“Our minimum annual compensation threshold was ₹12 lakh, but last month we reduced it to ₹9 lakh. This has helped us get more companies to the campus,” said the placement head of a third-generation Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) who did not want to be named. The IIT so far has seen a highest offer of ₹48 lakh offered to its students, but a big chunk of the batch remains without a job. “Earlier, we used to interact with human resources teams directly and understand where the demand is from, but now many of the profiles have become automated, and our visibility on roles has reduced,” said the placement head.

The country’s top engineering colleges include the IITs and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs). The IITs are divided into three generations. For instance, IIT-Madras, Delhi, Bombay and Kharagpur are considered to be the first generation of IITs, while some like those Patna, Ropar, Gandhinagar and Hyderabad belong to the second generation and IIT-Bhilai, Jammu, Dharwad and Palakkad, among others, fall into the third generation. The older IITs start their placements on 1 December, while the rest have already started.

The macroeconomic sluggishness and tight budgets across sectors are pushing companies to reduce their student intake, and this domino impact is being felt across campuses. “This year is not good so far. About 30-40 students out of 130 have been placed so far, and the minimum offer has been ₹6 lakh. We are using LinkedIn premium accounts to reach out to companies,” said a placement executive at NIT-Nagaland.

While the highest salaries in some of the IITs may cross the ₹1 crore mark, the rest of the batch will face hurdles in getting a company of their choice. Wipro and Infosys, which together hired 208,000 engineering graduates in the past three years, have said they don’t plan to go to the campuses this year. Typically, information technology services firms recruit at ₹3.5-4 lakh, but they offer ₹9-10 lakh for more skilled profiles. The hiring freeze in many startups will also dampen the placement season for many colleges this year.

In Bengaluru’s RV College of Engineering, students who get an offer below ₹8 lakh are allowed to sit for another company offering a higher salary. If the latter works out, then the student can opt for it. “We are going through journals on science and technology. There is a list of companies mentioned with whom we are getting in touch, “said D. Ranganath, dean of placements for RV College. The college has about 1,200 students to place from the batch of 2024 and hopes to get 250 companies by the end of the placement season.

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Updated: 09 Nov 2023, 11:53 PM IST