Mumbai: The all-awaited placement season officially kicked off at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, on Thursday, December 1. Over 300 companies are expected to participate in phase one of campus recruitment, which will last for a fortnight. Operating in a hybrid mode, the opening day saw over 250 job offers of which 175 were accepted by students.
“While salary packages have remained largely unchanged, tech giants have either been very selective or have not visited the campus this year,” read the official statement from IIT Bombay.
The 46 interviewing companies started their processes on day 1, certain interviews even went on till 2 am. Even though the companies were evaluating a large number of candidates, only a few were actually being selected, as per students.
It is believed by many that these dwindling recruitments are a sign of the recession, but officials strongly disagree. “Last year, the economy was restarting after the COVID-19 pandemic, and companies were operating online. Recruiters anticipated that they would need more manpower than they actually did. This year they simply don’t. It’s like a sine wave pattern,” said a senior placement official from IIT Bombay.
There was no decline in the number of offers made by IT, Software, FMCG, and Management companies, said placement cell officials. However, students witnessed a stark drop in research and development roles. “The amount of roles has fallen for the research sector but the recruiting companies have increased, we hope that things will even out,” said an MTech student who participated in the placement drive.
The international placement process, which is distributed evenly between days 1 and 2 is yet to be tallied. Companies like Accenture Solutions, Airbus India, Microsoft India, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Qualcomm, Shell India, Texas Instruments, Tata Steel, etc. hired students on day 1.
The IIT also saw 300 pre-placement offers of which 194 were accepted by students. However, many students chose to shun these offers to take their shot at the campus drive. “Last year we witnessed most of our seniors bag lucrative packages during phase 1 of the placement drive. We hoped the same could happen for us, which is many students decided to sit for placements instead of going for the PPOs,” said a BTech student from the aerospace engineering department.
