Placements – Part 1

Preamble

As we, the students, navigate our years at IIT Bombay, we embark on interesting journeys on campus, each unique in their own way and often pursued with a singular goal — establishing a career. Dialling back on our memories, this might have also been a deciding factor for many of us to join IITB. While mostly a concluding act on the college journey, placements hold even more significance as a stepping stone into the real world itself. For most of us, getting a job is often the only way of fulfilling the intense societal expectations that come with being an IIT student, often characterised by securing a good package at a prestigious company. Years of effort are compressed into a few decisive days that shape a student’s initial career path; undoubtedly, placements have evolved into a high-stakes process.

Every year, IITB garners a lot of media coverage focusing on the placement statistics and the seemingly attractive paychecks that companies dish out. The 2023-24 season, in particular, was widely commented on and critiqued, mainly for how bad market conditions led to fewer companies coming during Phase 1The placement season is divided into two ‘phases’ – Phase 1 begins in December after the Autumn semester. Phase 2 begins in the Spring semester. of placements. However, Insight feels that a lot of these discussions have lacked meaningful context, as they have only focused on very few factors, like salaries offered and the number of companies in the placement season.

The student discourse around placements has lately become focused on the various inefficiencies that plague the process. Ambiguities have been identified with certain parts of the placement policy of the institute by the students and Insight, regarding how well they are executed, and whether they are fair towards students, which we elaborate in detail later. Additionally, there have been complaints over infrastructural and logistical constraints during the season. At the same time, companies have also resorted to problematic approaches, indulging in salary negotiations and revocation of job offers. As a result, the Placement Cell, IITB (hereafter referred to as the PT Cell), which looks after the placement process in the institute under the aegis of the Placement Office, has been at the receiving end of several grievances from students in the internship and placement seasons of 2023-24 and 2024-25.

The information presented herein has been corroborated independently by a survey floated by Insight on January 13th, 2025 (with a deadline of Jan 21), where we received 374 responses (the survey was floated only to the graduating batch of 2025; however, the responses were anonymous) from the candidates who sat for Phase 1 of the 2024-25 placement season. Most questions in the survey were optional, which means not all questions had the same number of responses.

What degree are you currently pursuing ?

*‘Before Day 1’ refers to the offers made by certain companies (primarily PSUs) before the hiring process of the placement season officially begins.

Insight would like to clarify that although 68 of the 69 PPOA PPO, or Pre-Placement Offer, is a job offer extended by a company to a successful intern for a full-time position after graduation. holders did not sit for the placement season, 52 of them acted as runnersRunners refer to people accompanying the candidates on the days of interviews to help them out with interview logistics and often emotional support.. In the survey, runners were directed to a dedicated section where questions they were ineligible to answer were excluded, ensuring that responses reflected only their actual experience related to the on-ground proceedings of placements.

Insight conducted 35 recorded interviews with students, 20 of whom sat in the placement season of 2023-24, 10 in the 2024-25 seasonNote that the policy and the process may change by the time of publishing of this article., and the rest with alumni to get a deeper understanding of the situation. These include students who got placed between Day 1Phase 1 of the placement season is divided into ‘Days’, wherein companies are allotted interview schedules on specific days based on an agreement between the visiting company and the PT Cell. to Day 15, and 16 of the 35 had also been runners in previous seasons.

How Placements Work: A Refresher

(Source: https://campus.placements.iitb.ac.in/)

• The Placement Office appoints the Placement Managers as points of contact and sends invitations to recruiting organisations. During this time, the PT Cell also conducts preparatory activities for the students in terms of tests and presentations, and performs resume verification of the students registered for the placements.
• Recruiters interested in hiring create their online account on their end of the Placement Portal and create jobs containing the details of the opportunity, such as the salary.
• After successful verification, the job is made available online to the students, as per the dates decided by the Placement Office. Interested students appear for the recruitment process of a company by applying for its job by filling out a JAF, i.e., Job Announcement Form, on the placement portal.
• Companies view resumes of interested students and shortlistA shortlist is a list of students chosen by a company for interviews. Some companies also create a waitlist, which they may use to interview additional candidates if they don’t find a suitable candidate from the shortlist. Occasionally, companies allow students to interview without being on a shortlist or waitlist; these are known as walk-ins. students using their online account. They proceed with their tests/screening process after finalising the schedule in coordination with the Placement Office. Some companies also conduct their tests before filtering the resumes.
• Companies shortlist the selected students for the final interview process – this ‘shortlist’ is made available on the Placement Blog, students’ access to which is available via the portal and the InstiApp. The Placement Office allocates dates to organisations for campus interviews based on various details given by companies.
• Organisations provide the list of students that they are extending offers to at the end of their interview slot.
• The Placement Office notifies the organisation of the acceptance of selected students, which then prepares and delivers the offer letter to the selected candidates.

