Engineering campus placements shift gears: Fewer hires, fatter pay cheques

Despite fast changing technology and demands, even now computer science continues to dominate recruitment. Placement officers also point to a growing preference among recruiters for women candidates as companies strengthen diversity hiring initiatives.

Officials across city colleges said annual salary packages for fresh computer science graduates now commonly range between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 8 lakh, a marked increase from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh packages that were typical a few years ago.

“The trend this placement cycle has been that companies want talented students and are willing to offer better packages than before, but the number of recruits by established firms reduced,” said Bejoy Varghese, placement officer at Federal Institute of Science and Technology (FISAT).

He added that students with strong technical knowledge and skills have a better chance of securing higher salary packages this year. At the same time, colleges need to collaborate with more companies to ensure better placement opportunities for all students.

Model Engineering College, Thrikkakara, said they have had one of the best placement seasons in recent years. According to faculty member Aparna Devi, over 500 of the college’s 612 BTech students secured placements this year.

“The participation of recruiters has increased, enabling more students to get placed. The average salary package in computer science went up to Rs 8 lakh from around Rs 6 lakh in previous years,” she said.

At Rajagiri School of Engineering & Technology, more than 75% of students received placements at the ongoing campus recruitment.

Albertian Institute of Science and Technology (AISAT) also reported a strong placement season, with 252 out of 300 students securing campus offers, translating to an 84% placement rate.

“Companies are recruiting fewer freshers than before, so colleges have to reach out to a larger number of recruiters to maintain placement levels,” said Jose Mathew, who oversees placements at AISAT.

At Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat), programmes such as BTech in safety and fire engineering and MTech in industrial safety engineering achieved 100% placements.

“A unique trend this year is the increase in diversity hiring. Many companies are specifically seeking more female candidates as part of their workforce diversity policies,” said Deepa Balakrishnan, placement officer at Cusat.

In Cusat’s BTech computer science programme, the highest salary package touched Rs 42 lakh per annum, while the average package stood at around Rs 6 lakh.