more than financial services or wealth management, he added.
Last year, it placed around 110 out of the 120 b-school students.
VIT University, Vellore, has set a record for attracting 1,820 job offers from TCS in September. Its campus placement season for 2012 batch started by end-July this year and has seen participation of Amazon, eBay, Schneider, Thoughtworks, Honda, Maruti, Tata Motors, Google, Netapp, Vmware, Deloitte, National Instruments, Michelin, McKinsey and Ashok Leyland.
The campus recruitment this year is expected to grow, according to an official from Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli. According to the intitute’s placement report 2011, more students were selected by major ITeS companies and those in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI).
The ITeS companies picked up close to 30 per cent of the students in the 2011 placement process, while the BFSI sector was the next major recruiter with 10 per cent of recruitment.
However, the expected crisis in the developed countries may create an uncertainty among the recruiters, according to N Bala Baskar, director, Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM), Tiruchirapalli. Due to this, the salary levels would also be maintained at levels offered last year in the management segment, he added.
“Around 55 companies participated in the placement process last year and 119 out of 120 students received offer letter from one or more companies. We expect 100 per cent placement this year, too,” he said. The highest salary offered was Rs 11.67 lakh per year and the lowest was Rs 6 lakh a year.
