It was only recently that the Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) expressed hopes of a better placement season for the current academic year which ends in 2010.
Now the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), too, are seeing positive signs with a number of IT companies wanting to hire more students this year as compared to last year when placements got severely affected by the global slowdown.
The IITs, however, are not taking any chances this year. They are ensuring high participation in the placement season by inviting more companies and improving facilities. At IITs, final placements start from December and go on till April.The premier institutes are hopeful that their graduates this year can expect a 10-20 per cent salary hike from last year when the average offers saw a 30 per cent drop to around Rs 6 lakh, due to the global recession and hiring freeze announced by information technology (IT) companies.
This year, a number of companies have already drawn up plans to recruit from the top tech schools.A total of 3,031 students from seven IITs were recruited by MNCs through campus selection in 2008, according to figures sourced from the Ministry of Human Resources (MHRD).
However, in 2009, the number had almost halved to stand at 1,606 since the effects of the global slowdown had kicked in. For instance, while in 2008, 593 students were selected from IIT Bombay, this year only 381 students of the institute were selected by MNCs. And while 633 students from IIT Delhi were recruited by MNCs last year, the number fell to 390 this year.
For the graduating batch of 2010, however, things are looking up as pre-placement-offers (PPOs) have already started pouring in at the IITs even before the final placement season begins in December. IIT-Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) so far has received around 15-20 pre-placement-offers (PPOs), according to S Srivastava, placements chairperson of IIT-KGP.For the IIT-KGP batch of 2009 which graduated this year in June, the global slowdown was bad with only around 90 per cent of its 1,200 students getting placed. In 2008, though, there were 1,400 students and all of them were placed. Around 190 companies participated in IIT-KGP placements for the batch of 2009, while last year around 160 companies had turned up.
The highest salary offered to the batch of 2009 remained the same as last year at Rs 22 lakh per annum, while the average salary for students dipped to Rs 6 lakh per annum from Rs 7.44 lakh per annum last year.At IIT-Madras, the institute has so far cornered around 25 PPOs and with two more months to go, the institute is expecting at least 32 PPOs for its batch of 2010, same as last year.
The student placements coordinator at IIT-Madras said: “We are contacting more companies this year. So we are likely to have 10-15 start-up companies as recruiters. Last year we had three-four start-up companies for the placements season. Also, this year we have sent out 800 invitations to companies, of which 100 companies have confirmed participation. Last year, we received 180 companies for the placements season, out of 500 invitations.”The total number of students at IIT Madras this year is around 1,000.
IIT-Roorkee expects its PPOs to touch last year's mark of 35, and has already received 12 PPOs so far, said P Jain, placements chairperson of the institute. “We are inviting 1500 companies this year, up from 1,000 invitations last year. Around 126 companies turned up for placements last year,” said Jain.
