The IITs have seen a flood of incremental offers from e-commerce companies and start-ups flush with funds in the first week of placements, even as traditional sectors such as consulting, finance and core engineering companies continue to recruit in steady numbers.
According to Mohak Mehta, placement coordinator at IIT-Bombay, the institute has placed 100 more students in the first week with around 600 placements this year which has been the fastest ever in the history of the institute.
This year many institutes have actively encouraged their students to take up core engineering jobs. IIT-B, in line with the “Make in India” campaign, has given preference to manufacturing and core engineering companies in the first phase of placements.
Usually, Day One slots are reserved for sectors such as consulting, finance and information technology, which offer higher compensation packages.
“While manufacturing and engineering companies may not pay as much as some of the other sectors, we wanted to encourage a good balance in placements, so this year for the first time General Electric, Qualcomm and Airbus were invited on Day one. Also, not all students are attracted by the pay packages offered and prefer core engineering jobs especially in companies where they have done internships or even produced research papers,” said Mehta. Around 40 per cent of IIT-B students have opted for core engineering jobs.
Shell, Honeywell, Schlumberger, Robert Bosch, GE, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Caterpillar, Nvidia, Intel, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and L&T are some of the core engineering companies that have already visited and given offers at IIT-Madras.
V Babu, Advisor, Training and Placement, IIT-Madras, said, “This year core placements appear to be very promising and we are hoping for an increase in placements in this sector. More core engineering companies are expected to come.”
Also, while the presence of e-commerce and start-ups has been on the rise over the last two years, this is the first time that almost 30 per cent of the overall job offers have come from these companies, said a placement official at IIT-Delhi.
Similarly, at IIT-B, ecommerce companies and start-ups have offered around 20 per cent of overall jobs so far. Ola Cabs founded by the alumni of the institute has offered around 50 jobs or close to 7 per cent of the overall jobs offered.
According to placement officials, the e-commerce companies’ pay package is in the range of ₹8 lakh to ₹24 lakh. Mehta said that that while students were earlier hesitant in joining start-ups, the recent success of e-commerce companies and their flat hierarchal structure have encouraged students to join them.
Babu said that IIT-M has also seen very few declines from students of the offers made by start-ups.