New Delhi: Despite an economic slowdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the placement season at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) kicked off on a high note in the first week of December, with some institutes recording their best opening days ever.
At IIT-Madras, first day of the placement season on 2 December brought more offers than in the preceding years. At IIT-Roorkee, the fattest domestic salary package on offer was Rs 20 lakh higher than that of 2019-20.
While the reputation of the institutes is a key factor when it comes to employment opportunities for students, a number of IIT professors that ThePrint spoke to pointed to another aspect that worked well this placement season — the alumni network.
The IIT alumni networks are one of the strongest and most well connected among education institutions and according to the professors, they play a part in getting students job ready through training sessions and internships while also bringing in some of the companies to campus.
“Several of our students get placed because the alumni often bring the company where they are working to the institute during the placement sessions. The Covid placement cycle was a stellar example of alumni having helped students in a big way,” Prof Mahesh Panchagnula, dean of alumni and corporate relations at IIT Madras, told ThePrint.
Prof C. S. Shankar Ram, advisor (training & placement), IIT Madras, added that the institution had approached its alumni during the pandemic.
“When the placement process was affected by Covid-19 in March 2020, we reached out to our alumni for helping students who lost their job offers and those who were yet to get one,” Prof Ram said. “A significant number of the alumni responded positively and created interview opportunities for these students.”
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Old students step in during difficult year
A number of IITs have their alumni to thank for their placement seasons not crumbling in the pandemic year.
At IIT Kanpur, Pradeep Bhargava, the alumni association head, said the alumni have helped the students this year not just with jobs but also internships.
“When the pandemic happened, there were a number of cancellations in placements and internships. So we had a drive where we made sure that these students were placed,” he told ThePrint. “The message was circulated among all alumni. Employed alumni talked to their own companies to hire students from IIT Kanpur and those who are entrepreneurs hired several students themselves.”
Though reports mention that the number of companies coming in for recruitment at IIT Kanpur came down from 300 to 230 this year, several companies handed out handsome packages to those hired.
The highest package was worth Rs 1.47 crore per annum, offered by an MNC, while an Indian company also offered an annual package of Rs 82 lakh. This is the highest salary packet to be offered by any Indian company in IIT Kanpur’s placement history.
B.R. Gurjar, dean of resources and alumni affairs at IIT Roorkee, said, “Some of our alumni have been very kind to us in helping with the placements. They conduct internship and training-related programmes for our students and help them become job ready. They have also helped us in recruitment of our students wherever job positions are available.”
A senior official at IIT Delhi said when job offers were rescinded in April due to the pandemic, the institution got in touch with some of its prominent alumni to seek their help in getting jobs for students whose offers were withdrawn.
At IIT Kharagpur, Prof Rajakumar Ananthkrishnan, chairperson of the career development cell, said alumni are contacted when the need arises. “Usually our placements happen organically and it has been the case this year as well,” he said. “The placements with the help of the alumni network is yet to happen and we are expecting it in the next phase of placements. Usually whenever there is a need or requirement, our alumni informs us and we tie up with the respective companies accordingly.”
Some of the alumni who went to become start-up owners have also stepped in to help the institutes and hired students from the IIT campuses. It is also a two-way street as many students approached the alumni on their own as well, through Linkedin and the alumni network groups.
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Not just placements
It isn’t just with placements and internships that the former students of the IITs help the institutes. A number of them also help with donations and regular financial contributions.
The IIT alumni list contains some stellar names — Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla from IIT Delhi; Arun Sarin who became CEO Vodafone in 2003 and Google CEO Sundar Pichai from IIT Kharagpur and Ola Cabs founder Bhavish Agarwal and Housing.com founder Rahul Yadav from IIT Bombay, among others.
IIT Delhi, for example, has an endowment fund of Rs 250 crore, wherein top alumni of the institute such as Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal have pledged money.
The institute aims to raise $1 billion over the next six years with help from industry leaders and alumni who are now in senior management positions at companies in India and abroad.
Explaining the former students’ connect with the institute, Sanjeev Sanghi, former dean of alumni affairs at IIT Delhi, said, “The reason that people are so attached to the institute is because they stay in hostels for four-five years as students and that builds a bond between the students and the institution. Even after they graduate, they do not forget the institute.”
Alumni at IIT Madras are no different. “In the academic year 2019-2020, it would be safe to say that alumni chapters have cumulatively added about 20 per cent to the institutes total funding,” Prof Panchagnula said. “We have raised Rs 114 crore from alumni and corporate funding. The government funding is a little over Rs 500 crore; the extra funding helps us spend the government money more wisely. It funds a lot of activities that a government cannot fund right away.”
IIT Kanpur has a 22-year-old alumni association that currently has 40,000 members. The association mentors students in several areas to help with their progress.
“Currently, the association has 200 active mentors who are helping students in their research and post placement activities,” an alumni association member told ThePrint.
At IIT Roorkee, the alumni have instituted various awards for students, one of them being the ‘Excellence in time management award’. “This award is meant to encourage students to manage their time in the best possible manner while excelling in academic as well as extra-curricular activities,” Prof Gurjar of IIT Roorkee said.
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