The English Press Club spoke to Rutul Tarnekar, the Pitching Head of the Placement Unit (PU) to find out about the placement season of Semester I, 2021–22. Rutul said that the recruitments took place in July and August 2021 completely online. He commented that Semester I placements were dominated by the IT sector, just like in the past few seasons.

Rutul said that Google recruited on Day 0 of the season. Day 1 saw companies such as Microsoft, Uber, Cisco, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, and Visa. Rutul said that despite the pandemic, IT placements bounced back and were comparable to the 2019 figures. Microsoft offered the highest CTC of 45.03 lakh. No international offers were made this semester.

In the ET sector, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Western Digital, Mediatek, and NXP were the major recruiters, along with Ola Electric which hired from BITS for the first time. Some of these companies, including Qualcomm which hired 28 students, opened recruitments exclusively for postgraduates. Of the ET sector companies which were open to undergraduate students, Micron Technologies hired ten and Texas Instruments hired seven students.

Bajaj Auto, ExxonMobil, Ola Electric, Whirlpool, and Hyundai were some of the companies that offered core mechanical roles. Similar to the case of ET, most of these companies exclusively hired postgraduate students.

According to Rutul, the general interest in core roles for branches such as chemical engineering and manufacturing engineering was very low, especially during the Semester I placements. The lower number of applicants for core roles caused a decline in the interest shown by companies to recruit from BITS. They preferred hiring from the IITs for such roles.

In the non-core sector, BCG hired four people, the highest they have ever hired from BITS. Other prominent companies were Fischer Jordan and ZS. Ola Electric came for business analyst and product management roles. Frontier Tower Associates came for placements for the first time. Dalberg, o9 Solutions, Flipkart APM, and RetainIQ were the other major companies. 

Rutul remarked that core companies did not have any complaints with the knowledge of the candidates this time, unlike the previous semester. Moreover, BCG, in particular, ‘was very happy with the quality of students’. 

About the effect of online mode on placements, he commented, ‘A lot of companies were not sure about their requirements. What did change was there was an increase in the variety of companies that were hiring, companies that were initially hesitant to hire from BITS were open right now.’ This allowed a higher number of startups such as eightfold.ai, Traceable.ai, and Urban Company to recruit from BITS. Rutul was of the opinion that a hybrid model of placements could continue, but it was something that the next PU team and the placement managers would decide.

No information was available for the placement seasons in the Goa and Hyderabad campuses. Rutul revealed that while previously there existed a common portal for the three campuses, it had been discontinued from this semester. He said that he was not at liberty to elaborate on the same.

For students sitting for placements in their 4-1, Rutul claimed, ‘Sem I placements are IT-heavy.’ He advised that one should keep this in mind while sitting for placements. He also suggested that students aiming for a summer internship should start their preparation in their second year itself.