IITs chase recruiters to avoid a repeat of last year’s scramble

While recruiters from information technology and related services, core industries, manufacturing and banking sectors have started registering with the Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs), the companies haven’t disclosed their targets for the batch of 2025, according to a placement officer at one of the new IITs. They are yet to get hiring numbers from their HR teams, he said.

Of the 23 IITs, first-generation institutes including Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Kanpur start the placement season in December. The second- and third-generation IITs, along with the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), begin in August-September to get a headstart. 

A significant number of 2024 batch graduates from both old and newer IITs were not picked by May-June, when the placement season ends. While that reflected uncertainty in the global economy, many firms were brimming with graduates from the frenzied hiring during the pandemic. The institutes then reached out to their alumni and startups, and accepted lower-than-usual compensation.

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“We have started going after the firms and are not waiting for them to register on our portals,” said a member of the placement team of a third-generation IIT. “There are 360 students to place and firms are preferring the pre-placement route (PPOs) after internships, rather than directly coming for the final placements.”

The IITs of Tirupati, Palakkad, Goa, Mandi, Varanasi, Bhilai and Dhanbad are among the institutes chasing firms to sign up. Some of them have set ₹6-8 lakh as the minimum compensation.

“We have about 250 students to place and started our campus recruitments in September. We have 100 regular recruiters and hope the same ones hire this year as well,” said a placement officer at one of the IITs mentioned above.

Although IT services providers have reached out, students want to join firms that pay more than ₹8-10 lakh. IT firms, which typically recruit in large numbers, offer a compensation of ₹4-7 lakh, but recruiters that visit IITs offer a higher salary. 

Also read | Placement blues fade at IIMs as recruiters troop in

While the median compensation for the newer IITs can be around ₹12-13 lakh, it ranges ₹20-55 lakh for their older peers. Some of the newer ones expect it to increase 3-4% this year.

Early recruiters on IIT campuses include Samsung, Accenture and Larsen & Toubro this year. The companies didn’t respond told Mint‘s queries sent late on Monday. Godrej Properties Ltd is also looking to hire from the technology institutes.

“We pay ₹33 lakh to the top B-school graduates and ₹15 lakh for IIT and NIT graduates. This year, we will revise salaries (higher) for engineering graduates,” said Megha Goel, chief human resources officer at Godrej Properties.

A senior placement team member at a new IIT said the institute has 140 students to place and was accepting offers of ₹6 lakh and above. “We are targeting companies that are based in southern India since their proximity to our college is closer,” said the executive who did not want to be named. “The BFSI sector is our good bet.”

While the smaller IITs have fewer students, the older ones have a couple of thousand of graduates in every placement batch. Last year, recruiters included Google India, Apple, Microsoft India, Procter and Gamble, Sony Japan, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Tata group, Ola and Reliance Industries.

Also read | Mint Primer: What the IIT placements tell us about the campus hiring market

High-end trading firms and software firms offered salaries of ₹80 lakh to ₹1.4 crore in 2024, according to placement executives across IITs of Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kharagpur, and Kanpur.

The high-paying companies included Databricks, Quadeye, Graviton Research Capital, Maverick Derivatives, Da Vinci, Optiver, NK Securities, Cumberland-a DRW Company, Quantbox Research, and Squarepoint, which offered roles in India and, in some cases, the UK, the US, Singapore and Hong Kong.

After last year’s scramble, the IITs are also banking on quick commerce platforms and startups to select from their campuses.

“Meesho is actively recruiting from campuses this year, particularly focusing on the 2025 batch from premier engineering institutes such as IITs, IIITs, and NITs,” Ashish Kumar Singh, chief human resources officer said.

The online retailer will hire for multiple critical roles across key functions like analytics, technology, business, finance, product & design, and fulfilment & experience, he said. The company’s “campus hiring efforts will see a significant increase, with plans to more than double compared to last year”.