The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Techies no longer making tracks for U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Techies no longer making tracks for U.S.

By Akhila Seetharaman

CHENNAI, MARCH 31. It is a heady feeling; being 21, fresh out of Indian Institute of Technology-Madras and ready to conquer the world. Especially when you are making Rs. 8 lakh a year.

P. John knows the feeling, and so do Srikanth Srinivasan and Arvind Thiagarajan, graduating students of IIT-M. The institution has a history of `apping' (slang for applying to universities for higher studies) with many leaving for prestigious universities abroad.

But that may be changing.

"Five years ago, graduating students wouldn't think twice before accepting an offer from a good American university," says Arvind Thiagarajan, a computer science engineering student.

"Today people are considering whether they should stay and whether they really want to do masters or a Ph. D. Many may end up going abroad, but it is no longer an easy decision."

Despite the Rs. 8-lakh offer from the dot com Amazon India, Arvind is still considering admission offers from universities like Stanford.

But there is a significant trend in favour of campus placements. "The change in thinking could result in a real trend," he says. "Nobody blindly follows in their seniors footsteps anymore. People are more willing to evaluate each career option for what it is."

T.T. Narendran, professor of operations management, and in-charge of the placement cell, says the craze for going abroad has fallen steeply. He believes that when it comes to employment opportunities India is better than the United States.

On campus, information technology companies are still the majority recruiters but the margin is coming down, says Prof. Narendran. The brick-and-mortar variety has become a force to reckon with, matching the IT industry even when it comes to salaries.

Companies such as Tata Motors, Maruti, and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited jostle with Intel, Amazon, Oracle, IBM, Cognizant and Infosys for recruits.

Sharadh Srinivasan and Hari Krishna will be joining Schlumberger, an international company involved in oil field services. "I could be posted anywhere, maybe an oil rig in Venezuela or Tripura, who knows? It's the adventure that attracted me to the job," says Sharadh.

The bulk of the IT companies are around to hire, but most of the students joining them belong to non-IT streams. Some of the bulk recruiters of IT actually pay much less than core recruiters, remarks Prof. Narendran. But students have started asking questions about their cost to company and payroll.

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