The Hindu Business Line : It’s still IT over manufacturing for engg students: CII

Pune, Aug. 8 Information technology continues to remain the most preferred career choice for engineering students after completion of their course. Engineering and automobile companies are ranked below IT as the other two preferred organisations, with a significant rise in the percentage of respondents opting for auto companies.

This is one of the findings of the survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry-Western Region on the Career choices of Management and Engineering Students and Professionals in Information Technology (IT) companies in Pune, brought out recently.

The survey also found that management students continued to prefer jobs in the services sector (IT/services/financial service organisations) after completion of their course. While the highest percentage of students opted for IT, the percentage is the same as during the previous survey in 2001.

Financial services

Additionally, management students now prefer financial services over FMCG (indicated by a drop in FMCG from 19 per cent to just two per cent). Finance, HR and marketing are the most preferred functional areas for management students.

However, there is a significant shift in favour of finance over marketing with only 29 per cent of the management students now having opted for marketing as against 69 per cent in the previous survey.

As in the previous survey, only an insignificant proportion of engineers in management courses have opted for specialisation in Operations/Production/Quantitative Techniques.

Production continues to remain the most preferred functional area for engineering students, while Finance, Development and R&D constitute other top preferred functional areas.

Top 5 draws

For both management and engineering students, the top five job factors in order of priority are opportunities for career growth, learning opportunities for professional growth, work environment, opportunities for creativity and innovation and compensation package.

“While this survey unravels the factors that make a workplace ‘attractive’ today, the findings are much the same as during the first survey carried out in 2001.

“The news is that not much has changed over seven years! Yes, salaries and salary expectations have gone up significantly but compensation is still not the most important job factor for students and professionals alike and a majority of the students continue to prefer IT and services over manufacturing,” Dr Naushad Forbes, Deputy Chairman of CII (WR) said.