(This story originally appeared in on Nov 07, 2019)

MUMBAI: In yet another indication of the economic slowdown, some of the leading firms that visit the IITs every year are likely to stay away during the placement season starting December. Some of the sought-after ‘Day One’ firms, which typically offer hefty packages, have either declined requests from placement cells of the institutes or are yet to confirm their interest.The placement cells at these institutes have doubled their efforts to reach out to newer firms to get adequate recruiters. Quantitative investment management firm, World-Quant, which usually offers one of the highest domestic packages at over Rs 40 lakh, will be visiting IIT-Bombay but is yet to confirm at other IITs.Tower Research and Graviton Research and other firms with lucrative offers have not given any positive indication yet. At some of the IITs, US-based cloud data management company Rubrik, which offers US profiles to students, has not confirmed its presence this year.“We have lost a few companies which regularly visited us, but we are compensating for this by exploring newer avenues,” a student representative from IIT-Kharagpur said. “Some of them have met their requirements from the pre-placement offers. We have increased the total number of companies visiting us this season to beat the ongoing slowdown.”The first phase of placements across IITs commences on December 1 every year and goes on for two to three weeks. Many IITs have seen a slight increase in their pre-placement offers from the previous year, while some like the ones in Kanpur and Kharagpur have seen almost similar number of offers. In a press statement, IIT-Hyderabad said that the number of PPOs has almost doubled compared to the previous year. Gartner , Graviton, World-Quant, Rubrik are not visiting the IIT-Kanpur campus, while Tower Research is yet to confirm, said a student.“The automobile sector is severely hit,” one of the overall placement co-ordinators from the institute said. “In other core sectors, fewer roles are being offered, but there is no freeze. In some other firms, newer roles are added. We are expecting a marginal drop in the hiring with some of the leading ones staying away from our campus.”An official from the IIT Bombay placement office confirmed that a few ‘Day One’ organisations had declined to participate in the placement process. At IIT-Bombay, 163 pre-placement offers were made till November 5, compared to 141 last year. A student representative from IIT-Delhi said many firms from the core sectors which visited last year had refused to come this year.