Top offers not too high; number of jobs dwindled: Here's all that happened at IITs as they wrap up first phase of placements

As the first phase of placements at IITs comes to a close, trends highlight a lot about how India's premier institutes fared in this recruitment season.

While several big ticket companies stayed off campuses and international offers took a hit this time, the younger IITs had the last laugh as they fared much better than the older ones in terms of salaries and international offers to students. A lot of other interesting points came out.

Here's all you need to know about the IIT placements that just concluded:

Number of job offers dwindled
These are mostly the older IITs like Kharagpur and Kanpur which have registered a significant slump in recruitments. At IIT-Kharagpur, the number of offers came down to 1,080 from 1,300 in 2016 while IIT-Kanpur saw the number fall to 725 from 800. IIT Roorkee made an exception - the number of recruiters visiting the campus was up to 243 from last year's 180 while the total number of offers were almost the same as last year, at about 680. The reason for this is being seen as:

Offers per company saw a decline
At IIT-Mumbai, Madras and Guwahati, the number of total offers went up, but offers per company were fewer than previous years. Large recruiters like Coal India, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs were particularly conservative in handing out letters. At IIT Delhi, average number of offers from each recruiter was down by about 15 per cent compared to last year.

Many companies like Boston Consultancy Group, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft, which had hired in huge numbers from the campus last year, radically cut the number of recruits. Several opted for pre-placement offers instead of coming to the campus and holding interviews. Those students who had already joined them as interns were given full-time placement offers.

Top recruiters stayed off IIT campuses
At IIT Roorkee, officials blamed the absence of bigtime recruiter Google for the total number of offers going down to 700 from 2015's 740. Google chose to hire off-campus. Flipkart, after its strained relations with IITs for deferring campus offers in the previous placements, was nowhere to be seen this time around. Snapdeal stayed off-campus too.

Top offers not too high
Not many croreplus packages were handed out this time. The number fell by more than 50 per cent since 2014. Plunging international offers from US firms and the likes of Facebook and Google going off-campus is being seen as the reason behind this. Moreover, Cost to company among the international offers made by companies like Oracle barely crossed Rs 1.2 crore this year (inclusive of bonuses and stock options) compared to Rs 2 crore-plus in 2014.

Newer IITs had the last laugh
Newer IITs saw an increase in top as well as average salaries. IIT Indore, Ropar and Mandi received their first international offers this year, with salaries touching as high as Rs 40 lakh a year. At IIT Hyderabad, there were 16 offers for international positions. At IIT Mandi, four students got international offers from a Japanese company. An IIT student Patna bagged an international offer of Rs 35 lakh. The highest salary at IIT Indore increased from Rs 28 lakh last year to more than Rs 30 lakh, at Hyderabad it increased by Rs 4 lakh to Rs 38 lakh. Also, one of the big recruiters at IITs, Amazon, was seen visiting 17 IITs including the young ones in Indore, Jodhpur and Bhubaneswar this year.

PSUs made a stunning comeback
Public sector units returned to the IITs post the ban on PSU hiring from campuses was lifted. Companies like Coal India, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, and Bharat Petroleum visited colleges early in the placement season. For the first time, IIT Delhi, Madras and Roorkee gave day 1 slots to PSUs and the companies obliged by offering double digit salaries to students in the first two weeks of placements.