KOZHIKODE: An annual salary of `27 lakh for a fresh engineering graduate. A dream? A prank? But at times, such dwams can take concrete shapes. Recently, two students from the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, received an attractive offer of `27 lakh and `14 lakh per annum from two multinational companies - ‘DirectI’ and ‘CommVault’, respectively.
Several MNCs are now eying fresh engineering graduates from the state. Depending on institutes, students are being hired for a variety of roles - software development, core management & data scientists, operations and marketing, merchant acquisition and servicing, human resource management and graphic designers etc.
Students who went through several phases of placement interview underscored the toughness of the process. Harishankar K, who is doing his final-year Computer Science at Government Model Engineering College Thrikkakara bagged placement in global hedge fund D E Shaw with a salary package of `16.5 lakh per annum as system administrator at its Hyderabad office. “The interviews were immensely tough. They make sure that the students talent is worth the offer. It took almost two hours to complete my interview,” Harishankar said. Midhun Shankar, founder of career-based startup, Verbicio, pointed out a slow but steady rise in the number of students placed in MNCs with high package.
“The most interesting part is that MNCs want engineering undergraduates rather than a student with higher degree. It may be because these companies are in dire need of fresh talents and thus are offering salary in the range of `10 lakh or more,” said Midhun. Startup Village CEO Pranav Suresh said the competition among MNCs to bag talents would not affect the startup culture.
“Most startups are tech-driven and moving at a rapid pace. Startups with a sound financial base are also offering good pay package. It is a good development that MNCs are offering high package for fresh talents but that will not be a competition for startups,” Pranav said.
However, some students are wary of joining startup companies. “The work atmosphere of MNCs is more complicated than startups. But the risk factor is less. I am not ready to take up such a risk by joining a startup when an MNC has already offered a good package,” said Justin Thomas, who is placed in an MNC with a salary of `16 lakh per annum.
But there is a flip side too. India’s largest e-commerce firm, Flipkart, had deferred the joining date of fresh graduates of Indian Institute of Management for six months, creating apprehension among the students and placement officers.
“Last year, a core engineering company that came up with 30 placement offers withdrew them due to financial crunch.
“There is a rise in companies offering more than `10 lakh per annum and we had 70 per cent placements this academic year. But at times, companies withdraw their offers without prior notice or defer the joining date,” said NIT, Calicut, Placement Officer T K Suresh Babu.
“Sometimes, students are hired to a different position from their subject. This is a disadvantage for freshers,” said MEC associate professor and placement head Rajesh Mohan.