Industry ties, branding drive job offers at IIT-Madras

The Indian Institute of TechnologyMadras (IIT-Madras) overtook IIT-Bombayinplacementsduringthe first phase of recruitment this year, with 652 students getting placed.

The IIT-M management said branding efforts by the management, industry-academia relationships through its research park and strategic efforts were the some of the key drivers of recruitment this year.

Around 62 per cent of the 1,049 students registered for campus placements were placed; 763 offers were made during the first phase and 877 were placed so far during the year, against 745 students during the year-ago period.

Core and research and development (R&D) sectors saw the most, with 88 companies giving 343 offers. Information technology followed with 182 offers from 62 companies. Analytics, finance and consulting sector saw 59 companies making 233 offers. Two FMCG companies made five offers during the period. A total of 211 companies issued 763 offers to IITMadras students. Out of these, 32 start-ups made 85 offers.

This is said to be the highest number of placement among the IITs during this year.

Branding efforts by the management, industry-academia relationships through the IIT’s research park and strategic efforts by the board of governors to improve the quality of year 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 No of students registered 1,282

1,435 1,368 1,206 1,049 No of Total No of students offers companies placed 923 241 825

1,010 1,019 872 763** students, faculty and research helped achieve this, according to officials at the institute.

“IIT-Madras has been putting sincere efforts to improve its placement,” said Pawan Goenka, chairman of board of governors, IITMadras. “There was a disadvantage IIT-Madras had in terms of location till a few years ago and the placement officers have been working to position the IIT in front of key recruiters. This has worked well. In the past two to three years, many companies that didn't use to come to IIT-M are coming. The credit goes to the director and the placement officer. I am quite impressed with the kind of work they have been doing.”

An incubation centre at IIT-M for entrepreneurs and brand creation through public relations got many companies to the campus.

The vision is to make IIT-Madras Highest salary offered* 82 lakh one of the top institutions in the world in R&D.

This year, the institute has been focusing on postgraduates during placements. “We are trying to tell them (companies) that these are the kind of courses we are having and these are the kind of students who are coming in,” said Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director of IIT-Madras. “Slowly, companies, particularly those who have R&D centres in India, many of them MNCs, are becoming more aware. Now we are seeing a good pickup in PG students.”

Manu Santhanam, placement advisor, said while companies centered in Mumbai or such places would earlier focus only on IITs near them, now they were looking at other IITs, too. “One of the primary reason we have a good rapport with industry is that we have the IITMadras Research Park, where a lot of industries set up research.”