There has been a steady improvement in campus placements at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras in the past three years. There has also been a slight increase in median pay this year — ₹10.5 lakh against about ₹9.8 lakh last year.
The programme is a student-driven initiative.
Sashi Sekhar Y.V.R., a final-year civil engineering student, who has been part of the student placement process, attributes it to the close coordination between students and staff.
“We improved the interaction with the alumni through outreach programmes. We got data from the international alumni office and approached those companies for participating in the placement drive. We included the department’s faculty members who are working closely with industry and tapped into their contacts. There are over 150 students in the placement team and the quantum of efforts that they put in helped. The placement cell staff helped to resolve issues we faced with the process, as we are dealing with over 1,200 students and 200 companies,” he said.
Demand for researchers
Of the approximately 1,600 students who graduate every year, around 1,000 register for campus recruitment. Typically, about 150 to 200 students either opt for off-campus placements or become entrepreneurs. On an average, about 200 students opt for competitive exams like civil services and another 400 go for higher studies abroad, officials said.
Recruitment is always higher in the core and IT sectors, where companies prefer fresh graduates. But in the last three years, IIT-M has seen a steady increase in the recruitment of postgraduates and research scholars. Officials say the trend indicates that industry is increasingly opting to recruit IIT-M students to encourage cutting-edge research and development.
“Around 300-350 research scholars graduate from the IIT every year and only a fifth of them register with the placement office. This time, we saw a trend where companies sought to hire [them],” said Manu Santhanam, adviser, placements.