November 30, 2021 17:00

Job Street looks up as IITs get strong pre-placement offers

Promising indicators for a good placement season

Pre-placement offers (PPO) at IITs across the country have gone up significantly compared to the last three years. However, recruiter interest was highest for the software side of engineering with most openings in Information Technology, R&D and consulting. Most IITs said that the highest package domestically touched ₹64 lakh per annum.

IIT Bombay saw more recruiters from IT, core Engineering, FMCG, Research, Design and Consulting companies. In terms of job profiles in Information Technology, the roles were for AI / ML , Blockchain, Data Sciences, Consulting, and Engineering Research. The FMCG firms were offering roles in the supply chain.

At IIT Guwahati too, the trend was similar with most requests from IT firms. IIT Madras too observed continued participation from the Core Engineering, Information Technology, R&D and Analytics sectors.

“The hiring trend has been on the rise specifically for technical roles with more companies giving PPO offers through internships. Technical profiles of different organisations have increased as compared to last year. Additionally, data science and quant profiles have seen a large number of openings,” IIT Guwahati said in a statement.

Uptick in participation

There have been a record number of recruiters and PPOs across IITs, as the technology sector continues to recover from pandemic blues. For instance, IIT Bombay contacted over 3,000 companies and are expecting over 400 companies to conduct online interviews with about 2,000 registered students. However, ultimately not all companies conduct interviews and off jobs after participating.

“This year (2021), 248 PPOs have been offered and 201 PPOs have been accepted by students. This is a 62 per cent increase in our PPOs,” said BV Ravi Shankar, Training and Placement Officer, Placement Office, IIT Bombay .

Last year, the recruiter count was around 310 companies and in 2019-2020, it was 360 companies. In 2020, due to the pandemic, only 153 PPOs were offered and most were accepted.

Shankar said, “This year we have had a good response compared to the previous pandemic year from domestic companies, but international companies are also participating from their overseas location.”

IIT Madras received 359 PPOs this year, up from 336 in 2020 and 303 in 2019. “We have received a record number of Pre Placement Offers (PPOs) this year, and a good number of companies have registered for Phase 1 placements. These are promising indicators for a good Placement season and we are optimistic that our students would receive job offers that meet their aspirations,” Prof. C.S. Shankar Ram, Advisor (Training & Placement), Indian Institute of Technology Madras told BusinesssLine.

As of November 25, IIT Guwahati got 179 PPOs, a jump from a stagnant 133 in 2020-21 and 2019-2020. Dr. Abhishek Kumar, Head, Centre for Career Development (CCD), IIT Guwahati, said. “We are very excited and geared up for this year’s placement, which will be in completely virtual mode.”

Though the other two institutes declined to comment, IIT Guwahati said that they had received interest from companies including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Sprinklr, JP Morgan and Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bajaj, Uber, Schlumberger, Graviton, Amazon, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Nvidia, among others.

The PPOs help the institutions to reduce their dependence on final placements.