Placement news network
CollegeKhabar.com
5th Feb, 2010
IT firms have again emerged as hot favorite among engineering and B-School graduates and the firms are not far behind in wooing them with higher salary packages.
For example, IBM, which paid Rs 7-8 lakh a year to IIT graduates last year, has doubled it to Rs 14-15 lakh this year, according to a student selected under the tech giant’s ‘Blue Scholar’ programme who didn’t wish to be identified.
Tech bellwether Infosys Technologies, which has given 450 offers to B-schools, is offering a package of Rs 11 lakh per annum to IIM graduates, while it has hiked compensation for incoming engineering students to Rs 3.25 lakh per annum against Rs 3 lakh last year. Infosys is planning to make 15,000 offers to engineering students for FY11. Not just IBM or Infosys, but other tech majors like Microsoft, IBM, Accenture, HP, SAP, Amazon, Yahoo and Cisco are paying IIT graduates Rs 8-12 lakh per annum, a 10-15% hike from last year’s levels.
A cross-section of students and officials from various colleges echoed the sentiment saying they are seeing an uptick in the number of IT firms visiting their campuses — a turnaround from what happened in 2009. IIT Delhi’s Aditya Gupta says IT firms are big recruiters but there is an increasing preference for firms like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. “Our conversion rate — students who actually join — have been 93% at top B-Schools such as IIMs. Earlier, it used to be 63-70%,” said Infosys senior VP in HR Nandita Gurjar.
At BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, 550 of the 900 students who will graduate this year have already been placed and offered salaries between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 7.5 lakh pa.
The Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) has finished more than half of the placement for its batch of 600 students. “TCS has already recruited 40, followed by IBM, Deloitte and Airtel,” said Itsit Dang (21), an engineering student.
Professor NS Narahari, director (placement) in RV College of Engineering, said: “There has been a rise in salary packages and number of offers made by the companies.” The college saw firms like Cognizant, HP, Informatica, Infosys, Accenture, and TCS visiting their campus.
The IT sector’s return to gains is making more students opting for a career in this sector. Symbiosis Institute of Business Management’s (SIBM) Bangalore dean Pankaj Gupta said that earlier IT companies were not favorite on B-School campuses but the trend is changing and students prefer to join IT firms. “For each IT job, we are getting lot of application from students.”
However, it has not been just the technology companies which have paying higher salaries. P&G, HUL, Bain, Boston Consulting Group have been offering competitive salary packages to IIT graduates in the range of Rs 9-13 lakh. Consulting firms and banks such as Parthenon and Goldman Sachs are offering a package of Rs 18.5-25 lakh pa. Financial services firm Tower Research has offered a salary package of Rs 25 lakh and Rs 8 lakh bonus at IIT-Delhi to handle its IT and algorithm work.
Source: Economictimes |
