CHENNAI: The placement season has begun at the IITs and details of the whopper pay packages are out. On the day-1 of placements at IIT Madras, an M.tech passout from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering was offered an international profile by Uber Technologies for a pay package of $1.82 lakh (Rs 1.25 crore), the highest so far this season.
Three top recruiters to the campus, Uber, Microsoft and Oracle, have offered an international job each in the ‘graveyard session’ that kickstarted the season on Wednesday midnight. Sources told Express that Uber Technologies also offered an Indian profile with a pay package of Rs 44 lakh.
Among other international profiles, a B.Tech girl again from the CSE department has nailed $1.36 lakh (Rs 93 lakh) deal from Microsoft. Another M.Tech student also got the same offer from the Microsoft. Similarly, Oracle Corporation finalised $1.25 lakh (Rs 85 lakh) salary deal with two students.
Manu Santhanam, Advisor, Training and Placement, IIT Madras, told the Express that on day 1 around 25 companies have visited the campus and offered 35 job profiles, which translate to nearly 100 job offers. “It’s a healthy number and heartening to see many companies opening increasing job profiles for core engineering and research-based roles.
Our students are excited about these opportunities as many of them prefer technical engineering roles. Secondly, we also see an increase in number of companies registering for placements of students with Master’s degree,” he said. Companies like Microsoft, Samsung R&D, Goldman Sachs, Oracle, VISA and ITC have emerged as big recruiters making over four offers each.
Though the Advisor refrained from commenting on salary profiles, he said there is an increase of 10 per cent in average pay being offered by companies compared to last three years. To a query, he said there seems to be no effect of demonetisation on companies, both domestic and international.
“The student feedback we got so far has been encouraging. Though there was talk of slowdown and dip in market, it has not had any adverse side-effect on our placement season so far,” Santhanam said.
The phase 1 of the placement season would conclude on December 13 with two days break in between on December 4 and December 10. Manu Santhanam said Day 1 has three slots and from Friday, there would be two slots each day till December 5. Later, there would be only one slot per day. “If all the registered companies visit the campus, the number of job offers would easily cross 1,000. Students, who did not get selected, can participate in phase 2 in January,” he said.
Apart from the core companies, key public sector undertakings (PSUs) like Indian Navy, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Coal India, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT) have expressed interest in the productive assets of the IIT Madras. So far, the ISRO has made six offers and the ONGC five. The Indian Navy made four offers prior to the commencement of placement season.
A student placement coordinator told Express that in anticipation of power cuts due to Cyclone Nada, back-up generators have been arranged and local transportation facilities provided for both students and recruiters, which were not available last year. “Last December, we lost almost close to 200 job offers as many companies backed off,” he said.