For students of top eight Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) Santa arrived early this year as they bagged a record 185-odd crore-plus offers during final placements.
According to a report in the Economic Times, domestic offers, for the first time, accounted for a significant chunk of these crore-plus packages, as companies went all out in their bid to bag the best of tech talent.
Among the top eight IITs–Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Madras, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati and Varanasi–the highest domestic packages were Rs 1.8 crore a year while International packages ranged as high as Rs 2.15-2.4 crore.
The business daily citing campus sources and placement cells mentioned that students at IIT-Delhi received around 60 offers with salaries of more than Rs 1 crore, while other IITs with crore-plus packages included Kanpur (49), Madras (27), Bombay (12), Roorkee (11), Guwahati (5) and BHU (1). IIT Kharagpur said it had 22-plus packages in the Rs 90 lakh-2.4 crore range, of which 1-2 were in the Rs 90 lakh-1 crore range.
Anishya Obhrai Madan, head of, Office of Career Services, IIT-Delhi, said she could neither confirm nor deny the number. “The institute saw an increase in offers with highvalue domestic salaries. For the first time, a few organisations indicated that their salaries in India may be higher than those paid by organisations recruiting for international profiles,” said Madan.
“This year, IIT-Madras students have received 27 one crore-plus offers. The institute did not have any last year,” the ET report quoted CS Shankar Ram, advisor, training & placement.
IIT-Guwahati and IIT-BHU, too, did not have any crore-plus packages in the previous batch.
According to campus placement cells, intense competition among companies has pushed up salaries. Unprecedented demand for tech talent has been the main factor behind the record placements this year, as the pandemic accelerates digitisation across industries. Every institute has also seen a surge in the number of offers, with more students placed in the first phase of placements than ever before.
“IITians have generally been insulated from the ups and downs of the economy. But this year, as the economy saw a rebound, and even companies which had gone slow on hiring earlier unleashed the pent-up demand, our placements have also gone through the roof,” the publication quoted Vinay Sharma, professor-in-charge, training and placement, at IIT-Roorkee as saying.
As reported by ET earlier, this placement season, Quantbox Research and Graviton Research were among those that paid the highest packages for domestic roles. Top international offers came from the likes of Uber, Glean and Da Vinci Derivatives.
Domestic packages, which had hit the Rs 70-80 lakh mark last year, breached the Rs 1 crore level this time, with some high-frequency trading firms going up to Rs 1.8 crore — factoring in the bonus for the second year as well as sign-on bonus, non-cash benefits and stock options. Stock options are typically offered as a retention measure and are often vested only after employees remain with the company for a specified period.
