The placements season at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country is in its last leg and with the shadow of the pandemic lifted to a large extent, faculty members said that while 2022-23 was better than last year in terms of overall students being placed, some of the top tech firms stayed off campuses amid a slowdown in several developed economies. The bright side being more core engineering students are being placed this time in comparison to the past few years.
The campus placements season that begins in phases in the first week of December across the 23 IITs is in its last phase at the moment with most students already being placed, which officially lasts till June 30.
Both at IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay, and IIT-Kanpur, the first generation of IITs, faculty members overseeing the recruitments said that this year has been better than the last three pandemic years with more students from core engineering streams being made offers despite the recession.
According to Prof Sathyan Subbiah, Advisor (Placement), IIT-Madras, a total of 1427 students were placed this season, as compared to 1238 in 2021-22 and 925 in 2020-21. While computer science engineering remained on top, core disciplines including electrical, mechanical, and engineering design, among others saw an increase in overall hiring.
“The core industry is recruiting more proactively despite the recession. IIT Madras start-ups like Agnikul are becoming major recruiters. Also, there is a significant increase in High-Frequency Trading (HFT) firms recruiting from campus. International offers too are showing an increase in trend,” said Prof Subbiah. Though this is the end of the season, still some companies are registered with the institute’s portal and it will roll out the same for possible placements, he added.
Some of the companies that came down on IIT campuses include Wells Fargo, Graviton, Plutus Research, Sprinklr, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Flipkart Internet Pvt Ltd, Zomato, Uber, Accenture Japan Ltd., Navi, Confluent, AQR Capital, Microsoft, Google, American Express, Paytm, Warner Brothers, VE Commercial Vehicles, BEL, Maruti Suzuki, Mercedes Benz, Royal Enfield, Tata Technologies, HCL, Infosys, TCS, L&T, Kotak, Deloitte, Cognizant, Texas Instruments, Bajaj Auto, Qualcomm, Proctor & Gamble, Morgan Stanley, Mckinsey & Company and Cohesity, among others.
Top IT firms such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Salesforce, which used to be the biggest campus recruiters, however, were not seen to have made many offers with some like Microsoft having already made a few Pre-Placement Offers (PPOs). These tech giants started the year laying off a significant number of employees citing over-hiring and financial stress as the major reasons behind the same.
“These firms have largely stayed off campuses this year while PPOs were made by some of them before the season formally kicks off. PPOs are made based on an internship in the final year,” said a senior faculty member at one of the IITs, who didn’t wish to be named.
Placements last December began amid layoffs by major tech firms and fears of a global economic slowdown, with a slight relief being that developing economies like India wouldn’t be affected the same way. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Report titled ‘A rocky recovery 2023’ released this April stated that advanced economies are expected to see an especially pronounced growth slowdown, from 2.7% in 2022 to 1.3% in 2023.
While IIT-Bombay did not share the placement figures, it has already wrapped up the season with its commencement ceremony (being organised in place of convocation). IIT-Bombay’s director Subhasis Chaudhuri said, ‘This year was better than last year with the largest chunk of students being placed from core engineering areas. Their numbers were the highest this time. A major reason for this could be the pandemic being behind us.”
A higher number of students being placed in core engineering is an important trend this year given that computer science and emerging technologies such as AI and robotics, among others have remained the top choices for those entering the IITs over the past few years while takers for core subjects were lesser across engineering colleges in the country.
A student placement officer at the institute, who didn’t wish to be named, said that while overall placement numbers have increased this year, the top tech giants were not hiring as much. “Some of the big firms did make a few PPOs, but they didn’t actively participate in campus hiring this season. Besides, international firms did come for recruitment with the highest package of Rs 3.67 crore being offered by one of them,” the student said.
At IIT-Guwahati, the faculty members said that the number of hires has crossed 1000 for the first time. A total of 1070 students have been placed so far while placements are still ongoing. This figure was 954 in 2021-22 and 734 in 2020-21.
Prof Lalit Pandey, head, centre for career development, IIT-Guwahati, said that the total number of offers is better than last year. “This year about 75% have been placed across departments to date, indicating a good placement scenario for all the disciplines. In general, students from circuital courses including computer science, electrical and electronics, robotics and AI, mathematics and computing, and data science get the highest number of offers,” said Pandey.
The top five recruiters on campus, he said, included Narayana, Oracle, Microsoft, NoBroker, and JIO. The highest offer made this season was Rs 2.40 crore. In 2021-22, it was Rs 2.05 crore.
The second-generation IITs including Jodhpur, Varanasi, and Mandi too said that they have had more students being placed across disciplines with a higher number of offers being made by start-ups.
“For the 2023 passing out batch total of 376 students have got placed including B Tech, M Tech, and MBA courses. Last season 314 students were placed while 134 in 2020-21. Computer science/AI followed by electrical and mechanical engineering streams had the highest offers,” said Anuj Pal Kapoor, assistant professor and chairperson, of Corporate Connect and Campus Placements, School of Management and Entrepreneurship (SME) at the institute.
The highest salary offered to the 2023 passing batch is 53 LPA (lakhs per annum) by a start-up, which was followed by 51 LPA by a world-renowned software firm. Last season it was 46 LPA while in 2020-21 it was 41 LPA, he added.
Faculty members at IIT (BHU) Varanasi said that a total of 1087 students have been across disciplines, as against 1078 last year. The total number of international offers made was 46, much higher than 32 last season. The highest number of international offers were bagged by core disciplines including mechanical, electrical, and civil besides metallurgy, mining, and pharmacy. “This is a shift from past few years when computer science engineering students bagged most of the international offers,” a senior faculty member at the institute said.
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