Placement offers withdrawn, IIT graduates look for jobs on social media

Sumit (name changed), a mechanical engineer who graduated last year with a dual degree from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B), has been looking for a job on social media since August 2020

Sumit (name changed), a mechanical engineer who graduated last year with a dual degree from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B), has been looking for a job on social media since August 2020. He was among the few lucky students to secure a job in the first week of the placement drive at the institute in December 2019 and was hopeful of joining soon after his graduation, but the offer was rescinded by the company that had hired him.

By the end of August last year, 22 graduates had lost their job offers at IIT-B. (HT File)

“I’ve applied for a number of positions since then but haven’t received any positive thing yet,” said Sumit, who is among a pool of graduates from various reputed IITs now looking for jobs on social media sites.

Last year, most IITs had reported a good round of placements for the batch of students graduating in 2020. However, by August, several recruiters decided to withdraw their offers as their finances had been hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.

While some IITs are allowing students to take part in the placement drives being held for the current batch, others are providing job leads through alumni networks. However, most of the recent graduates are left in the lurch. “Since August 2020, I have sent a number of mails to placement in-charge and dean of student affairs seeking permission to sit for this year’s placement session, but there has been no positive response. So I have started looking for jobs by highlighting my strengths on social media and job portals,” said Sumit.

Despite repeated attempts, the placement cell of IIT-B did not respond to queries.

At IIT-Madras, last year’s batch got a total of 1,050 offers, including 126 pre-placement offers (PPOs). Of these, 28 were withdrawn, according to professor CS Shankar Ram, advisor (training and placement), IIT-Madras. The institute is now allowing graduates, who lost their jobs or could not secure a placement offer in the previous round, to appear for the ongoing placement season. The institute had also reached out to recruiters to reinstate their offers.

In May 2020, IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao had made a public appeal to recruiters to not withdraw offers as students, who had secured jobs, would not be allowed to appear for placements again. Over 1,100 students had received job offers at IIT-Delhi during the placement drive of 2019-20, of which 11 were withdrawn. “Students were provided support up to July 2020. Currently, openings for graduated students are available through the office of career services (OCS), alumni networks and notice boards,” said Anishya Madan, head, OCS, IIT-Delhi.

However, job options through alumni networks and notice boards are few, said graduates.