NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The placement performance of IITs suffered no impact due to Covid as companies raked in big money in the 2021-22 session. After a lull in the pandemic years, the class of 2022 which was recruited in online or hybrid mode saw crore-plus jobs make a substantial comeback. On the opening day of the season, several IITians entered the crore-plus salary club, as the highest domestic package touched an all-time high of Rs 1.8 crore and international offers crossed the Rs 2-crore mark.
IIT-Bombay has once again moved up in the placement charts to the numero uno position, fetching the highest annual domestic salary. But a surprise institute that has piped others is IIT-Roorkee which bagged the biggest international offer on day one — Rs 2.15 crore ($2,87,550). Top-ranked IIT-Madras’s international package rose to Rs 1.9 crore from that of Rs 45 lakh per annum in 2020-21, while also registering a new high in its domestic package of Rs 1.3 crore. With 231 pre-placement offers, IIT-M is also top of the list among the IITs.
IIT-Guwahati, which broke into the top 50 research institutions in the QS rankings, also clocked a crore-plus domestic and international highest packages, recording its best show so far.
By the close of the placement season, IIT-B had “achieved the highest ever number of students placed with the total number of accepted offers being 1,431 compared to 1,150 last year. The highest number of offers was rolled out by the engineering and technology sector, ascertaining the technical proficiency of IIT Bombay students,” said the placement head of the institute.
Improvement in the economic front has reflected in the placements. According to Sathyan Subbiah, adviser (placements) at IIT-M, “Certain parts of the economy have bounced back which is reflected in the improved placements. Software industry has been doing well. Like the consulting helping the IIT to register a record placement. But for sectors like hard manufacturing where pickup has been slower is also showing growth. With the top technology companies really doing well, the highest-ever internships resulted in record number of PPOs as well with the hot jobs coming from consulting and IT. Even otherwise year-on-year there has been a consistent growth in PPOs.”
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Most IITs recorded their best-ever numbers. In several cases, domestic salaries were comparable with international ones. Colleges which saw dull recruitment seasons worked harder to get more companies to their job fairs, conducted pre-placement talks, and asked companies to conduct extra screening mock tests.
Another reason for the good show could be the companies putting the demands on hold. Abhisek Kumar, head, centre for career development, IIT-Guwahati, said, “One of the reasons for record placements is that for the last two years, companies were putting on hold on the demands and during this period the students got the opportunity to prepare that much more on their skills due to pandemic. The companies were waiting for the right opportunity.”
“We have recorded the highest number of campus placements compared to the previous five years’ placement season. IIT Hyderabad being consistently ranked in top ten NIRF engineering institutes in the country along with several key initiatives like six-month internship, industry oriented MTech thesis project, and several new industry relevant programmes (like smart mobility) could have resulted in the excellent placements,” said Abhinav Kumar, faculty-in-charge (office of career services), IIT Hyderabad.
IITs like Madras and Guwahati, which conducted its entire placement exercise online, has decided to adopt a hybrid model in the future. “IIT-Guwahati is ready for face to face placement, but even post-pandemic many companies are happy with online,” said Kumar, while Subbiah said that instead of returning to the conventional model “we are now planning to move towards a hybrid model”.
