sortiwa
[ad_1]
As the first round of final placements closed at IITs, on December 15, it emerged that despite a subdued job market overall, campus recruitment at some of India’s top technology schools — IITs and NITs — have been no less than stellar. Companies came to these campuses with more job offers and better pay packets. This year, most IITs including Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, have placed over 65-70% of students registered for placements in the first phase itself. For instance, for the first time, IIT Kharagpur received 1000 job offers in a record 5 days. It was the fastest 1000 to date. Till now, the institute has seen over 80% of its BTech and dual degree students placed. IIT Madras had 848 students placed at the end of Phase 1 including PPOs and 34 international offers. As many as 22 companies made more than 10 offers each, with Micron Technology India (31), Intel (20) and Microsoft India (19) emerging the top recruiters. At IIT Roorkee, 65% of students were placed within the first 11 days of placements, which was a new record. 72863936
What explains the record numbers and a bumper placement season at a time the economy has decisively slowed down?The completion of the first round of placements at top tech schools coincided with a contraction in the industrial production for the third month in a row. The index of industrial production shrank 3.8% in October, the data released by the statistics office showed. Last two quarters have also seen certain sectors struggling, especially auto and BFSI. As a consequence, sectors such as auto, BFSI and IT services have seen layoffs. The Experis IT Employment Outlook survey released at the beginning of this quarter revealed that Indian employers have cut down hiring intentions for October 2019-March 2020 by nearly 6 percentage points, compared to that in the last six months However, even in a tough job market, when hiring numbers per company come down, organisations want to fill those openings with top talent. That is why the older IITs never lose out. S Venkatesh, president of group-HR at RPG Enterprises had told ET in an earlier interaction that no matter what the circumstances, big groups/companies want to go to the top institutes. That’s why competition there is always intense.Top IITs have always bagged the best offers across all engineering institutes, a reflection of not just the brand name but also the intense competition students go through to make it in. Whether it’s the big-ticket foreign offers from the likes of Google, Facebook and Oracle earlier, which are now being given at the institutes by Microsoft and Uber; the salary offers which keep going up year-on-year and the growing number of pre-placement offers; the institutes have taken all vagaries of the economy in their stride.“Despite the gloom and doom, private companies are going ahead with their plans, even if they have pared the numbers in some cases. However, at IITs, there is always a demand for hiring, because even those who have cut down will try to hire from us. There is still a competition for slots and we invited more companies as well,” IIT Kharagpur, CDC Chairman, G P Raja Sekhar told ET. The focus on the engineering talent has always been there and this has not come down in the slowdown as companies are increasingly looking at innovating their processes and solutions for differentiation, S. Dharmaraja, Head, Office of Career Services, IIT Delhi told ET. The Experis IT Employment Outlook Survey showed that despite a fall in hiring intentions, companies intend to hire mostly freshers with up to 5 years experience. There is also significant demand for talent with new skill sets, especially in AI and Big Data. Software product development and application maintenance services are among the areas that will lead demand, said the survey. Popular recruiter DE Shaw hires for roles such as software developers and quant developers from IITs. Samsung, which is hiring more than 1200 from India’s leading engineering colleges’ Class of 2020, is also recruiting for roles in future technology including AI, machine learning, deep learning, cloud, IoT, data analysis, mobile networks, imaging and voice. Honeywell, which hired for roles in both India and the US, is focused on developing next-gen connected IIoT software and predictive analytics products.Also, many companies grabbed the campus talent even before the final placements by offering the pre-placement offers (PPOs). This year has seen an upsurge in the PPOs too in comparison to last year. Companies are lining up for tech talent to automate their solutions and processes as well as work on new technologies like AI, robotics, big data, etc. Based on the first phase of the placements, institutes are optimistic about the second phase set to begin in January. “The focus, then, will be to place the Master’s students which is our biggest challenge. Most of these students look for a career in core sectors but at traditional core companies, the profiles they hire for have become dynamic. They keep changing year on year. As a result, we have invited more PSUs, more core sector companies,” said IIT Kharagpur, CDC Chairman, G P Raja Sekhar. IIT Madras said it is focusing on the education sector for the second phase of placements.“The companies that come for the second phase are those who have restrictions on joining period. These companies come in January and even at times in February so that the joining period is shorter,” S. Dharmaraja, Head, Office of Career Services, IIT Delhi told ET.This IIT wrapped up the first phase on December 13 wherein the institute received more offers than it had anticipated. Placing the students in the second phase gets tough as the number of recruiters drops sharply.Each of the old IITs has about 30-40% of students to place in the second phase that begins in January onwards and goes up to June. “The recruiter visit shrinks to almost one or two recruiters per week,” said a placement source at IIT Bombay. With the cream talent picked up in the early days of December, companies lose interest and only come in case they have urgent demand. “Or else they wait out till next season,” said the same person. 72863940
[ad_2]
Source link
