Fat pay for top-rung IIT graduates, peanuts for other fresh engineers

Chennai: A graduate from top IITs bags an entry-level annual package that is around 300 per cent higher than one from any of the private engineering colleges in the country. Compared to the average salary of engineers from other IITs, those from top institutes are offered 90 per cent higher.

Similarly, an IIM graduate earns several times more than what a management graduate from any private institute is offered.

During the campus hiring this year, graduates from top IITs received an average annual package of Rs 11.1 lakh whereas those from some of the private engineering colleges in the lowest rung bagged an average annual salary of Rs 2.8 lakh. The new IITs received offers of an average Rs 5.8 lakh and top NITs got Rs 6 lakh. The average salaries offered across different sets of institutes stood at Rs 4.7 lakh, having grown from Rs 3.5 lakh in 2010, found a survey conducted by online talent measurement solutions provider Mettl.

Mettl had conducted the study across 194 institutes in India, comprising 114 engineering and 80 management institutions.

“Companies that are out to hire employees are often drawn towards looking at the top colleges and B-schools for the simple reason – the brands spell quality, stability, steadfastness and above all, a sense of tenacity that the student is expected to showcase. The curriculum offered by all the engineering institutes is the same, be it an IIT or a private college affiliated to a university. So is the case with B-schools. But what differentiates the top colleges such as IITs and IIMs and the rest is the filtering process. Students who make it to the top ranked colleges are taken to be the best of the lot, as lakhs of students take a crack at the respective competitive exams, but a few hundred finally make it,” said Francis Padamadan, senior director, APAC, KellyOCG.

Among different streams of engineering, computer science/information technology graduates earned the highest average salary of Rs 6.9 lakh per annum, while civil engineering graduates earned the least of Rs 3.3 lakh per annum. Salaries in electrical and mechanical engineering remained close to Rs 4 lakh per annum. While CS/IT graduates received salaries 48 per cent higher than the average, civil engineers were down by 29 per cent. Within CS/IT, machine learning and data science have become niche, outstanding and highest paid skills.

Some of the top companies who found IT talents from the top IITs include Adobe, Amazon, Google, Samsung and Microsoft.

“The top colleges are known to produce industry-ready talent as they house centres of excellence and labs that are run directly by the industry players. They also gain more exposure to the relevant tools of technical and personal growth. While this is the general trend, we have also come across a few clients who do not assign too much significance to legacy and want to source talent from lesser known colleges that have demonstrated industry readiness through their recent initiatives,” said Padamadan.

Regional variations were also evident in the salary packages. Those from colleges in the north earned 15 per cent higher than the average salaries, while those from the western region were down by 19 per cent.

In case of management graduates, top IIMs got the highest average salary package of Rs 20.6 lakh per annum whereas the newer IIMs received average package of Rs 13 lakh per annum. Top IIMs bagged packages that were 121 per cent higher than the average salary of Rs 9.3 lakh per annum. Some of the top private management schools got offers that were close to IIMs at Rs 19.6 lakh. On the other hand, there were B-schools that received the lowest package of Rs 5.5 lakh.

Employers were choosing their chief executives from top IIMs and some of the top government colleges, as their salaries were 118 per cent higher than the average salaries. Consultant, sales manager, business analyst, product manager and management trainee saw the maximum number of hiring.

“In the present age, there is a rise in demand for skilled candidates across all domains. To meet this demand, employers have taken the campus route to attract quality talent. However, employers face many challenges during campus placement drives.  From early attrition to their inability to retain candidates even after rolling out lucrative offer letters, companies face a major challenge that needs to be resolved in order to build loyal future leaders,” said Ketan Kapoor, CEO and co-founder, Mettl.