IIT students ditch crore-plus salaries for job profile

MUMBAI/KOLKATA: Two 21-year-old, soon-to-graduate IIT Kanpur engineers stunned tech major Oracle by turning down offers of Rs 1.31 crore ($210,000) each, a top person involved in the process told ET. Both have opted for other companies that offered lesser pay, but gave roles the students liked better. They may have opted for Google, which offered Rs68.34 lakh ($110,000), or Tower Research Capital, a US-based financial services firm, which rolled out a package of Rs74.55 lakh ($120,000). "This just shows that not everyone is running after money," a placement team member, who did not wish to be named, said. "These students are mature; they know money does not reflect everything." The rapidly unfolding drama on Day 2 of the campus placement season at IITs threw more surprises. Zomato, an online food and restaurant listings startup, offered the highest salary on Day 2 at IIT Bombay, more than what marquee brands, including Samsung India R&D, Citicorp, Xerox Research, Adobe and American Express, were willing to pay. Zomato hired four students from IITDelhi and Bombay at a uniform package of Rs26 lakh each. Forty-one companies were present at IIT-Bombay. On Monday, ET had reported that Oracle had made crore-plus offers at IIT-Madras. At Kanpur, Oracle had shortlisted three students from computer science background on Sunday and four in the waiting list. Two from the waiting list have since been hired to make up for the dropouts, a placement team member at IITKanpur said. Oracle has also hired students from IIT-Madras and Bombay, all at similar crore-plus salaries. A Google spokesperson said the company was hiring from India for software engineer profile for their US, UK, Australia and India locations, but declined to comment on compensation. Companies hired aggressively across all IITs. IIT Kharagpur believes in building relationships and companies have responded enthusiastically, hiring the highest number of candidates on Day 1, h says SK Barai, professor-in-charge, training and placement, IIT Kharagpur. Twenty companies, including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Opera Solutions, Google and Schlumberger Asia Services, rolled out 170 offers (including 75 PPOs) at IIT Kharagpur. Real estate portal Housing.com was among the recruiters from the start-up space. More startups are expected. On Day 2 at IIT Madras, social networking sites like LinkedIn picked up 5 students, Citicorp Services India hired 10, Intel Technology recruited 6 and Eaton Technologies made 10 offers. We received 93 offers on the first day, and till the end of session 1 on day 2, there have been 48 offers. That is a total of 141 offers, not including PPOs, h Lt Col (Retd.) Jayakumar, deputy registrar (students and placement), IIT Madras, said. IIT Roorkee received 80 offers on Day 1 and around 8-10 companies hired on the second day of placements. At IIT Guwahati, some 70 students have been selected by 15 companies, including Microsoft, Google, Tata Motors, Morgan Stanley, Flipkart, ITC and Dell. IIT Guwahati also saw average salaries of 24 lakh, Natesan Srinivasan, faculty-in-charge, training & placement, IIT said. Agencies