Top 5 trends at IIT placements this year

Startups hire aggressively; variable pay zooms while base salaries stagnate

IITs began their final placements on December 1, 2014. In the first phase of placements, IITs have seen a surge in the number of companies coming on campus. Some other trends that this year are: 

1) Most IITs have managed to place around half their batch size. According to IIT Kharagpur, its students received maximum number of job offers as compared to other IITs.

2) Startups came in droves: Start-ups including Housing.com, Flipkart, Ola Cabs, Commonfloor, Meru Cabs, Snapdeal and  Stayzilla among others hired aggressively. At IIT Madras, start-ups hired 114 of the 880 students or 13% at the end of the first phase of placement. A total of 65 startups participated in placements. 

3) IIT Bombay, for the first time, included manufacturing companies like GE, Airbus and Qualcomm in the coveted first day placement process. GE made 19 job offers. 

4) Variable pay zoomed and base salaries stagnated: With companies including various allowances in the pay package, variable component in the salary offered went up. For instance, US-based computer technology firm Oracle, which made a job offer of Rs 1.83 crore, gave a base salary of Rs 80 lakh and 4,000 shares in stock options, taking the overall compensation package to Rs 1.83 crore.

5) Students declines job offers to join startups and social organisations.