Engineering students brace for a tough placement season amid tech downturn
campus hiring, as many IT/ITeS companies that typically recruit a big chunk of students have either stayed away so far or are deferring their plans.
In a typical year, 30% to 50% of the offers come from IT/ITeS companies alone, placement officials at over half a dozen engineering colleges in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan told ET.
This year, Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant have not yet visited Government Engineering College, Thrissur (Kerala), said its training and placement officer Subin Poulose. The college had received more than 770 offers for 400 students in the Class of 2022, which dropped to close to 570 offers for the Class of 2023.
«This year, we expect the offers to drop further by 20% or more,» said Poulose.
At the Jaipur-headquartered Poornima group, which runs three engineering colleges and one university, several of the big IT/ITeS recruiters including Infosys, Capgemini and Cognizant have not come yet for the 2024 batch.
«Only TCS has given a positive indication that they will hire in good numbers,» said its director, corporate relations, Dipti Lodha.
The group had anticipated the situation 8-9 months in advance and has called at least 50% more recruiters this time, she said.
IT recruiters in their conversations with the placement cells at the engineering colleges are citing reasons like cancellation of projects/uncertain demand environment for hiring lower numbers. IT services firms like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCLTech and Cognizant typically hire in large numbers from state government and private engineering colleges and a lower number from IITs and NITs.
These companies did not respond to ET's emailed questions till the time of going to the press Saturday.
Placements at most private and
