Though COVID-19 continues to travel the world almost unhindered, there appears tremendous hope for a post-pandemic world, as big companies have recruited nearly all graduates of the 2019-20 batch of the Model Engineering College (MEC) here and are looking to recruit more from the 2020-21 batch.

“MEC students have conquered new heights in campus recruitments,” the college authorities said on Thursday. Almost all the 360 candidates, who graduated this year have found placements in companies like Amazon, Microsoft, LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Amadeus, Deloitte, Synopsys, FactSet, Cypress Semiconductor, Oracle, and redBus.

MEC, Thrikkakara, “has constantly raised the bar for campus recruitments in Kerala,” and the new highlight is for the 2019-2020 batch of students, who have been recruited to over 80 companies, said principal Dr. Vinu Thomas in a statement here.

There is near-100% recruitment in almost every engineering branch, and the fresh graduates have been offered notable pay packages, at par with the pre-COVID times. The new recruits have been offered an average salary of ₹6.6 lakh a year for product companies and ₹4.5 lakh for services companies. The highest compensation offered were ₹30 lakh CTC and ₹20.9 lakh CTC.

A new normal is emerging in campus recruitment, with seven big companies announcing their intention to hold online meetings and interviews with graduates from the 2020-21 batch. “We were not expecting this to happen so fast, and online interview is the new normal,” said Dr. M.V. Rajesh, training and placement officer.

He added that the placement process for 2020-2021 had started with seven companies scheduling online recruitments in August and September 2020.

MEC was established in 1989 under the Institute of Human Resources Development and is affiliated to the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University.

The college offers four undergraduate programmes in computer science and engineering, electronics and communication engineering, electrical and electronics engineering, and electronics and biomedical engineering as well as four postgraduate programmes—signal processing, VLSI design and embedded systems, image processing, and energy management.