IIT Pre-Placement Salaries Soar This Year, Bumper Recruitment Season Ahead
Pre-placement offers to students at the Indian Institutes of Technology have scaled a record high th
Pre-placement offers to students at the Indian Institutes of Technology have scaled a record high this year, indicating a bumper recruitment season ahead amid growing inclination among leading employers to hire through the tried-and-tested internship route.
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The number of offers at some IITs has already shot up about a third than that a year ago, officials said, even as companies have more than two weeks left to snap up talent through PPOs from the premier engineering institutes. "We were a little apprehensive earlier about the job market, but seeing the trend in PPOs this year we certainly see positivity in the overall job market," said NP Padhy, professor in-charge of placement at IIT Roorkee. "Companies offer PPOs to deserving candidates to ensure that they do not miss out on talent during final placements," he said.
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It's a win-win situation, he said, since students get into their dream companies without competing in the hectic placement season. The upswing in PPOs is in line with the recent trend in job surveys. As per a 'Salary and Employment Outlook' by Michael Page, for instance India's employment market has remained largely unaffected by the global economic slowdown and 60% of employers plan to increase headcount in 2017.
IIT-BHU in Varanasi has already registered more than 32% jump in the number of PPOs to 94 from 71in the whole of last year. At IIT Roorkee, the number of PPOs has seen a 27% increase to 108 so far, from 85 a year ago. Placement officers and students at other IITs including those in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kharagpur and Guwahati said the institutes are seeing an increase in PPOs, with most of them recording the highest number of offers ever this year.
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IIT Kharagpur has so far received 170 PPOs, close to what it received in the entire last year. The institute is confident of crossing at least 200 this year, officials said. IIT Madras is also within touching distance of last year's final tally of 69, having received 63 PPOs already. Across IITs, there are several companies offering PPOs for the first time. Additionally, many companies are making more offers than in the past.
Accenture Services, American Express India, Vodafone, Visa and Capital One Financial Services are among the nine companies that have visited the IIT Roorkee campus for the first time while Maxlinear, Barclays, IFMR and Wipro Consumer Care are the first-timers for PPOs at IIT Madras, according to training and placement advisor Manu Santhanam.
At IIT Guwahati, which has already crossed last year's overall tally with more than 70 PPOs so far, Arcesium and Innoplexus are the two companies that have made offers for the first time. "Last year, there were no new companies for PPOs," said the IIT Guwahati placement spokesperson. Edgeverve and Nvidia, on the other hand, have made offers to IIT-BHU students for the first time.
More Offers
Institutes are also seeing more offers from some companies. Adobe, for instance, has made the highest number of offers at IIT Kanpur this year, nearly a threefold jump to 20 so far this year from seven last time round. At IIT Roorkee, too, it leads the list of companies, with 13 offers so far.
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IIT Kharagpur has seen 38 companies offering 170 PPOs so far compared to 175 PPOs offered by 59 companies in the entire placement season last year. "We are seeing more offers being made this year through PPOs," said an IIT Delhi placement officer, without disclosing the numbers. A member of IIT Bombay's placement cell didn't share the figures either, but said, "The major sectors giving PPOs are the software, FMCG, finance and core firms."
Parag Pande, Accenture's human resource lead for India said that this year the company is extending PPOs to hire specialised skills for its digital business.
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"Internships are an opportunity for hiring organisations as well as potential employees to test waters, and make an informed decision while making a long-term commitment," he said. PPOs form an integral part of Accenture's recruitment strategy, he said. As did Vishpala Reddy, head of human resources at American Express.
"Campus is an important channel of our talent strategy which helps us engage and experience this group of bright talent and effectively build our talent pipeline," Reddy said. "We have experienced great success with our internship programs at the IITs, where we hire for key skills across many of our lines of business, with our 'Nurture' internship programme focusing exclusively on the top IIT JEE (joint entrance examination) rankers," she said.