Placements 2019

With changing times, the role of science and technology in the industry and corporate sector has changed a lot too. This change is reflected in the type of jobs the students are taking up after graduating from college. Job opportunities in sectors like Big Data Analytics have rocketed upwards, whereas the Core Engineering sector is apparently on a decline. Vox Populi decided to peek into the placement statistics of IIT Kanpur in 2019 and analyze the prominent sectors in which students got placed.  

A total of 677 students were offered jobs during the first 8 days of phase 1 of placements this year, whereas 128 students had already received pre-placement offers or PPOs. Further analysis of 2019 placements is based on the data for the first 8 days of phase 1.

Following the trend of the previous years, the IT sector was once again the dominant sector. This was followed by Analyst and Core Engineering jobs. Expectedly, this year also saw many students aiming for consultancy and management jobs.

[infogram id=”bf2511d8-ea6f-4c3c-8352-3d9ed466e135″ prefix=”Jdn” format=”interactive” title=”Placements 2019″]

IT/Software

The Information Technology and Sofware sector attracted a considerable portion of students this year, with Accenture, Mastercard, and Microsoft being the top recruiters. 

The sector witnessed a boost in the number of students getting placed in the field, with 231 students getting IT and software jobs this year compared to 212 in 2018 and 206 in 2017.

A total of 34.12% of all the jobs offered belonged to the IT/Software sector, which is an increase of almost 6-8% as compared to the last two years.

The IT/Software sector was dominated by the CSE department, with M.Tech. CSE students grabbing the highest number of jobs in the sector, followed by B.Tech. CSE and B.Tech. EE students. 

However, many undergraduate students from Core Engineering departments also went for IT and software jobs, with more than 25% of B.Tech. students from EE, ME and CE departments opting for jobs in the IT sector. This is in resonance with the fact that the number of jobs being offered to B.Tech. students in the Core sector has decreased significantly over the years.

Analytics

With the advent of IT in almost all walks of life, the sector of analytics has seen an aggressive upsurge. This growth was also reflected in the placement statistics of IITK Students in 2019.

Analyst jobs were the second-most sought after profiles, attracting students across all branches. Around 200 students got placed in the Analytics sector this year, which is an increase of 25% as compared to 2018. The branch-wise distribution of jobs in this sector was more even, as compared to the IT and Core sectors. Students pursuing an MBA in Industrial and Management Engineering, and MSc in Statistics got the highest number of offers in the analytics sector. 

“In God we trust, all others must bring data,” said the late American Statistician, W. Edwards Deming, and it seems that most business companies have started following this notion, for, in recent years, there has been an exponential growth in the number of companies hiring data analysts. This year, a total of 55 companies offered analyst jobs to students, which is significantly greater than the number of companies offering IT/Software jobs (45) and Core Engineering jobs (30).

The sector also saw students getting placed in a variety of roles. This is accredited to the fact that the field of big data analytics has a very wide scope, and every branch of Analytics is unique in terms of the skill set it requires. Another consequence of this is that the field of analytics is not specific to any one branch, although students pursuing Statistics definitely have an edge over others.

Core Engineering

Following the pattern of the last few years, the number of core engineering and technology jobs offered witnessed a decrease again this year. The number of students getting placed in the Core sector was 138, which is almost 30% less as compared to 2017. The sector was overwhelmingly dominated by EE students, with semi-conductor giants like Intel and Qualcomm offering the major chunk of jobs in the sector. About 62.50% of all M.Tech. students placed in Core engineering jobs were from the EE department. The branch wise distribution of B.Tech. was however more even across departments.

Consultancy and Management

In recent years, a paradigm shift of engineering graduates taking up consultancy and management jobs has been observed. Several factors have been attributed to this change, ranging from better pay-scales to more creatively-exhausting jobs. Also, the analytical skills acquired by an Engineering graduate turn out to be very helpful in the management sector, inviting management firms to offer campus placements in IITs. The increase in Management offers should also be attributed to the IME department.

The number of offers in consultancy has historically remained very low but this year the displacement increased, with Consultancy as well as Management offers surging over the number of offers by top 5 recruiters from other fields. In total, 97 students were placed in consultancy and management jobs, which accounts for almost 15% of the total number of students placed. ICICI Bank and American Express were the top recruiters in the Management sector, whereas Genpact and EXL Services offered the majority of consultancy jobs. 

Additionally, after the end of  Phase-I(01/12 – 14/12) of Placements 2019 over 250 firms had visited on campus for recruitment, offering a total of 1080 offers with 935 acceptances by the students. These numbers are significantly higher compared to that of last year (i.e. 847) after Phase-I.

We congratulate all the placed students and commend the hard work and efforts of the Students Placement Office.

Aayush Priyadarshi, Yash Kuwade

 ¹The placement statistics have been taken from the Stats section of the Placement Portal.

²The data for 2019 is for the first 8 days, while the data for 2018 is for the complete 15 days of the placement phase.