Pre-placement job offers at the IITs bring relief

Pre-placement offers (PPOs) – including some in the crore-plus bracket – are providing the Class of 2024 at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) some breathing space as they approach one of the toughest placement seasons in the shadow of a tech slowdown.

PPOs translate into jobs in hand for the students who have accepted them, even before final placements begin on December 1 at the old IITs.

For campus placement teams, it means fewer students to place in a year when many companies have slashed hiring numbers, and some are skipping placements altogether.

Campus sources said acceptance rates of pre-placement offers have gone up and students are being encouraged to accept offers.

While the pace of growth of PPOs has slowed down significantly compared to recent years, the total number of offers is more or less in line with last year, they said.

Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Texas Instruments, P&G, JPMC, ITC, Mastercard, American Express, Goldman Sachs and KLA-Tencor are among companies that have made PPOs, as have high-frequency trading firms including Quantbox Research and NK Securities Research.

At IIT Guwahati, the highest PPO stands at ₹1.1 crore and five students have received PPOs upwards of ₹1 crore, said Lalit Mohan Pandey, head of its Centre for Career Development.

So far, 214 students at the institute have received PPOs compared to 218 last year. “This year, a few recruiters did not offer PPOs to the interns due to headcount and finance constraints,” Pandey said. “However, more companies in the core and finance sectors have made PPOs.”

There’s been a 10% increase in the number of recruiters who offered PPOs this year as a result of more companies being invited, he added. IIT-BHU has bagged 302 PPOs so far compared to last year’s 305 and the highest offer so far is ₹1.68 crore from NK Securities, Sushant K Shrivastava, coordinator, training and placement cell, at the institute, told ET.