The Timeline of the Placement Process

The following is the timeline followed for the last couple of years:

• Registration and Payment for Placements: Mid-July
• Preparatory Placement Activities (tests, mock interviews, etc.): July end onwards
• Resume verification: Mid-August onwards

This article is the first part of a series of 3 articles examining the placement season. In this article, we discuss the two major points of contention on the policy side of things, in the weeks leading up to the placement season – pre-placement activities, and the slotting of companies. The succeeding articles will discuss infrastructural and logistical problems, and the road ahead for placements in the institute.

A. Pre-Placement Activities

The placement policy lays down a meticulous structure of formalities that are associated with the period before which students start filling out JAFs. In this period, before the companies start visiting the campus, the PT Cell conducts various activities, both compulsory and optional, which we refer to as the ‘pre-placement activities’. Pre-placement activities include preparatory tests (organised in collaboration with the PT Cell), mock interviews, resume sessions and presentations by companies talking about the company and the role they’re offering.

Participation in the optional activities enables students to earn the associated ‘incentive points’, which are related to the number of JAFs a student can fill. These include preparatory tests, mock interviews and HR interview-prep sessions that can be conducted at an institute or department level by the PT Cell or other institute bodies. Each activity usually amounts to two incentive points. 

The following table indicates the incentive point structure as per the 2024-25 placement policy.   

Incentive Points	< 14	14–23	24–33	34
Total Number of Allowed regular JAFs	40	65	85	110

(The structure may vary in the 2025-26 season)

Pre-placement talks, or PPTs, of companies don’t carry incentive points; however, they have a certain penalty structure associated to encourage students to attend them. A minimum number of PPTs must be attended every week to meet a target (based on the total number of PPTs in that week); failing to do so results in a penalty of 2 incentive points. Similarly, absence in PPTs, which are compulsory for specific departments, results in a penalty of 3 incentive points, regardless of whether a student has signed the JAF of that particular company or not. These are important to note, as penalties can eventually limit the number of JAFs a student can sign up for.

The incentive points structure has been established firstly, to encourage students to regularly attend these placement preparatory sessionsSome companies make attending of the pre-placement talks mandatory for signing the JAFs., and thereby become eligible to apply for additional JAFs beyond the minimum of 40. The limit on the number of JAFs is to discourage students from unnecessarily signing up for companies in which they may not be interested, simply to maximise their chances of receiving shortlists. This does allow more people a fairer shot at getting shortlisted.

As we highlight using the survey results below, more than half of the 306 respondents have expressed dissatisfaction with the incentive point structure and the usefulness of the pre-placement sessions and PPTs. Data on the usefulness of the test being conducted paints a neutral picture, with a similar number of respondents on either end of the spectrum. This is expected, considering common preparatory resources aren’t expected to help everyone since students have varying levels of expertise. The same trend was corroborated by our interviews for the practice tests; however, a recurring notion in 15 of our interviews was that the tests were not representative of the actual ones, which are much more diverse, and there is therefore a lot of scope to improve the overall quality of the questions in these tests. 

According to 12 of 35 of our student interviews, management of these preparatory activities has also been unsatisfactory. “Certain PPTs have been poorly managed and conducted in spaces not equipped to handle the anticipated number of students, leading to students sitting on the floor”, shared these interviewees. 

At times, even after participating in these activities, students were not marked presentThe attendance is usually marked by entering the code in the portal, which is provided on a slip during the session. and did not get the required incentive points; 5 interviewees mentioned such incidents. Another interviewee added, “There were several instances of proxies and cheating during these sessions and tests… They are supposed to help students prepare, but with problems like these, they become pointless”. Such incidents of proxies and cheating were confirmed by 7 of our interviewees.

There have been incidents in the 2024-25 season where certain cases of unethical behaviour were caught by the PT Cell, and the students involved were awarded with 6 penalty points each, along with the unsigning of their 2 latest JAFs.

How helpful were the pre-placement sessions, PPTs and tests organised by or in collaboration with PT cell?

The PiCs are working towards improving the situation, saying the following,

“We have received feedback from companies that students are not sufficiently prepared for interviews. There is a wide spectrum among the students; some students do need these preparatory tests, while others don’t. It is very hard to simply identify who will need these. If we don’t have some structure and offer benefits, then there is no point in conducting such voluntary activities.” 

