Placement team members at several old IITs told ET that the number of students who have landed job offers till now is down by between 15 per cent and 30 per cent compared with a year earlier, despite the institutes anticipating, and planning for, a testing placement season.
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For the first time, even some computer science engineering students — the most coveted of the lot — are yet to get placed in over a week, said placement sources at some old IITs. In other years, these students are all lapped up by recruiters within the first couple of days of placements, or three-four days at the most.
The situation is particularly concerning because the old IITs of Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Madras, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati and Varanasi (BHU) set the bar so far as engineering placements in the country are concerned. Hundreds of thousands of students vie for a seat at these prestigious institutes and many look at it as a ticket to a lucrative job. Even during last year’s placements, when the tech slowdown impact started to make its presence felt, IIT students fared better than most.
This year, though, even these IITs are struggling. This is because of several factors including lower intake per recruiter, some companies skipping placements and an overall subdued hiring sentiment, in part driven by the tech slowdown.
“Recruiters who used to hire 8-10 students are now taking 1-2 students each; some are coming to campus but leaving without recruiting,” said an IIT-Kharagpur student.A student at another old IIT said offers were down by 30per cent .Final placements at the old IITs began on December 1.
The slowdown is being felt across multiple sectors, including tech and consulting.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” said a student. “Earlier when there was a rush, everyone used to compete to hire students. Now that there’s a slowdown, others are also questioning whether they need as many students as they had hired in the past.”
Even conversion of pre-placement offers — where job offers are made to students who have interned with a company — has gone down this year. Placement cells say they are continuing to reach out to many more recruiters, to try and ensure placements for as much of the batch as possible.
IIT-Kharagpur has received 1,181 offers as of Day 7 this year, Rajib Maity, chairperson of its career development centre, told ET. Last year, according to an earlier statement by the institute, it had 1,300 offers by the end of Day 5.
“We are expecting more recruiters to come. Some of the big companies that are reluctant to visit are enquiring if they can still come later in the placement process. We have also invited new recruiters due to certain companies dropping out,” said Maity.
IIT-BHU had 850 offers till Friday morning, said professor SK Shrivastava, coordinator, training and placement cell. Last year, it had around 1,000 offers in the first four days.
“Due to weather conditions in Chennai many recruiters could not make it to the campus. We are hoping to cover up as we are trying to reschedule their visit once the weather improves,” said Shrivastava.
“Last year the market conditions were better than this year so we bagged more offers. This year, the offers are down marginally. But we are hoping more recruiters keep coming to make up for the reduced numbers,” a student at IIT-Bombay’s placement cell told ET.