The ongoing pandemic has “not” affected the virtual placement drive at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, with leading companies making 486 offers to its students till Wednesday.
The placement drive began on December 1 in a completely virtual mode and will continue till December 15. The exercise has attracted close to 128 companies such as Google, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Adobe, Quadaye, Oracle, Walmart, Bajaj, American Express, Uber, Accenture Japan and MTX, among others.
The opening day saw 69 placement offers but it went up to 486 till Wednesday, including the 133 pre-placement offers (PPOs), with a highest domestic salary package of Rs 70 lakh per annum compared to Rs 52 lakh last year.
In addition, there were four international offers at the end of the second day, prompting IIT Guwahati director T.G. Sitharam to state that the Covid-19 pandemic has not affected placements.
“I am delighted to share that the placements have started off on a very positive note at IIT Guwahati. The pandemic has not affected placements, due to the efforts of the placements cell to actively engage with companies and training the students for virtual placements. The institute has left no stone unturned in making the placements season 2020-2021 a very positive experience for both the students and the employers. We are thankful to all the recruiters,” Sitharam said in a message to The Telegraph.
Despite the pandemic situation, the number of PPOs offered this year is equivalent to that of 2019 which shows that the overall placement scenario has not been affected and the institute hoped the overall placement statistics improves compared to last year, an official said.
Altogether 692 students were placed out of 1,060 in 2019. This year about 1,100 students have registered for placements.
Job offers have been made in profiles such as software development engineer, member technical staff, hardware, machine learning, data science, business analyst, quant, core engineering (automobile), analyst, product designer, graphic designer, among others.
The placement drive is centrally coordinated from the IIT Guwahati campus with all the recruiters from various companies and eligible students taking part virtually from different locations of the country.
“Students were given training on the virtual platform in advance for an efficient and smooth process. Although the students are not physically present on the campus, the entire placement process is being executed in a similar manner to that of the physical mode done in previous years,” a statement said.
Prof. Abhishek Kumar, head, Centre for Career Development, said the institute has ensured that “we take every effort to make the placements season a success”.
