It is raining cash, IITians never had it so good

Public sector companies are matching the salaries that multinationals pay, writes Sumitra Deb Roy.

Students graduating from Bombay IIT have never had it better. Four out of every five have already been recruited by top companies — at top salaries — in the course of just seven weeks of this year’s campus interviews in Powai.

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Four young engineers have been offered starting salaries of US$ 65,000 a year (Rs 30 lakh) by Capital One for California-based jobs. While that figure is exceptionally high, most of the 120 companies recruiting on campus have hiked entry-level packages by approximately 40 per cent over last year.

The highest package for a position in India is Rs 10 lakh, offered by Goldman Sachs.

A Subash Babu, professor-in-charge of placement, IIT, Bombay sees two reasons for this: a booming economy, where companies are earning higher profits which they might want to pass on to employees; and the competition among the companies “to get the best brains”.

The placement cell often gets calls from companies wanting to get earlier campus visits than competitors, so they can get to the cream of student body first.

The competition has meant that even public sector companies are matching the salaries that multinationals pay. A job with Indian Oil Corporation or Bharat Petroleum will pay about as well (around Rs 7-8.5 lakh) as one with Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs.