Flipkart, major e-commerce companies not hiring from IITs and IIMs this year; PSUs make a comeback to campuses

Owing to a tough market scenario in e-commerce coupled with last year's bitter experience with IITs and IIMs, fewer startups are visiting the premier IITs during campus placement this year.

Some of the larger recruiters from the previous year from e-commerce like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Hopscotch did not come for summer placements. They are expected to stay away from the upcoming placements as well. "FMCG and other standard recruiters hired in larger numbers and students got their choice of internships. The trend might continue into the finals,” said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM Bangalore.

Flipkart particularly is likely to stay off campuses and instead focus on absorbing the students it has previously hired, as per company sources.

175 students from IITs have been interning with Flipkart who will be graduating in 2017 and the company claims it is focusing on making them Pre Placement Offers. The remaining 250 odd students from IITs and IIMs whose joining dates were deferred by the e-commerce giant will join the company mid-December. This will make up for Flipkart's campus needs for 2017.

At IIT-M, Google is also unlikely to participate — the search engine giant will be recruiting from select IITs, apart from its internal process.

At such a time, the institutes have been banking on public sector undertakings for jobs. PSUs were in great demand in IITs before a public interest litigation was filed in 2011 against the campus recruitment process. The petition cited that the PSUs recruiting directly from campuses defies the public employment policy and that they cannot disregard job notifications. After a long hiatus from campuses, the PSUs were expected to be back on the premier institutions after the Madras High Court dismissed a plea against direct recruitment in September last year.

This year, IITs reached out to 80-odd PSUs in the country for placements. About five have confirmed their presence in each of these institutes. ISRO, Indian Navy and Coal India are already recruiting from IIT Madras campus. Meanwhile, some of the PSUs registered at IITs have opted for slots in the second phase of recruiting in January.

(Image credits: Indiatimes)