IIT students offered salary below Rs 10 lakh per annum amid challenging placement season: Report

According to an alumni support network, 30 percent of students are still unplaced in the top-ranked older IITs and around 50 percent of students are still unplaced in the newer IITs.

Amid the bleak placement season at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the salary packages being offered stand between Rs 10 lakh per annum (LPA) to Rs 15 lakh per annum and in some cases, it's below Rs 10 lakh per annum, said a report.

According to a Times of India report, many companies are tightening their hiring belts, with some reducing their usual student intake by a significant margin. This has prompted universities to broaden their outreach and attract a wider pool of potential employers but many of them are offering packages less than Rs 10 lakh per annum.

While some students have secured on-campus positions, the offered salaries may not meet their expectations. These students are actively exploring alternative opportunities through online job boards and attending career fairs across different cities.

"Companies that till last year picked 5 to 8 students are picking 1 or 2 this year. Several are still not yet hired. From coaching classes to start-ups, some have recently been picked for salary packages of Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000 in phase 2,” said the report quoting an IIT Bombay student.

“Spectrum Technologies offered Rs 3.6 lakh for trainee engineers and Rs 6 lakh for trainee design engineers. Startoon Labs and Gem Machinery offered Rs 5.5 lakh annually. Skyroot offered Rs 5 lakh. Sri Chaitanya and Next Education offer Rs 4.8 to 6 lakh per annum,” an IIT-Kharagpur student said in the report.

Moneycontrol earlier reported that some of the IITs are facing hurdles in securing placements for their students of the current batch because of poor employment opportunities, claimed Dheeraj Singh, IIT Kanpur alumnus and founder of Global IIT Alumni Support Group.

He said around 30 percent of students are still unplaced in the top-ranked older IITs and around 50 percent of students are still unplaced in the newer IITs.

Based on the data shared by unplaced IIT students in his mentoring group, Singh claims around 32.6 percent of students are unplaced in IIT Madras, 35 percent in IIT Kanpur, 36 percent in IIT Bombay, 30 percent unplaced in IIT Kharagpur, 30 percent unplaced in IIT Guwahati, 40 percent in IIT ISM Dhanbad, 40 percent in IIT Hyderabad, 45 percent in IIT Jammu, 35 percent in IIT Delhi, 35 percent in IIT BHU Varanasi, 40 percent unplaced in IIT Patna, 35 percent unplaced in IIT Gandhinagar, 25 percent unplaced in IIT Goa, 50 percent unplaced in IIT Bhilai, and 30 percent in IIT Bhubaneswar.

While responding to queries sent by Moneycontrol on the “slow placements”, IIT Madras said, “Students have varied interests - to pursue higher studies, some want to establish their own startups and venture into entrepreneurship, while some want to attempt competitive exams including civil services. They take time to decide. The placement data will be available at the end of July 2024, post convocation.”