Job offers: Postgraduate placements jump 49% in first 4 days at IIT Madras

144 companies made more than 540 offers this year as compared to 122 companies making 493 offers last year

In what could hint at more research-based profiles being sought out by recruiters, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has seen a considerable increase in postgraduate recruitment during final placements this year.

For the first four days of placements, the share of postgraduate students placed this year has been 49 per cent, as against 39 per cent last year for the same period. Moreover, as per the institute, placement among research scholars has also gone up to 44 per cent at the end of day four, as against 25 per cent last year.

"Postgraduate placements call for more creative matching of specialised job profiles to the knowledge and skills of candidates. It not only demonstrates that companies with high-end engineering and technology positions are thronging to IIT Madras but that our students are also being increasingly preferred for research-oriented positions by the industry," said Manu Santhanam, advisor, training and placements, IIT Madras.

According to Ashok Kumar S, research affairs secretary and head of postgraduate placements, IIT Madras, some of the companies like UIDAI, Qualcomm, Intel India, ABInBev and Bajaj Autos, had shown interest in recruiting PhD scholars, many of whom had worked on projects that attracted the interest of industries. "Now many companies are opening up their research and development (R&D) sectors in India and are working to attract top-notch talent," said Kumar.

The first four days of placement at IIT Madras saw 144 companies making more than 540 offers this year as compared to 122 companies making 493 offers last year. The international offers have jumped from 10 for the first four days last year to 22 this year.

Overall, IIT Madras has placed about 52 per cent of the total registered students in the first four days, up from 42 per cent at the same time last year.

Sector-wise, while core and R&D account for 44 per cent of the job offers, finance, consulting and analytics firms made 33 per cent offers, followed by 22 per cent by IT and one per cent by FMCG.

On efforts by the institute's placement team, Kumar said, "The placement team identified specific companies looking at research positions, categorised them by sectors and matched this list with the postgraduate/research students of IIT Madras. The research placement team had put special efforts in slotting the companies."