Even though the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have seen a rise in the overall number of job offers, there has been a decline in offers for onsite roles from US multinationals. This has happened primarily due to issues with availability of adequate number of H-1B visas.
According to placement officials, while US-based firms like Oracle, Visa Inc and Microsoft have participated this year, they have made fewer offers. Facebook, Twitter and Uber also did not make any international offers this year.
Internet giant Google preferred to go through the pre-placement route this year and made offers to only those students who had completed a three-month internship with the firm. Ankur Agarwal, Student Placement Coordinator at IIT-Khargpur, said that Google visited its campus for final placements but did not make an offer.
“We have seen a few companies offering US roles dropout, as during the past few years the visa norms have become more stringent. So there have been cases where companies have hired students but have not been able to secure H-1B visas for them. They, then, have had to move them to another international office,” said Atul Shukla, Placement-Coordinator at IIT-Bombay.
The US grants 65,000 H-1B visas every year. In 2014, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 172,000 more applications than the number of H-1B visas it can grant, forcing it to decide on the successful applicants through a computerised draw of lots.
Interestingly, four out of the eight students from IIT-Delhi who received international offers during placements this year rejected them for domestic roles.
However, IIT-Bombay has seen more international roles offered for Japan and South-East Asian countries like Taiwan. Japanese firm Works Applications has made nine offers at IIT-Guwhati this year, said Harish Bohara, Overall Coordinator of Placements. Domestic offers, nevertheless, have seen a major increase in all IITs with core engineering firms and start-ups leading the way. IIT-Bombay has seen 500 students placed so far from 100 companies across different sectors such as finance, consulting, core engineering and software. Ecommerce firms and start-ups such as Ola Cabs, Roadrunnr, Grofers and Codenation have made several offers across IITs.
Bohara from IIT-Guwhati said that compensation packages have seen an average increase of 15 per cent this year.
The first phase of placements at IITs began on December 1.