Deferred placements and drop in recruitment make students jittery

‘The good news is that there are more manufacturing companies now’

CAMPUS MATTERS: Most colleges feel that it is too early to make a statement on the overall figures concerning recruitment.

BANGALORE: Engineering students these days are an anxious lot. Last year’s optimism of placements being a cakewalk has turned into a sense of uncertainty. Even prominent colleges in Bangalore unofficially admit to a marked drop in recruitment numbers, and this is a cause for worry for final-year students in colleges across the State.

As the placement season kicked off in July, Bangalore’s top colleges found that though companies seemed to be vying with one another to be the first on campus, actual recruitment figures fell short of expectations.

BMS College of Engineering topped the day-one placement figures with 372 recruitments, and a sizeable number of students in PESIT, RVCE and MSRIT took home offers. However, placement officials said all colleges would not be as lucky when it came to placements this year.

Marked decline

Though colleges felt it was too early to share the overall numbers, a comparison of day-one figures with last year shows a marked decline. Placement officers feel that companies that started out with larger targets did a U-turn mid-season owing to the slowdown in the industry.

For instance, on day one this year, companies absorbed 198 from PESIT compared to 221 last year. In the case of RNSIT, only 15 companies have responded compared to 30 last year.

RNSIT placement officer V. Umesh said multinational companies have made fewer offers this year. For example, Accenture, which employs more than 50 candidates every year, made offers to only eight candidates this time.

Media reports of layoffs in the industry and deferred placements have added to the anxiety among students. Several final-year students have been asked to wait as long as eight months for joining dates, which means they may lose a year.

“The good news is that there are more options in manufacturing companies,” said Ushnisha Ghosh, Electrical Engineering student, RVCE. Companies are asking for longer bond periods and are strict with their terms of acceptance.

Offers withdrawn

Ravi Shukla, an engineering student, said that students will be playing it safe this time. Last year, IBM sprang a last-minute jolt. Students who were given offer letters in June 2007 were made to take another screening examination in June 2008. Many offers were withdrawn and students who did not keep a back-up option were left in the lurch. For instance, in RVCE, only 46 out of 106 students were absorbed, this being among the highest in the State.

PESIT CEO Jawahar D. said that below-average students would have a tough time this year. “There is a 25 per cent drop in recruitments in almost all top companies. Many colleges will find themselves on the borderline,” he said.

Silver lining

However, a silver lining is the marked increase in the presence of manufacturing companies and their willingness to match IT pay packages.

Mechanical and civil engineering companies, which started their offers last year at Rs. 2 lakh a year, increased their package to Rs. 3.5 lakh this year. The average pay packet has increased by about 10 per cent. Infosys board member Mohandas Pai told The Hindu that they had increased salary by Rs. 25,000.

Manufacturing companies, which traditionally visit campuses in the eighth semester, are now vying with IT companies for the day-one slot. Placement officer of BMS College Jagadeesh said that 30 companies had recruited students. “Our students are asking us for non-IT companies, and more companies want to come to the campus,” he said.