Changing Threshold

With the highest salary offer of Rs 34 lakh per annum in 2006-07, IIT Roorkee has seen one of the highest jumps this time, more than making up for last years almost stale performance: a whopping 208%, with Capital One going all out to change the salary threshold and equations for the institute. The average salary offered by all companies, specifically the IT companies, pales in comparison.

The institutes overall recruitment trend shows IT/BPO companies losing sheen. Of the 455 BE/BTech students that got recruited from the campus across all types of companies, only 193 were placed by IT/BPO companies in 2006-07. As compared to this, 248 students were placed by the IT/BPO companies of the total 392 in 2005-06.

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	IIT Roorkee

The possibility that IT/BPO companies are not being able to hold ground in the face of increasing salary competitiveness from the non-IT firms might be real. The IT biggies also have not been able to come close to the salaries offered by the consultancy and finance companies. The story remains similar in 2008 as well.

Crawling Up

Consistent performance over the last two years has helped IIT Kanpur steadily move up the ranks. Industry relationship and partnership are key areas for this tech school. IIT Kanpur has maintained its stronghold on the parameter of industry interface, standing at #2.

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	IIT Kanpur

Among the recent industry tie-ups, IIT Kanpur signed an MoU with Autodesk to establish a Digital Innovation Lab (DIL) for innovative design and research targeted to help develop innovative design skills among students, and to create a sustained pool of skilled manpower in the country. Earlier, in 2007, TCS and IIT Kanpur also announced a collaboration to promote higher education and research in storage computing and related technologies.The institute has particularly improved its performance on the placement and salary front in 2006-07 over 2005-06.

A cause for concern is the number of IT companies visiting the campus, which has been on a steady decline.

Steady Move Up

In absolute terms, the highest salary offer at Rs 32.27 lakh per annum in 2006-07 stands well among its IIT peers. This is a quantum jump from the highest salary offer of Rs 7.75 lakh per annum in 2004-05. The strong growth of 316% has catapulted the institute into a different league altogether when it comes to salaries. However, the major spurt came in 2005-06, taking the salary levels from the single digit to the double-digit figure with a 215% growth.

Strengthening of the industry interface further helped in bolstering the institutes image as well as standing among the other institutes. Early 2008, when TCS decided to make its first collaboration with an IIT, it chose IIT Guwahati. The company signed MoU with the institute for setting up a TCS learning center on the IIT campus and to collaborate on R&D based on mutual interests. The TCS Learning Center would train about 150 engineering graduates in the first batch. This was also the first investment and long term commitment by a major IT player. Under the Open Source Technology Program, Microsoft also signed an MoU with IIT Guwahati.

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	IIT Guwahati

In spite of the strong industry-academia partnerships, the institute didnt see much fillip in the number of IT/BPO companies visiting the campus for recruitment in 2006-07. This is in line with the general trend of lesser number of IT/BPO companies coming for campus placements. As compared to 44 IT/BPO companies visiting the campus in 2005-06, there were 46 in 2006-07, seeing an addition of only two companies.

Big Fall

IIT Chennai is the only IIT that has done worse on its previous years performance, slipping by four ranks. This is also the biggest fall among all the Top 15 tech schools being listed in the survey. Except for placement, the institutes scores in all the individual parameters of infrastructure, academic environment and industry interface has gone down over its scores in 2006-07. The improvement in the overall placement score is marginal at 14.73%.

On the other hand, the institute more or less maintained the perception it enjoys among HR managers from the industry, with the HR score coming down very marginally from 25 to 24.60. However, when it comes to salaries, IIT Chennai catches up with its other IIT peers. In fact, at Rs 39 lakh per annum (an international placement by Bloomberg USA and equivalent of the dollar salary offered) the institute is able to command the second highest salary offer for an IIT after IIT Delhi.

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	IIT Chennai

Meanwhile, the average salary for the institute went up from Rs 5.3 lakh per annum in 2005-06 to Rs 5.5 lakh per annum. The average salary offered by IT companies went up from Rs 3 lakh per annum to Rs 4 lakh during the same period.

However, the IT/BPO didnt seem as enthusiastic about hiring considering the number of students placed in IT/BPO companies more than halved. While in 2005-06, 377 students were placed in these companies, only 134 were placed in 2006-07. Furthermore, the number of IT/BPO companies visiting the campus came down from 41 in 2005-06 to 27 in 2006-07. This, while the overall number of companies visiting the campus increased from 143 to 170 during the same period.

Better Hires

International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabads move up the ranks can be attributed to the improvement it has made in the areas of placement and infrastructure. The institute has improved its score in placement by 27.5% and bettered its infrastructure score by 28.4%. The score on academic environment went up by 8.3%.

The maximum salary was offered by Credit SuisseRs 10.5 lakh per annum. This bettered last years maximum offer by Google only by Rs 1.2 lakh per annum. Interestingly, Google had been offering the maximum salary to the students of IIIT-H for the previous two yearsRs 8.5 lakh per annum in 2004-05 and Rs 9.3 lakh in 2005-06. However, the company is conspicuous by its absence in 2006-07.

Meanwhile, the average salary from IT companies went up from Rs 4.5 lakh per annum in 2005-06 to Rs 5.4 lakh in 2006-07. The average salary from all companies increased from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 5.6 lakh during the same period.

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	IIIT Hyderabad

The institute also saw a fillip in campus placements. The number of students placed through campus in IT/BPO companies went up from 93 in 2005-06 to 130 in 2006-07. And those placed across all type of companies also underwent a similar growth, as they went up from 93 in 2005-06 to 135 in 2006-07. Also, the number of IT/BPO companies visiting the institutes campus grew from 30 in 2005-06 to 37 in 2006-07. When it comes to all types of companies visiting the campus, the number increased from 30 in 2005-06 to 40 in 2006-07.

Industry interface is an area that IIIT Hyderabad needs to improve in, especially with no MoU signed by the industry. As a result, the institutes score on the industry interface parameter has gone down by 65.1%, even though its scores have improved on all other parameters including HR.

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