Microsoft's Rs 1.39-cr offer highest at IITs; Accenture top IIM-A recruiter

It's placement season at the country's top technology and management institutes and many aspirants are all set to bag fat paychecks.

As reported earlier, most of the IITs are set to commence their final placement process on Friday, December 1, with several major recruiters making almost crore-plus annual salaries and international offers.

According to the Economic Times, technology giant Microsoft is all set to offer the highest pay package among all other recruiters during the placements. Citing sources across top IITs, the report said that the company would likely offer close to Rs 1.39 crore per year for jobs at its Redmond headquarters, with the total $214,600 package comprising $108,000 as base salary, $21,600 as performance bonus, $15,000 as joining bonus, and $70,000 in restricted stock units.

Further, compared to last year's total package ($136,000) offered by the tech giant for jobs at Redmond, this amounts to a significant increase, added the report.

As reported by Bloomberg, Microsoft is planning a multibillion-dollar overhaul of its main campus in Redmond, Washington, adding space for 8,000 more workers.

While not matching Microsoft's offer, other global majors are also ready to offer hefty remuneration. According to the ET report, Uber Technologies is offering a total package close to $155,000 (Rs 99.87 lakh), albeit at a higher base salary ($110,000) than Microsoft, while Samsung Korea is ready to offer close to $150,000 (Rs 96.8 lakh) and American cloud data management company Rubrik about $115,000 (Rs 74 lakh).

Citing placement sources, the financial daily said these pay packages could be on offer at the Kanpur, Bombay, Madras, BHU (Banaras Hindu University) and Roorkee campuses.

As reported earlier, information technology (IT) and e-commerce majors – including Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Yahoo, Amazon, and Flipkart, among others – are set to raise the bar in recruitment and compensation packages this year in final placements at the IITs. While Apple will be recruiting for the first time from Indian campuses, including IITs, the like of Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Goldman Sachs, and Nasdaq will also be making their presence felt.

Last year, placements had seen Oracle and Microsoft make the highest offers of $136,000 (or Rs 93 lakh at then rates) and $135,000 (Rs 92 lakh).

It's not just the IITs that are busy placing their students either, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has also completed its Summer Placement process for the Class of 2019 within three clusters.

As reported in November, Accenture Strategy emerged as the top recruiter with 19 offers in the first cluster of the summer placements process for the postgraduate programme class of 2019. More than 35 firms participated in Cluster-I. By the time the three-cluster process was wrapped up, Accenture emerged as the overall top recruiter for the Summers 2017 process, according to moneycontrol.com.

Cluster one and two saw more than 35 firms and over 45 firms participate, respectively. The two clusters comprised cohorts of investment banking and markets, management consulting, as well as private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, consumer goods, general management & leadership, government enterprises, consulting, and consumer services.

As reported earlier, Cluster-III saw major recruiters, including Microsoft, Uber, American Express, Abbott, and Vedanta picking up candidates.

Among these, FinIQ made the highest number of offers (10). Cluster-III comprised firms representing various cohorts, including consumer technology, pharma and healthcare, social enterprises and non-government organisations (NGOs), banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), and core manufacturing, among others. Overall, more than 50 firms participated in the third cluster.

Apart from key recruiters such as Microsoft and Uber in the consumer technology cohort, the BFSI cohort comprised the likes of Axis Bank, DBS Bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and RBL Bank.