IIT Placement trends 2014 – E-commerce, new-age jobs & big packages!
The placement drive at IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) this year started with a bang which left students with enough reasons to be happy and hopeful. Not only was there an increase of 20% in salaries as compared to last year but also, companies like Baker Hughes and Visa Inc are hiring from IITs for the first time this year.
Check out 10 things you should know about IIT placement season this year!
Another major breakthrough of the placement season of 2014 till date includes the highest package offered to a student of IIT BHU – Rs 2.3 crore from Oracle. In terms of the highest number of offers, IIT Bombay is said to have had the best placement season ever with over 660 offers (including pre-placement ones). Also, IITs have launched deferred placement programme for students offering them the option to return for placement if their start-ups fail.
Each year, new trends are observed in the IIT placement season. And the trends noticed this year, can change the face of hiring at these premier institutes along with giving a boost to those sectors which had been lying low and untouched all these years.
Let’s talk about these notable and prominent trends observed this year:
- Remarkable hiring by e-commerce giants: At least one in every nine students graduating from the 2015 batch across IITs is likely to join an e-commerce firm/startup. If reports are to be believed, e-commerce firms/startups will roll out a minimum of 1,000-1,200 offers during the next 3-4 months of placements. Big players like Flipkart, Ola-Cabs, Snapdeal.com and Housing.com alone will make around 670 offers at the IIT campuses. Infact, at IIT-Bombay, around 60-70 companies (almost 20% of the total companies that have signed up so far) fall in the e-commerce/startup bracket.
Factually, these four companies hired only 213 grads last year which implies that there is an increase of 215% this year.
- A Push to manufacturing jobs and firms: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign has found resonance with the IITs. In tune with this, the institutes pushed up manufacturing firms to Day-1 slots during the final placement process. They also are encouraging students to choose companies with manufacturing bases in India.
Earlier, the case was a bit different. Due to low packages offered by manufacturing firms, these companies, most of the time, secured the last spot during IIT placements. But, Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign proved to be a game-changer this year. Also, a significant boost is foreseen to this sector.
3. New age jobs v/s core jobs: The graduating students this year are preferring new-age jobs to core engineering ones. Reportedly, students from the civil, mechanical and electrical branches have gone for jobs in finance, consultancy and software.
According to the data released by the institutes, around one fourth of IIT-Bombay students had offers from engineering and technology firms by the end of the third day. Only 116 were from core engineering profiles of 430 offers made at IIT-Bombay till December 4. The rest were from consulting (96), finance (75), IT/software (112), analytics (54), research & development (55), sales & marketing and others.
One-third of 1,067 students placed through campus process got into engineering and technology firms last year. At IIT-Kharagpur, only 55 students got offers from IT and core sectors, as opposed to consulting (60) and finance (70). New-age firms on the contrary hired in large numbers from across campuses.
The point here is that till the last few years, only a selected group of firms and sectors hired students from the IITs. There also were firms which students targeted to get into. But, the placement drive this year has brought a trend that has a positive chance to lift up the other sectors that had been ignored all these years. And also, the improving scenario has opened gates for a lot of new companies which are now participating in the placement drive at these campuses.
For instance, let’s talk about the manufacturing firms which were amongst the overlooked lot all these years. Like mentioned earlier, due to Modi’s ‘Make In India’ campaign, the manufacturing firms got the Day 1 slot at the placements this year, which also means that a major thrust to this sector can be expected in the days to come. Also, this initiative will help in controlling the brain-drain situation in the country.
Secondly, graduates opting for non IT and new age jobs are an enough indication that engineering graduates now are ready to leave their traditional career pathways and are setting out to try newer prospects, which was not the case earlier. This will also allow students to explore new sectors, jobs, and roles.
