Brand NIT-C stands tall

Updated on: Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Only a few academic institutions could buck the trend of the economic slowdown vis-À-vis placements this time. The National Institute of Technology Calicut (NIT-C) is one among them. What made this possible?

T.K. Suresh Babu, Professor (Training and Placement), NIT-C, said that one of the reasons could be the acceptability of the NIT brand. “Currently, if you look at technical education in the country, some of the NITs are performing on a par with t he Indian Institutes of Technology. Therefore, there is demand for NIT graduates also,” he said.

The NIT brand has definitely helped placements, says Vipin Jacob Joseph, placement representative of the Civil Engineering Department of NIT-C, who along with five other students of the other departments at NIT-C handles the placement under the guidance of Dr. Babu.

Another reason, according to Dr. Babu, is the ranking of the institute. NIT-C figures in the ranking of leading public and private sector companies or the T-school ranking while they decide on which institutes they should visit for campus recruitment. “NIT-C was ranked among the top 10 T-schools in the country along with IITs last year. In fact, some new companies visited the campus in view of the high rank. For the last three years, NIT-C has been ranked among the top 20 colleges among the 1,400 engineering colleges across the country, by almost all rankings,” he said.

One of the reasons for the companies to visit the institute again and again for recruitment is the outstanding performance of the students they had recruited from the institute in the past. This is true in case of NIT-C also, Dr. Babu said. Mr. Joseph agreed.

NIT-C also has a separate department, T&P Department, for placement activity, which looks after the placements. This may also have contributed to the success of placements.

Also, NITs, unlike IITs and the Indian Institutes of Management, have a longer placement period that spreads about eight months or more. At NIT-C, the placement season which begins in August ends in April the next year.

Mr. Joseph said that the infrastructure provided by the T&P Department was one of the reasons for the success. “We have nearly eight interview rooms and two Group Discussion (GD) rooms, all fully air conditioned. All the company officials who visited the campus for recruitment returned happily,” he said.

Dr. Babu said that the IITs did not get good placements as they started their placements when the impact of the slowdown began to be felt. (IITs got only 50 to 65 per cent placements as per reports). “Those companies which visited the NITs might not have visited the IITs as they had already made some commitments. This may be the reason why IITs got fewer placements this time,” he said.

NIT-C, like any other national institute, tries to attract the best talent available by picking the top ranking students from the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) ranklist. The top five per cent get into the NIT-C. It is one of the most preferred NITs, points out Dr. Babu.

Another reason may be the national character of the institution. NIT-C has students from all the States in the country. “The companies recruiting from NIT-C could get representation from most of the States in the country,” says Dr. Babu.
Some highlights

At NIT-C, 309 B.Tech. students got 484 job offers, 97 per cent placements. Of these, 175 students got more than one offer. . There was no reduction in salary packages. Highest salary offered was Rs.12 lakh a year each for three computer science graduates by DE Saw Research, an IT consulting company. The lowest salary offered was Rs.3 lakh a year. (Last year, the highest salary was Rs.10 lakh a year and the lowest was Rs.2.2 lakh a year.)

The average salary increased from Rs 4.75 lakh a year to Rs.4.8 lakh a year.

One MCA student was offered Rs.12 lakh a year by Yahoo!, an IT product-based company. The average salary of MCA students rose from Rs.3.45 lakh to Rs.5 lakh a year. Out of 198 M.Tech. students, 103 received 119 offers. Highest salary offered was Rs.12 lakh a year and the lowest was Rs.3 lakh a year.

Five-year B.Arch. programme saw 50 per cent placement.

Till February, 95 companies visited the campus (from August 2008 to February 2009). Out of these, 43 were engineering and manufacturing sector companies, 33 were IT product based companies, nine consulting companies, six ITES companies, two were banking companies and two others.

Ten Navaratna and Miniratna Public Sector Companies (PSUs) recruited 25 per cent of the graduates. Sixty students got salary offers of Rs.8.5 lakh a year and above, 50 got offers between Rs.6 lakh and Rs.8.5 lakh and 130 students g

Brand NIT-C stands tall

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