Tech students are market savvy
RASHEED KAPPAN
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Majority of them want to join IT product companies and prefer to work in Bangalore
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Illustration: Naveen Kumar
Industry-academia partnership is a fashionable phrase both in academic and industry circles. B-schools often proclaim their relevance by citing MoUs signed with private firms. Corporates go to town every time their corporate social responsibility rubs academia the right way. Yet, the two fields mostly work in isolation. That is just one pointer of a recent survey, which went beyond such partnerships to pan such sensitive issues as compensation and student perception.
First, the big findings of the “Compensation Survey and Student Perception Study” unveiled recently by Campus Connec, a division of the HR consultancy firm CareerNet Consulting: Only 2.5 per cent of the engineering graduates get upwards of Rs. 7 lakh while 63 per cent get hired between Rs. 2 lakh and Rs. 4 lakh per annum. Forty-five per cent students prefer IT product companies, followed by the financial services companies and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) firms. Surprisingly, IT services are placed at the bottom.
The survey was conducted across 110 technology schools/engineering colleges all over India, and involved more than 1,300 students besides compensation data shared by 30 IT companies.
CareerNet Consulting co-founder Rishi Das explains the rationale behind the survey: “Some corporate houses have already started recruiting from colleges outside India, with a few covering the entire APAC region. A comprehensive ‘Perception Survey’ was the need of the hour in order to find out the gaps between academia, industry and the student expectations.”
What students want
The survey revealed that at the campus level, 45 per cent of the students prefer IT product companies followed by semi-conductor, High End Computing and VLSI segments. This is followed by the financial services companies and KPOs. The IT services companies are the least preferred, the sector being the choice of only 7.7 per cent male candidates and 19 per cent female.
For IT services companies, 70 per cent of the hiring takes place at engineering campuses and the rest from science students. In the case of IT product and other companies, the corresponding figures are 60 per cent from engineering colleges and 40 per cent from science schools.
Explains Mr. Das, “Smaller companies involved with product design or semi- conductors currently reach just 80 to 100 colleges, thereby having access to a maximum of 10,000 students. However, given the nature of their requirements and numbers, they need to put added efforts in campus branding, incubation programmes and joint collaborations in research and development.”
But the bigger brand names which are largely into services today virtually cover more than 300 engineering colleges, and by implication over 400,000 engineering students. Students from Grade A colleges are able to obtain offers of their choice in the ratio 2:1, while the ratio is 3:1 in Grade B colleges and 5:1 in Grade C colleges. This only means that engineers passing out of premier institutes such as the IITs, NITs or BIT are better tuned into market requirements than the other institutes.
Placement realities
The survey revealed that at the time of campus recruitment, 51 per cent students favoured a crisp and structured company presentation with clear job details, growth prospects and compensation structure. Thirty per cent preferred meeting with the alumni working in the company to listen to first hand experiences about the jobs on offer. Companies offering lunch, snacks or gifts are seen to be frivolous with an overall 10 per cent biting into it.
The survey had a surprise in store in terms of geography. Bangalore beat all and sundry, including the U.S., to emerge as the number one preferred career destination. Over 30 per cent of the engineering graduates from the surveyed technology schools wanted to come to Bangalore. A foreign destination, including the U.S., was only second at 20 per cent. Delhi came next and a place closer to home was the next best.
Mr. Das explains why Bangalore is such a hot spot: “Bangalore has emerged as the preferred destination for students because of a complete ecosystem in IT space that exists here. We have companies from IT product development to VLSI to semi-conductor to IT services and consulting. This provides a huge scope for any engineer planning a career in the IT industry.”
The industry had to be located closer to their homes for 18 per cent of the women students surveyed. Only eight per cent of the male candidates had this condition. Most of those who put this demand either had a family to take care or had a family business to run beside their own job.
Money matters
For students and the academia, the survey had some revealing facts about where they stood in terms of compensation packages. Despite the boom in the IT industry and talks about million dollar paycheques, only 2.5 per cent of the over 400,000 engineering graduates produced by the country drew upwards of Rs 700,000 per annum.
The survey also found that 63 per cent of the students were hired for salaries between Rs. 2 lakh and Rs. 4 lakh. Companies in the IT products sector were paid in the range of Rs. 5 lakh-Rs. 9 lakh while those in the IT services sector had annual salaries of about Rs. 3.5 lakh. The semi-conductor companies, which have started looking at campus recruitments in a big way, paid around Rs. 4.5 lakh.
The flavour during campus recruitments, the survey found, were the KPO / finance companies which are picking up huge numbers with the most handsome salaries.
Says Mr. Das, “We found that in order to meet high expectations of engineering students, IT companies did increase their salary offering but without any marked difference or any improvement in the job profiles. Only 17.3 per cent fresh engineers landed jobs of their choice.”
On attrition, the survey found that within six months, most freshers would find themselves unhappy with the assignments at the work place.
Forty per cent students leave before the end of the first year while another 20 per cent leave in the second year —“a result of wrong choice made during the placement season.”
“The need of the hour is to match the student expectations with the market realities,” suggests Mr. Das.
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