Microsoft, Google, Amazon bring ‘good news’ for IITs

Microsoft, Amazon and Goldman Sachs are among those setting the pace at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) with students getting a record number of job offers, bucking the slowdown in the employment market. That’s even before final placements kick off at most of the older IITs on December 1.
Pre-placement offers at IITs — both old and new — including those at Mumbai, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Gandhinagar for the class of 2020, have beaten last year’s corresponding numbers by 19-24%, according to institute placement cells. In the case of Hyderabad, they’ve almost doubled. At some of these IITs, even more preplacement offers (PPOs) are expected in the coming week in the run-up to final placements.
At IIT-Bombay, as of early November, the number of PPOs spiked 24% to 163 from the year earlier. They had risen to 37 from 19 in 2018-19 at IIT-Hyderabad, as of November 19. IIT-Guwahati has seen a 19% rise in PPOs to 119 so far. At IIT-Gandhinagar, they-’re up 20% and IIT-Kharagpur has crossed last year’s tally of 261, with more lined up. The premier engineering colleges have remained largely insulated from the slowdown.