IIT Placements 2016: Six Start-ups blacklisted

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country have blacklisted six startups from the upcoming placement season who went back on their word to hire graduates from these premier engineering institutes. The decision was taken by the placement heads of 16 institutes at an All IIT Placement Committee meeting conducted recently. The names of these start-ups remain undisclosed.

According to Babu Viswanathan, placement advisor at IIT-Madras, these start-ups will not be allowed to recruit graduates from IITs in 2016-17. However, these companies will be allowed to visit campuses next year only after they appear before the placement committee.

He also informed that other start-ups which cited business environment to lower down the salaries that they had initially promised to pay to IIT graduates are also at the risk of being blacklisted if they fail to hire students at the originally promised package. Approximately 5 companies have reduced salaries by 25%. If reports are to be believed, these companies have been granted a week's time to respond. And if they fail to do so, they would end up being blacklisted. 

The start-ups participating in the recruitment drive of these institutes are generally categorized into three types:

• One that delay joining dates
• One that reduces the promised salaries
• One that withdraw their job offers altogether

Thus, the ones which have been blacklisted fall into the third criteria altogether.

The trend of startups hiring from IIT Madras campus has gone up considerably. In 2014-15, around 45 start-ups participated in campus placements at IITs. Around 125 offered rolled out of which 118 were accepted. The numbers, this year, has risen significantly. In 2015-16, around 97 start-ups participated in the recruitment drive and rolled out 285 offers. Out of these, 253 got accepted by graduates.