Pre-placement offers roll in steadily at IITs

KOLKATA: Pre-placement offers (PPOs), including plum international postings, are rolling in steadily at the country’s premier technological institutes, indicating a good placement season in December.

Among the companies who have lined up international offers are Google, which has offered salaries of $120,000 (Rs 75 lakh) compared with Rs 73 lakh last year to one student at its US headquarters to students at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Guwahati. Facebook, too, has offered overseas jobs at IIT Madras and IIT Roorkee while Microsoft has made oofers at IIT Kanpur and IIT Roorkee. Both the companies are expected to revise last year’s offer upwards— Facebook’s Rs 65 lakh and Microsoft’s Rs 60 lakh.

Himanshu Srivastava (22) of IIT Kharagpur, who has received the offer from Google, is looking forward to his stint with Google. “I have done two internships for the company and I know their work culture. They mix work and fun well and give ample scope to grow,” he says.

Several other top recruiters have made lucrative offers at IIT campuses, but are yet to disclose the details. Among these are Barclays, LinkedIn, Goldman Sachs Technology, Daikin, Qualcomm, Deutsche Bank, Shell, GE, Directi, Reliance and ITC. PPOs, which typically start coming in from August, are jobs offered to students who have done internships in these companies.

In terms of the number of hires too, the picture looks good so far. With 75 PPOs till date, IIT Bombay is inching closer to last year’s number of 77.

IIT Kharagpur too looks set to close at last year’s level of 130, with 104 PPOs received till date. IIT Madras, on the other hand, has crossed last year’s count of 33 PPOs with 54 PPOs till date this year.

IIT Guwahati has received 40 PPOs almost touching last year’s total of 42. IIT Kanpur, too expects to end the season with 20% more offers compared with last year, with 62 PPOs already in. Last year’s total count was 80. IIT Roorkee has received 37 offers till date, topping last year’s 35. “The huge inflow of PPOs suggests a change in the recruitment pattern. Companies want to take the internship route to reach their decision on final placements,” says Avijit Chatterjee, professorin-charge, placement, IIT-B. He says recruiters are now doing more to hire the right candidate, as during internships, they can get to know the student better.

The total number of internships at his institute went up by 40% this year to 900, compared with last year. Another reason for the steady inflow of PPOs could be that the process of placing interns has been formalised. At IIT-B, for instance, the placement office is taking care of internships along with placements.

“The pay package has seen an increase for almost all the companies as compared to last year,” says Natesan Srinivasan, faculty-in-charge, placement, IIT Guwahati.