With final placements at the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) being a very tame affair this year, IITians are planning to approach companies on their own. Though this violates the policy which states that students cannot do so till placements on the campus are over, many students do not want to take chances.
“If the placements do not pick up by January, we are planning to approach the companies on our own,” an anxious student from one of the IITs told Business Standard. Students are also planning to take up higher studies in engineering or pursue a management course to better their job prospects.
“Our problem is not about students taking time to get placed. What we fear is if these companies change their hiring plan by next June and take the offers back,” said an IIT director on condition of anonymity. He added: “The offers must be slightly lower this year but the situation is not that bad. Companies are recruiting, though, in fewer numbers. The IIT directors will be meeting at the end of this month and if the situation does not improve much by then, we will take a call on what to do.”
Placements on the IIT campuses, which began this month, have suffered due to the economic slowdown. The IITs that are into the first four days of their placements have received a lukewarm response from the corporate world. So much so, that few of them are planning to extend the placements till April. The placements for IITs begins in December and will go on till February. But poor response from companies has forced the IITs to extend it.
“While recession was adding to the fear of the placements being a not-so-great affair, the terror attacks on Mumbai has also had an impact on our placements. Companies that were to visit us from Mumbai have either cancelled their plans or postponed them,” said professor P K Jain, placement chairperson at IIT Roorkee.
IIT Roorkee has had only two companies on the campus with only eight offers made so far against 45 offers made on day one last year. At IIT Bombay, the situation is no different. The institute on day one has had only 33 offers so far as compared to 93 offers made last year.
On day two the students had received around 27 offers against 41 last year. IIT Madras says recession has impacted them in terms of number of students being taken by the companies. “There have also been cancellation of visits in some cases,” says the institute. Questionnaires sent to other IITs on December 2 remained unanswered.
Observers are drawing parallels between the current job scenario and situation in the year 2002 that was particularly hard on the software industry, when most of the companies took their offers back. For placements in 2002, companies started approaching the IITs in July/August 2001 (beginning of the semester) but took back their offers around May-June 2002.
“Some companies paid a severance bonus and asked people not to join. Many students opted for further studies at that point. Some of them joined other companies hiring but paying lesser salaries. This is also the time the high-end outsourcing industry became big. So several people ended up joining companies in IP/business research,” explained Rahul Gupta, from 2003 IIT Bombay batch. Gupta now heads a start up called Vakow!
The situation at IITs, however, is starkly different from what the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) witnessed a month ago. Despite the global economic slowdown, students managed to bag diverse offers for their summer internships due in April 2009. However, it remains to be seen how the IIMs fare when it comes to final placements.