The number of JAFs a student can apply for, above the minimum 40, is dependent on the incentive points they have collected during the preparatory activities, which begin from the end of July. However, in recent seasons, it has been observed that the incentive points structure is normally removed post-Diwali in October, with no official policy around it. The removal of incentive points means that now all students can fill as many JAFs as they want in phase 1, regardless of the bracket of incentive points they fall under. 

The Placement Blog spells out this rationale for this limitation on the signing of JAFs:

In the past, based on company feedback, students used to sign up for all companies without taking the necessary time to identify their interests and consider the profile offered by the company. As a result, students would find it challenging to give numerous tests/interviews for all these companies. Students would not appear for these interviews or refuse to join the firm at the time of the interview. To maintain long-term relations with recruiters and to increase the job acceptance ratio, the limited JAF signing system was implemented.

The PiCs added that “In the initial part – first 4 days – of Phase I, it was observed over theyears that a multitude of students appear for the same limited set of companies, leading to several students not being shortlisted/interviewed for these opportunities. Limiting JAFs for this initial rush period was found to be optimal, both in terms of the number of companiesthat a student interviews for and also the utilisation of resources. On the other hand, in the later part of Phase I, that is, starting Day 5, a good fraction of companies opt for students of varied backgrounds, that is, department and/or specialisation. Therefore, in order to potentially facilitate students who possibly may not be placed in the initial part, the first 4 days of phase I, permitting students to apply beyond the incentive point limit was found to be favourable to both students and the recruiters, thereby making it a win-win situation.”

Student reactions towards this mechanism appear to differ due to the lack of an official policy regarding the removal of the incentive point structure.

Firstly, some students, aware of the cancellation of the structure in the previous seasons, can go out on a limb and use up most of their incentive points, applying for JAFs of day 1-2 companies. This gives them an unfair advantage over students who are trying to save their incentive points for later-day companies (to apply for more companies), out of caution.

Secondly, students feel like they ended up wasting their time attending sessions to collect incentive points, only for them to be removed, with more than 50% of the 289 respondents in our survey feeling this way (111 of these 146 respondents had received an offer within the first two weeks of the placement season).

Please indicate your views on the removal of incentive points structure few weeks before day 1 interviews.

Lastly, there is no clear deadline for when the incentive points are going to be discontinued, and students can fill an infinite number of JAFs. This information asymmetry sets a bad precedent of unfair advantage for some students.

The PiCs acknowledged these problems in the interview with Insight and told us that they are looking to move away from the current incentive points structure, although they are still trying to look for a way to keep the preparatory sessions in place, as they help students be more prepared for the interviews.

“We have been moving towards arriving at an appropriate structure. However, suddenly removing without an alternative plan is not ideal. One of the regular complaints from students was, “Why am I sitting for these preparatory tests when I’m not interested?” To resolve that, for 2024-25, we increased the kinds of tests and reduced the requirements. In fact, we observed a different trend: students appeared for more than the minimum number of preparatory activities needed to earn the maximum incentive points.”

-PiC

Insight believes that the thought behind moving away from incentive points is a step in the right direction, considering the dissatisfaction perceived from our survey. Students have emphasised that following a predetermined policy is essential as it makes the process more predictable and less stressful for them.

B. Slotting of Companies

The PT Cell allocates slots to the interviewing companies on specific days of the placement season. Every company wants to get a slot as early as possible because they would like to have their pick from the pool of candidates. Here, the assumption is that the ‘best’ candidates get placed early on (which isn’t always true). The PiC informed us that the offered salary, company reputation, preferences of the students sitting for placements, feedback from IITB alumni in the company, and the company’s relationship with PT Cell are some of the several factors that determine a company’s slot. 

From conversations with 35 students from the graduating batches of ‘24 and ‘25, Insight gathered that a recurring trend has been a perception of discrepancy in the slotting of companies. Based on these conversations, we define the nature of these conflicts in the following paragraphs by drawing on some examples.

“Certain companies offering highly sought-after packages ended up backing out of the placement process with the pretext of not being offered a slot in earlier days”

–Claimed an alum who was part of a company recruiting team, in conversation with Insight

Similarly, slots for certain companies have also been shifted over the past 3-4 seasons for reasons unclear to us, which has been correlated, albeit without evidence, with an irregularity in these companies coming to IITB across the seasons.

Insight could not independently confirm nor deny these allegations and should only be interpreted as claims made by the interviewees and alumni we talked to.

A related discrepancy in this aspect was exemplified by the fact that a company hiring for similar roles offered a higher package at IITM than they did at IITB, the only difference being that an earlier slot was offered at IITM than at IITB. This information was sourced from the IIT Madras Placement Blog and confirmed by an IIT Bombay alum in the company.

