IIT-B median salary offer rises 6.5%

An article in Hindustan Times talks about how the median salary offered by companies at IIT-B has increased by 6.5% during last academic year; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
The median salary offered by companies at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) increased by 6.5% during last academic year, reveals the institute’s placement report.

The report put the annual median salary at Rs9.8 lakh in 2015-16, up from Rs9.2 lakh in 2014-15. In other words, half the IITians received salary packages upward of approximately Rs10 lakh per annum in the previous academic year.

While the highest salaries often touched Rs1 crore, the majority of students got much smaller pay-scales. The institute doesn’t provide the average salary figures — which indicate overall variation in packages.

Nonetheless, the data reveals that students received better packages this year, with more companies offering higher salaries.

For example, in the last placement season, 96 companies offered more than Rs11 lakh per annum, the highest bracket (see the box), to 435 (38%) out of 1,143 candidates. In 2014-15, 365 (33%) out of 1,118 students received packages in the highest bracket from 74 companies.

While the number of candidates who were offered jobs didn’t change significantly during last academic year, the count of companies which offered jobs rose from 274 in 2014-15 to 308 in 2015-16.

In the recent years, the premier institute has been witnessing a steady, if not a sizeable, swelling of packages. In the three years between 2010-11 and 2013-14, the median salary offered by companies visiting IIT-B rose from Rs7.6 lakh to Rs9.1 lakh.

Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice-president at TeamLease Serices, a human resources consulting agency, said that if while the current rise in median salary is “acceptable” — even if one is to factor in inflation — it’s not “dramatic”.

“The job market has saturated for engineers and even the IT sector, which remains the largest recruiter of engineers, isn’t hiring in large numbers. However, compared to the starting salaries of engineering graduates from colleges other than IITs, many of whom start with Rs10,000 a month, the packages offered to IITians are good,” she said. She added that unless the Prime Minister’s Make-in-India initiative bears fruits, the salaries won’t see a jump at the premier institute.

According to the institute, the majority of its past recruiters came back last year and recruited in large numbers. “IIT-B graduates are in demand among the top recruiters in various segments of the economy. [The upcoming placement season] will be even more crucial in the coming years as campus placements become more intense due to increased corporate competitiveness, heightened student aspirations, a rapidly changing job market and an increasingly insecure global economy,” concludes the report.

This article was published in Hindustan Times