Campus placements take a hit as IT majors cut back, posing challenges for engineering graduates
placement season.
“It’s quieter this time,” said Sudhir Yadav, proprietor of a photocopy centre within the campus of a tier-2 engineering college in Pune.
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During large campus placement drives by the IT majors, photocopy centres overflow with students printing notes and resumés. But this year, companies have either not visited campus yet or evaluated and picked fewer candidates, said Yadav.
“Final year students are busy discussing plans related to higher studies and extra courses rather than CVs.” It’s not surprising, considering that cumulatively, the top four IT majors have shed their headcount by 37,299 over the past two quarters.
This compares to an addition of 81,678 during H1 of the 2023 fiscal. In many cases, companies have deferred fresher onboarding by over a year.
Deepti*, a final year engineering student at a Navi Mumbai college, said that when she chose civil engineering in 2020, she was told that her stream would not matter in four years’ time because everyone with decent scores gets a shot at applying for IT companies.
“My family is from rural Maharashtra. My sister is a mechanical engineer who got placed