The PiC commented, “Although PiCs meet with the Placement Managers during slotting, certain promises (regarding slots, between companies and the PT Cell) are already made, and by the time PiCs get involved, not much can be changed.” The PiC added that this could be improved if they were involved in the process earlier. Ideally, there are no roadblocks to this happening, and since the PiCs have mentioned that their involvement in the process overall will increase in the upcoming seasons, that is, starting 2025-26, we can expect a more proactive approach from the PiCs to be reflected in the company slotting as well.

As we talk about company slotting, it is important to note that the enthusiasm for non-core opportunities has always been higher amongst the IITB populace. Insight has noted that core engineering opportunities of branches like mechanical, chemical, civil, etc., are often relatively lesser than other domains like consulting and software. Insight asked the PiCs about this, and they had the following to say:

“We have been open to getting core companies – it’s not that there is a lack of effort from the placement team. We are putting in efforts. We have noticed that core companies require a little more time – quite a few of their requirements don’t fit into the mould of our initial rush. So they tend to come later. Even the offers might not be made by the end of the day – they might take 2-3 days.”

Insight talked to Prof. Narayan Ranagaraj, who, on the suggestion of Prof. Viren Menezes (PiC for placements in 2020), had headed a committee to analyse and provide recommendations for improving placements. Presenting a bigger picture on the above issue, he argued that the concern about fewer core engineering opportunities is worth considering for a postgraduate degree. This is because when students are specialising in a particular area, a lack of good employment opportunities can create ‘stress in the whole system’. However, he feels things are different at the undergraduate level, 

“… the undergraduate degree is a general one and we should not feel too perturbed about people joining particular (non-core) sectors… there’s not that much that the institute can really do in this regard, other than keep our eyes and ears open and network with various sectors of industry to convince them to move up the value chain in whatever sectors that we need.”

Insight believes that this outlook does hold certain merit, especially based on hiring trends in core companies. However, Insight has also been apprised of some circumstances within the institute that might be hurting the potential for improvement in opportunities in the core sectors.

In a bothersome example, a Department General Secretary shared disputes they faced with the PT Cell over departmental initiatives in a conversation with Insight. Students continuously faced issues with verifying their ‘industrial exposure’ adequately on their resumes. The DGSec also mentioned that their department was trying to create a ‘department placement team’ of their own. The reason for this was based on their claim, 

“We were able to offer 22 core internships through our industrial outreach program, compared to PT Cell’s 11.” However, there was a lot of disagreement between the Department Council and the Placement Managers regarding the existence of such an individual team.

Upon asking about the unacceptability of these internships to the Deputy Director, Milind Atrey, who mentioned that he has conducted discussions over the placement process with the Director and the PiCs, said,

“I’m not aware of this, but we have to coordinate with the placement office and the department coordinators. I think it’s good to have a centralised approach, but departments can, of course, talk to different industries and help out in the approach.”

The PiCs mentioned the following to Insight about this issue, 

“PT Cell is not inherently against it; the reason for disagreement was the lack of policy (about department placement teams) and processes.”

Examples like these underscore the importance of including all stakeholders in the process and framing a consistent institutional policy to avoid conflicts, thus opening doors for students to opportunities other than those by the PT Cell without creating redundancy.

In this regard, Insight would also like to highlight that the placement policy states, “Students who register with the Placement Office are strictly forbidden from applying for off-campus recruitment without permission till March 31, 2024”^[4]. 

To this, the PiC said, 

“One of the selling points to the companies is that these students are registered with us, and their primary way of getting a job is through the campus placements. If the companies know that they can always shop for these students outside, then it’s more difficult to get these companies on campus.”

As discussed, while there’s room to improve opportunities in the core sector, such restrictions may not always serve students’ best interests. Professors with several years of experience can often leverage their connections in the industry to source internships and jobs, probably more so than through PT Cell negotiations in their current mechanism. This is not something new; it has been happening for a long time. This calls for policy changes that enable departments to run formal, independent mechanisms for opportunities without creating a conflict with the PT Cell’s process.

So… Where Are All the Companies?:

Even though 75% of the 297 of our survey respondents felt that there were fewer companies in the last season, Insight did not find any conclusive statistics to prove the same. An analysis of the first 10 days across the previous three seasons showed that the number of companies has stayed similar or, in fact, increased. Nevertheless, the PiC addressed concerns about fewer companies during the season due to market conditions,

“It is a very dynamic situation. We work towards ensuring we have more companies. Now that the other IITs have matured, it is no longer (only) our market – companies have a bigger pool for students. Considering scaling in mind, we tend to reach the numbers in getting students placed, but the percentages have shown a drop. This has to do with a lot of external competition for our students, but also, our numbers have increased. Besides, we have to address certain internal inefficiencies.”

