IIT Placement Season 2014-2015: New Trends

IIT placement season 2014-15 flagged off in December 1, 2014. The first phase of IIT campus placements ended by December 31 and the media reported an extremely bright picture of companies and job offers pouring in for IITians. Here are some of the most prominent IIT placement trends for engineering graduates passing out in 2015:

Jobs for 50% IITians (in the 1st phase of Placement Season)

Most of the IITs have been able to find suitable placements for about 50% students of the current batch – in the first phase of the placement season. It means that the placement season this year started off at a good note. In the first 12 days, IIT Bombay received a total of 1,220 job offers – higher than the number of job offers IIT-B students received in first 18 days of placement season last year.

Last year, 263 recruiters had visited IIT Madras in total (include both the phases of campus placements) to place 905 students. This year, 295 recruiters (including domestic and international companies) have visited IIT Madras campus just in the first phase to recruit more than 900 students.

The total batch size of IIT Madras this year is 1,360 students. IIT-BHU has also been able to place over 50% students till now. IIT Varanasi students received 558 job offers with an annual salary package of Rs 12 lakh per annum on an average. 510 of these job offers have already been accepted by students. It expects about 200 more companies to visit its campus in the second phase of placement season. Among the IITs, IIT Kharagpur claims that to have received maximum job offers.

Manufacturing Companies at IITs

This year, IIT campuses have finally been able to introduce more job opportunities for IITians from the manufacturing sector. Picking up the ‘Make in India’ campaign, quite a few IITs invited domestic core engineering companies to their campuses too. 

A number of manufacturing companies like Airbus, General Electric and Qualcomm have participated in IIT placements for the first time this year. In fact, General Electric itself extended 19 job offers to IIT Bombay students.

Startups at IITs

Startups have become more adventurous as a growing number of new ventures (like Ola cabs, Housing.com, Commonfloor, Flipkart, Stayzilla, Snapdeal and Meru Cabs) are participating in the IIT placement season 2014 and are offering lucrative job offers to IITians. As many as 65 startups participated in IIT Madras campus placements and 13% (122 to be exact) of IIT-M students were placed in new businesses in the first phase. 

The advent of startups and new-age e-commerce companies spelt good news for IIT Roorkee. About 110 companies have visited the IIT Roorkee campus this year, more than last year, and 532 placement offers have been extended. Startups and E-comm majors were also among the topmost recruiters this year at many IITs including IIT Bombay.

IT & Consultancy Firms Ruled

Besides the startups that came up with lucrative job offers to lure IITians, the IT giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Facebook were some of the top recruiters at premiere IITs. Flipkart, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Maruti Suzuki, TVS, Tata Motors, Reliance, ICICI Lombard and VISA Inc were other companies to make multiple job offers to IITians. IIT-BHU also saw a significant increase in number of international job offers and placement offers from IT, Consultancy and Analyst firms.

Over-a-Crore Salary Packages

One of the most highlighted placement trends at IITs this year is industry giants offering over-a-crore salary packages to IITians. Such packages, along with other hefty pay packages, actually have a considerable variable pay component too. It means that beside the fixed pay, the pay package counts in Employee Stock Option Schemes (ESOP) and other benefits and one-time joining fee paid to selected IITians. Hence, the in-hand salary IITians will actually receive is significantly below the advertised mark.

 The case in point is Oracle which offered Rs 1.8 crore pay package, which included a base pay of Rs 8 lakh and 4000 ESOP shares. The crore-plus packages have all been offered by IT giants to recruit students for jobs at international locations. These salaries are offered in dollars and are not so high as per US standards but when converted to Indian rupees, they seem huge. 

It is an established trend that pay packages offered to work at international locations is more than jobs at domestic locations, media coverage of such placements has made them big this year. Less than 2-3% of total number of students passing out from IITs has received such offers. It means that if an IIT has about 800 B.Tech students passing out this year, only 1 or 2 of them bag such dream placement offers.

IITian Job Preference Trends

Only 10% of IIT students of the current batch chose to join startups and new generation firms this year. Most IITians declined job offers from new ventures and social organizations. Core engineering jobs have emerged as the top choice by IITians this placement season. Most of these jobs offered fresh graduates a chance to gain diversified learning experience, excellent growth opportunities and freedom to take initiatives.

Entrepreneurship Trends

The risk-takers chose to become entrepreneurs instead. A significant number of IITians either didn’t participate in campus placements or declined offers they received. Growing interest in entrepreneurship means that at least 40 IITians across campuses have chosen to experiment, come up with innovative services and products and chase their own dreams. At IIT Bombay 11 students opted out of campus recruitment process in 2014 (as against only 1 last year). 14 IIT-Kanpur students pulled out of 2014 campus placement process to start their own ventures (as against 5 last year).

At IIT Guwahati too, 6 students (as against 3 last year) have chosen to tread on the path of becoming an entrepreneur. It is believed that the trend of rise in entrepreneurial interests of IITians has been stirred up by IITs by setting up incubation cells and providing a conducing environment to provide guidance and assistance to budding businesses.

IIT Bombay has set up the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), where future technocrats can attend year-long entrepreneurship sessions and participate in relevant competitions. IITs have also changed its policy to allow entrepreneurs to join the campus placement process in two years’ time, if they fail to make their mark in the new business they set up. It reduced the risk pressure on students and makes it easier for them to be more daring.