NEW DELHI | MUMBAI: Samsung is set to emerge the top recruiter from IIT campuses this year with plans to hire more than 300 engineers from the country’s premier technology institutes.
The South Korean mobile phone and electronics major is leading the race in terms of making maximum offers in at least three Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses after the first eight days of final placements this year.
Other big recruiters that have made a large number of offers so far across IITs include EXL, Reliance Industries (RIL) and Capgemini. Despite facing a rough time globally since the first reports of the Note 7 catching fire came to light in early September, Samsung is in aggressive hiring mode.
A Samsung India spokesperson said the company plans to hire over 300 engineers from the IITs this year for its research and development (R&D) institutes in Bengaluru, Noida and Delhi.
“IITs offer some of the best engineering talent in India, and these young engineers are well-suited to the innovation mindset at Samsung,” the person
said.
According to data from campuses, Samsung made the maximum number of offers at IIT Roorkee, IIT Varanasi (Banaras Hindu University) and Guwahati, handing out 95 offers in these three campuses.
At IIT Kharagpur, it is trailing only Coal India. Samsung is also hiring aggressively from other top IITs such as Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur and Hyderabad. Another top recruiter this year is outsourcing and analytics service provider EXL that has visited eight IITs, including Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Madras, Guwahati, and BHU (Varanasi) this year, and made 127 offers, up from 111last year.
“Driven by its growth-induced demand, EXL has been consistently increasing its offers at the campuses primarily due to the quality, aptitude and trainability of the candidates,” said Vivek Jetley, senior vice-president, EXL Analytics.
“EXL hires primarily for its consultant role from all the above campuses,” he added. Placements at IITs started on December 1 and are still ongoing. The first phase of the process will end later this month, only to pick up again in January.
“Samsung Bangalore has been the top recruiter at our institute this year with 25 offers,” said Kaustubha Mohanty, head, centre for career development, IIT Guwahati. Other top recruiters from the campus so far include data analytics company FICO with 15 offers, and EXL and RIL with 11 offers each.
At IIT Kharagpur, placement chairperson Debasis Deb said Coal India is set to be the top recruiter for the second year in a row, having made 26 offers so far. It is followed by Samsung Bangalore and EXL with 22 offers each, and Mentor Graphics and ZS Associates with 14 offers each.
At IIT Roorkee, Samsung made 26 offers, followed by Wipro with 23 offers, Microsoft with 17, Reliance Industries with 16, and Citicorp Services India and EXL with 15 offers each.
Microsoft was the largest recruiter last year with 31offers, said NP Padhy, professorin-charge for placement at the institute. Microsoft declined to comment on the marginal dip in its hiring numbers this year. The software giant has so far made more than 70 offers across IITs this year, including 20 offers for international profiles.
“Our drive at IITs this year is in keeping with our increased focus on R&D and engineering excellence as we move towards becoming a cloud and services organisation,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email response.
Power management company Eaton also recruited in good numbers. It made 11 offers at IIT Hyderabad to emerge the single largest recruiter there while at IIT BHU it made 10 offers.
At IIT BHU, Samsung made 44 offers followed by Goldman Sachs with 23 offers, Citi Corp with 22, and Capgemini with 21 offers. BHU offer numbers include pre-placement offers. At IIT Madras, the companies in pecking order (starting from highest number of offers) are Intel, Citicorp Services, Samsung R&D Bangalore, Eaton, EY, EXL and Axis Bank.