IIT Placements 2024 Decline: The first session of IIT’s placement concluded in December. But unlike the past years, the IITs have gone completely discreet with sharing the first phase data. What led to the secrecy in placement data this year?

Some students and experts believe it is because the IITs have seen a slower hiring market this year. Sources within the IITs reveal that the first phase of the placement session has not been up to the mark, and now IITs are gearing up for the second session with the hope that more companies will pitch in with a higher number of vacancies.

“In all these years, the placement used to get over within 15 days. However, the response from a few companies was not encouraging enough this time. In our institute, it was over on December 20. In comparison to last year, we have witnessed fewer offers from some of the top companies. But we are hopeful for the next phase that will start in January,” said a professor from a top IIT on condition of anonymity.

IIT placements are held in two phases – the first phase in December and the second phase between January and June.

This year, the decline has been evident in the number of placed students.

The IIT Delhi claims students have received 1,050 job offers, including pre-placement offers (PPOs) in the first phase of the placement season. Out of these, around 1,000 students were uniquely selected in the first phase.

However, this is a decline from the last year’s over 1,300 job offers, in which over 1,150 students were uniquely selected in the first phase of placement. While last year, the institute reported a 10 per cent increase in the number of unique selections and PPOs, the institute failed to achieve that this year.

However, IIT faculty members believe it is because of the domino effect of the Covid pandemic, and “not because companies have lost trust in IITs,” Lakshmi Narayan Ramasubramanian, an assistant professor at IIT Delhi told indianexpress.ccom.

The progress has been slow throughout the IITs, especially in the newer IITs.

Data accessed by indianexpress.com shows that IIT Tirupati was able to get placements for only 83 students in the first session of the placement season, with the CTC ranging from Rs 6.5 lakh per annum to Rs 41.68 lakh per annum. Some of the bigger names have either skipped the process this year or hired less than five students from the third generation IITs this year. This is in tune with the trend seen last year when the highest salary took a hit and fell down to Rs 46 lakh per annum in 2023 from Rs 69 lakh per annum in 2022.

This year, IIT Madras has placed so far about 50 per cent of the students, and the median salary of all the offers made by companies in phase 1 was over Rs 19 lakh.

However, as per the previously released data, the average salary received by IIT Madras students during campus placements for 2021-22 was Rs 21.48 lakh per annum with the highest salary offered being Rs 2 crore.

Last year, with a total of 1,199 job offers received from 380 companies during phases I and II of campus placements, IIT Madras recorded the highest-ever number of job offers in an academic year. But the institute has shied away from sharing the exact figures of placed students, total offers and number of participating companies like every year.

Similarly, in IIT Kanpur, 989 offers were reported at the end of phase 1 of 2023-24 placement season, which is a decline from last year’s 1,128 job offers, of which 208 were pre-placement offers (PPOs). The number of international offers also decreased from 74 in 2022 to 22 in this session.

Former IIT Delhi director and VC of BITS Pilani, V Ramgopal Rao, told indianexpress.com that according to him, there has been an overall 20-30 per cent decline in the placement statistics this year due to the global economic slowdown.

“A lot of hiring took place during the Covid, and they are all going a little bit slow this time. They think there might be a recession and some slowdown in the economy. So right now, it is anywhere from 20 to 30 per cent lower compared to last year. But I am confident things will pick up because the Indian economy is doing very well and there is no problem with it,” he said.

Some students have also alleged that IITs are inflating the placement data to either save face or to ensure students don’t lose morale for the remaining placement season.

“The number shown on the websites or given to the media are inflated this time. It happened last year too. There has been a decline in the number of companies visiting IITs this time and the ones that are visiting have fewer vacancies. This is surely an effect of the incoming global economic slowdown,” a third generation IIT student said on condition of anonymity.

After announcing that over 85 students have been offered salary packages higher than Rs 1 crore, IIT Bombay retracted the data and corrected it to 22 offers over Rs 1 crore.

This correction, as per sources, has happened after other IITs raised concern about the numbers in the recent All IITs Placement Committee meeting.

“Such incorrect information is creating issues and unnecessary competition among other IITs. Moreover, these hyped/skewed salary data further add pressure on students,” said a faculty member from an old IIT on condition of anonymity adding that no IIT has achieved such numbers this time.

Lakshmi Narayan Ramasubramanian also added that some of the hirings from the big companies are also PPOs, rather than unique offers.

“There has been a slowdown and some big companies such as Amazon and IBM were either missing or didn’t hire much this year from IITs. The ones that did hire were majorly from PPOs, but a lot of start-ups have also hired this time,” he said.

Till last year, there were fewer start-ups found in the placement sheet of IITs because students had complained that while start-ups were given out offer letters with a promise of inflated CTC, they were failing to convert the offer letter into a joining date.

“Some students were placed in some start-ups last year, but due to the ongoing economic crisis in the US and the global IT layoffs, they have not yet received a joining date. A couple of companies revoked their offers, but some others have neither revoked nor given a joining date,” Mekala Bhavya, a fourth-year student and a core team member of IIT-BHU’s training and placement cell had shared with indianexpress.com last year.

“Start-ups were not encouraged earlier in the first few rounds because they don’t give a guarantee of the offer letter and a lot of students suffer… I know a few students in my class too who were hired with big CTC but were never given a joining letter. However, IIT Delhi’s Office of Career Services has screened which companies keep their word and which companies the students want to see on the campus. So earlier start-ups were discouraged unless they had a good track record,” he explained.

However, the trend seems to be changing this year and many now believe that the start-up ecosystem in India is a viable alternative this time.

“The placement statistics are on the lower side in almost all IITs. Our students are aware of the current global economic situation and therefore, there is a bend towards domestic offers as against the previous year. For phase II, we have plans to invite new companies and start-ups,” said Rajib Maity, chairman, Career Development Cell, IIT-Kharagpur.

V Ramgopal Rao also believes that not all start-ups can be assessed with the same lens anymore as many of them have proper and solid funding, and can provide a good learning curve, especially for those students who wish to become entrepreneurs in the future.

“Many students want to work for startups now because they think the experience might help them rather than joining a very large organisation. So sometimes, institutions do have this worry that startup jobs may not be stable, but these days there are more and more students who want to work for startups mostly because of their ambition of starting a company and I think that’s a good way to get trained,” he added.

He also added that a lot of engineering colleges, including BITS Pilani, are now reaching out to the alumni community for the second session of the placement season.