IIT and IIM job offers are fast vanishing and a second placement drive in July might be underway

• Due to Coronavirus lockdown, several companies have postponed joining dates, slashed salaries and are even considering revoking the job offers rolled out earlier.
  
• A few companies are also considering virtual onboarding for new hires.
  
• The withdrawal of job offers by several companies has left many students stranded as the placement policy at several IITs does not allow a student — who has been offered once — to sit for other placements.
  
• The students are reaching out to their alumni network to place students in the less affected sectors.

After job losses and salary cuts, there are another set of victims of the Corona crisis -- new college passouts who landed plum job offers - that might not hold true anymore.

While a few companies, a select few, are onboarding for new hires virtually, most other passouts are facing the fate of most job holders. Several companies postponed the joining dates, slashed salaries and are even considering revoking the job offers rolled out earlier.

That leaves students of premier IITs and IIMs that secured over 4,000 offers, in dire straits. It does not help that most of them bagged ‘above-average salary packages’ this placement season. Most of the recruits were top-notch consulting firms, multinational companies, tech majors and more who were banking on a reversal of the economic downturn that the economy saw last year. Now, they are in throes of a possible global recession

In a heartfelt post, V Ramgopal Rao, director at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi appealed to recruiters who are planning to rescind job offers. He believes that his students can help fight the recessionary trends, and asked recruiters to be considerate.

“We understand that these are difficult times. But please be considerate to keep your promises. A few months of delay may be fine. If at all, these students are capable of getting you out of recession faster than you can imagine,” he said.


The withdrawal of job offers by several companies has left many students stranded as the placement policy at several IITs does not allow a student — who has been offered once — to sit for other placements.

“If a job or internship offer is withdrawn at this stage, the student, having given up the right to apply for similar jobs, will end up not having any job right now,” Rao explained.

IIT-Kanpur to host another placement drive in July-August

In the meanwhile, premiere institutes have kickstarter their placement drives yet again as the number of offers being taken back have risen.

A US-based consultancy firm recently repealed 11 job offers made to students at IIT Delhi, Madras and Kanpur campuses. The situation, the institutes are now figuring out ways to place the students whose offers have been revoked in other companies. They are even reaching out to their alumni network to place students in the less affected sectors.

On the other hand, IIT-Kanpur director Abhay Karandikar also said that the institute will arrange a dedicated placement drive in July-August for those students who have been affected by the withdrawal of offers.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are also dealing with the last minute withdrawals. IIM Bangalore said that it will now reach out to those recruiters who had shown interest in hiring from the top institute earlier but were not a part of the placement drive — to check if they are still willing to hire candidates.

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