Hiring prospects better for IITs' class of 2025

Hiring sentiment is showing signs of recovery as final placements kick off on December 1 for the Class of 2025 at the old Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), raising hopes for students at the premier tech institutes. This follows one of the toughest placement seasons ever in the institutes' history for the 2024 batch, marked by a global technology sector slowdown and a broader pullback in hiring.

The old IITs include those in Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati and BHU (Varanasi).

While this year has its own set of challenges and global uncertainties, IT/ITeS companies have picked up the pace on campus recruitment, and consequently, overall tech hiring is likely to rise 10-15%, officials at placement cells of the older IITs told ET. Overall offers are also likely to see an increase compared to the 2024 batch, the people said.


Apart from recruiters such as Microsoft, Accenture, Oracle and Google who hire for tech roles, IITs have also invited many first-time recruiters across sectors to hedge their bets in an uncertain market, said the people cited above.

Microsoft, Accenture, Oracle and Google did not respond to ET's email queries.

Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president at the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said campus hiring for IT/ITeS firms is likely to be better this year compared to 2024, but is unlikely to match the 2022 performance.

She expects fresher hiring this year to be a blended model comprising on-campus and off-campus hires as the demand environment is still unclear.

Institute placement cells have been preparing for the placement process, months in advance. They have lined up more recruiters, tapped into alumni networks, and sharpened focus on the pre-placement offer route for jobs. Most of the IITs are more tight-lipped this time on their hiring strategies given the intense competition to place ever-growing batch sizes.

"GenAI startups, etc are growing and we should see more of those. Many of the GCCs (Global Capability Centres) who are doing higher value work will also be looking at hiring from IITs," said Gupta.

IITs are expecting the 2024-25 placement season to surpass last year, both in terms of number of recruiters and job offers.

"Tech hiring seems better this year by around 10-15% overall, probably because of the improving market and partly, because of the hiring gaps that were left last year," said a person at one of the older IIT placement cells. As a result, this particular IIT, like most others, is expecting more offers this year.

Campus hiring at IITs as well at almost all engineering colleges in India nosedived in 2023-24 season, with even most of the older IITs seeing about 30% of their graduates failing to land job offers. "This year will be better. The IT sector is seeing a good pickup," said a placement head at one of the older IITs. He added that many new companies have registered, while legacy software companies like Microsoft, Google, Oracle are also set to join campus hirings.

"On our part, we have invited many more new companies...there will be at least a 20% jump from last time. Core branches, manufacturing, quantitative analysis etc are quite bullish," he said.

Quant trading firms too are upbeat this year, said a placement cell member at an older IIT. Last placement season, many quant firms like Quantbox Research, NK Securities Research, Da Vinci and Graviton Research Capital hired IIT graduates at hefty pay packages.

Startup list across IITs is also quite robust with placement cells expecting increased hiring in this segment.

According to Teamlease Digital, IT fresher hiring is expected to grow by 20-25% this year compared to FY24. Last year, hiring slowed due to global economic uncertainties, but 2024-25 is showing signs of recovery, said Krishna Vij, vice president at TeamLease Digital.