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Companies and jobs are back with a bang on engineering campuses. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other engineering colleges say they are seeing a surge in the number of companies and job offers. Salary packages have so far increased between 10 per cent and 20 per cent. And, to make the offers more attractive, even stock options are being doled out.
While the older IITs are 50 days away from their final placements, and the newer ones 20 days, they expect the 2014-15 placements to be better than last year.
At other engineering colleges, placements have already begun and students are happy with the offers that have come so far.
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At IIT Guwahati, besides marquee recruiters like Google, Microsoft and Oracle, first-timers Walmart and LinkedIn have confirmed their participation in final placements. Around 35 such confirmations have come, even as registrations are still on. Against 120-130 recruiters last year, IIT Guwahati is expecting 200 firms this year.
"We also hope to see better compensation packages than last year," said an official from the institute who did not wish to be named. The institute hopes a repeat of the Rs 1-crore-plus packages seen last year. In terms of pre-placement offers, IIT Guwahati has so far received 60.
In 2013, Google had made Rs 1.5-crore offers across IITs.
"We are getting a good response from companies. Many new companies have also come forward to participate in placements," said a placement official at IIT Ropar. Compared with six pre-placement offers last year, this institute has already received 10 this time. Fifty companies, including Flipkart, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and eBay, have confirmed their presence. Microsoft had already made a pre-placement offer and confirmed it would be on the campus to offer internships, said the official.
In Mumbai, VJTI has seen Japan's Rakuten recruiting students. The highest offer made by it has been Rs 40 lakh. Another Japanese firm, IBJ Group, has made offers to three students and given them a pay package of Rs 20 lakh each.
"Students wanted to go for dream companies and core companies. We are focusing on that. We will also have mass recruiters on the campus in a few days," said a placement official from VJTI.
The institute has around 500 students to be placed this year. Accenture, IBM, and Infosys are to visit its campus in a few days and make bulk job offers.
Many of the engineering institutes that had placed only around 50-55 per cent of their students last year are hoping to achieve 80-90 per cent placement this year. Some students also opt for higher studies or appear for the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering to join public sector companies. To encourage entrepreneurship, IITs are also leaving the option open for students to come back to campuses and participate in the placement process if their venture does not take off.