Insight has observed that certain reputed firms visit other IITs like IITM and IITD, but have not yet visited IITB. While such a problem is not exclusive to IITB, students have repeatedly asked why certain prominent names in finance and consulting consistently skip IITB. Additionally, many times, companies that have come in the past years may not return during a particular season while continuing to come in other IITs. One of the notable examples is a top consulting firm that did not visit for four years until the 2022-23 season. Insight also found examples of certain firms that go to most other IITs, with the sole exception of IITB. We asked the PiCs about the same, and they replied as follows,

“The issues have been with their demands. They come and tell us that the other IITs are allowing us to do that*, but that’s against our policy. They have their favourites. They may not like some of our policies. Even though the policy hasn’t changed since 21-22, it is likely that the view of the company management has changed. We are more student-friendlyOne of these policies which are more favorable at IITB is with regards to students being allowed to sit for interviews on the same day of placement even after they’ve been given an offer by a firm which is not their top priority. compared to other IITs. We don’t know what exactly, but they have their conditions which may be more favourable.”

*The exact demands were not specified

How transparent do you think the PT Cell was in its functioning regarding the following aspects during the placement process this year?

In the survey Insight conducted, 230 out of 306 respondents flagged a lack of transparency with regard to the reasons why companies did not come for the placement season, and more than half of the 306 respondents felt that the same was an issue with the day-wise slotting of the companies. 

(123 out of 175 who say that the interview slotting of candidates was not transparent have received an offer within the first two weeks of the placement process)

The Deputy Director suggested that there may exist certain personal biases of the PT Cell members which may reflect in the companies that they bring in, emphasising that transparency in how the PT Cell goes about in various parts of this process is of utmost importance, and he expects to see this shift very soon. Understandably, students have also opined that the PT Cell should be transparent about the reasons for the companies not coming.

This is because when the firm has recruited from IIT Bombay in the past years, students may expect the firm to come for placements and prepare accordingly. This transparency would also make PT Cell’s position on the matter clearer, because Insight understands that a lot of these cases stem from companies making unreasonable demands. Moreover, when the reasons for companies not coming are justified based on a predetermined policy of the PT Cell, it is easier to eliminate concerns of arbitrariness or communication gaps. 

“Reasons for companies not coming are based on negotiations, not all of which can be made public. However, regarding the policy, some of these things can be made public, like the parameters considered for slotting.”

-PiC

Steps like making the slotting parameters public are highly welcome, potentially addressing the transparency concerns that we have argued about earlier. It can also bolster the trust of students in the PT Cell’s capability.

The Deputy Director replied to the issue of transparency in the slotting of companies, stating,

“There are problems, and we have taken some corrective measures to resolve the issues in the placement process. Sometimes the students were responding to the company on their own without having the professor-in-charge in the loop, but now the new placement professors team and everybody are taking care of those things.”

Insight does recognise the numerous efforts undertaken by the students behind PT Cell and the tightrope that is to be walked between multiple stakeholders. As the PiC mentioned in his interview, 

“I have seen the teamwork among the students, and they try really hard to get companies. Every one of them wants to convert as many companies as possible.” 

It is undoubtedly a herculean task; however, Insight opines that accountability by the student team needs to find an equal footing with efficiency, as it enforces student trust in the process. While the PT Cell may choose to withhold certain details in order to maintain the confidentiality of sensitive information, it must also acknowledge that limited communication unintentionally creates a vacuum that fosters speculation and rumours. In fact, in certain instances, some members of the PT Cell themselves have been complicit in propagating such speculations. All of these together often magnify the anxiety levels of already tensed students and may ultimately affect their performance in the process. 

Do you believe that placements should be handled by students as opposed to outsourcing it to a professionally run external body (like in ISB)?

Despite calls for the outsourcing of placements to a third party in our survey, a good fraction of the respondents felt that there is sufficient merit in a student body handling the placements as they can act in the best interests of the student community, at large. But this is valid only with significantly more institutional oversight in its functioning and stronger systems in place that prevent biases and malpractices.

Nevertheless, Insight believes that the PT Cell has made some improvements in certain grievances in the latest season, which we will talk about in the next article in the series. The PT Cell needs to utilise its communication channels and engage with the students and other stakeholders better. This remains relevant as we talk about other facets of the placement process in the upcoming articles.

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