The Indian media has been abuzz with activity since the last three days with some IIT students from the country getting eight figure starting salaries with some of the best recruiters in the world.
Facebook hired three students from IIT Mumbai and two from IIT Kharagapur as a part of their pre-campus placement package. Two of the five hired are women (one each from Mumbai and Kharagpur). The hype over these students getting a plum pay package of Rs 1.42 crore with the networking giant Facebook had barely subsided that we got to hear about four students from another IIT campus turning down offers which would sound like music to most ears.
It is the IIT Kanpur which is in the news this time. Four of their students (three boys and a girl) have spurned fat pay offers of upto Rs 1 crore a year. Two of them have settled for much lower salaries ‘in order to work for profiles which they found to be more suitable for themselves’ while two male students have opted to go in for higher studies instead of taking up any job offers at all, disclosed Prof Deepu Philip, Chairman of the IIT-Kanpur Placement Cell.
The names of the four students who turned down these enviable offers from a leading multinational during a campus recruitment drive on Wednesday have not been disclosed.
“The offer to these four students was for a take home of USD 150,000, or close to Rs 93 lakh per annum. Along with other incentives and perks, the size of the package was more than Rs 1 crore yearly,” Philip informed on Thursday.
“The girl student and one of the boys declined the offer saying it did not match their temperament and that they wanted professional fulfillment from their jobs. The two have accepted offers of Rs 50 lakh per annum from a smaller company. The remaining two students said they want to focus on higher studies and were, therefore, not keen on taking up the Rs 1 crore offer,” added Philip.
Earlier last week, a student from IIT Kharagpur had been offered a starting package for an IITian of Rs 1.5 crore a year said Philip without disclosing the name of the student and the company who made the offer to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to the student.
The best package ever for an IIT pass out was a Rs 1.54 crore offer to an IIT Kharagpur student!
A majority of the students who are being offered the best salaries this year are coding experts. Conventionally, computer science students get the best openings but since a fewer number of women opt for this stream, they do not get the best offers or offers which compare with their male counterparts on the campus.
“This is the main reason why fewer women manage to get the top deal. This year, there are only five women in the batch and most of us have managed to get a good deal,” said Deepali Adlakha, who got a position in San Francisco. “I did a lot of coding in the last few months which helped me bag the offer of my choice,” she added.
Another female IITian Shree Meghana Thotakuri was recruited by Google for a base package of Rs 65 lakh which, according to placement co-coordinators at IIT-B, is comparable if not better than the package given by other leading recruiters.
The Reality of Big Salaries
There was a time when fresh engineering pass outs would be ecstatic at the mention of such huge salaries but times are changing. And they are changing real fast!
People are now beginning to realize that salary offered by multinationals is a combination of fixed and variable. When you get to hear ‘starting package of Rs 1.4 crore’, the take home salary is not 1.4 crores!
If you get a job at Facebook in San Francisco the net take home salary will be less than half. The other components include stock options, joining bonus and other perks.
Besides, even a Rs 1.5 cr salary in San Francisco is just not the same as a similar salary, say in Mumbai, Bangalore or Delhi. It is much lesser for the same or a similar lifestyle.
Not only that, an ambitious pass out will always evaluate the long term prospects instead of being blinded by a hefty starting package.
“These students who are running to the U.S. need to realize that they are not as likely to get to the top positions. Satya Nadellas don’t happen everyday, you see. May be they will become senior coders. The architect positions will be held by Americans mostly. If these same guys worked in India, they could have become Senior architects.. but the lure of America to IITians is irresistible,”said a consultant with a leading American company
All engineering campuses are humming with activity at present.
Wishing all those on the threshold of promising careers a sane and mature head on their shoulders!
congratulations to all,where ever you work create some thing to useful for world
OMG!!! Still can’t believe my eyes…1 crore offer !!! Still they turned down? May be they know better what suits their style…Thanks Ambika for sharing.