Kalpana Pathak and Vinay Umarji in Mumbai
Christmas for students at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) may ring in early. The IITs, which begin placements tomorrow, have seen an impressive response from companies so far, allaying fears of a slowdown in the job market.
At the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, for instance, 300 companies have so far registered for the placement process. Around 35 companies would be on the campus tomorrow. Last year, 29 companies had participated on Day 1.
The first phase of placement will be held between December 1 and 22, while the second phase would begin from January 16.
Consulting and information technology (IT) majors include McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deutsche Bank, Booz & Company, Microsoft, Google Inc, Facebook, IBM, LinkedIn, Twitter Inc, etc. US-based Blackstone Group and Digital marketing company Rocket Fuel would visit the campus for the first time.
"The response from companies has been pretty good. It does not seem like there is a job crunch in the market," said Avijit Chatterjee, professor-in-charge, placements, at IIT-Bombay.
IIT-Bombay would be placing 1,600 students this year, and 400 students would sit for placements tomorrow, informed a placement officer. While the institute declined to share salary details, it said there seemed to be a between 10 and 30 per cent increase in pay packages over last year's.
Last year, IIT- Bombay had bagged the highest job offer from Microsoft for over Rs 52 lakh ($100,000) for a position at the company's head office in Washington. Core-engineering sector ruled the placements last year with many students declining lucrative finance sector jobs for a career in the engineering sector for job security and good pay.
According to IIT-Madras, Samsung Electronics Company Limited has proposed to offer $ 150,000 (Rs 80 lakh approx), which will be the highest so far. At IIT-Madras, a host of companies, including luxury car makers Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce and Toshiba Corporation would be among the first timers.
Nearly 100 new companies, including Procter and Gamble, Walmart, Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, MRF Tyres, etc, would participate in the placement.
Other companies participating in the placement programme are Boston Consulting Group, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ITC Ltd, Google India, Sony, Shell, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, IBM and Samsung Electronics, it said.
About 1,263 students would participate in the first phase of placement from December 1 to December 22, while the second phase would begin from January 16, 2013, a release added.
For IIT-Guwahati (IIT-G), the placement scenario might be "either same or worse than last year", according to a placement committee member.
"As against a compensation package of $150,000 (Rs 80 lakh approx) last year, this year we might expect around $ 130,000 (Rs 70 lakh approx). From what we have heard so far, the feedback from recruiters has neither been positive nor negative. However, the silver lining is Goldman Sachs Strategy Group and Morgan Stanley are debuting as fresh recruiters this year at IIT-G," the placement committee member said on condition of anonymity.
Last year, while in terms of compensation package, Facebook turned out to be the largest recruiter, Microsoft picked up the maximum number of students at IIT-G.
This year, Day one of the final placement process at IIT-G will see about 10 of the total 100 invited companies visiting the campus. Most of the firms visiting on Saturday are from IT and core sectors even as an entire batch size of 800 students from BTech and MTech programmes participating in the process.
Meanwhile, refusing to comment on the scenario and expected compensation package, Kushal Sen, head, training and placement and National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) at IIT-Delhi (IIT-D), said, "About 25 firms representing almost all the sectors will be participating on the first day of the final placement process from tomorrow. We have invited over 350 firms this year, which is the same as that of last year."
The total batch size participating in the process at IIT-D is about 1,300.
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