The students of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras received 182 pre-placement offers (PPO) as on November 28. Last year, 170 PPOs were made during the academic year.
Mentors and placement advisers say the institution’s strengthening of internship drive helped.
The institute will begin its first phase of placements on Tuesday.
Since the country is under a lockdown due to COVID-19, the internship programme was conducted online, institute officials said.
The internship drive began on August 30 and on the first day 17 companies participated virtually and made 140 offers. In 2019, 147 offers were made on Day 1.
C.S. Shankar Ram, adviser (training and placement) at the institute, said the sustained rise in the number of PPOs was a reflection of the institution’s academic quality and its students.
N.V. Ravi Kumar, adviser (internship), said ever since an internship office was created, the institute had observed a direct correlation between internships and PPOs.
An internship allows a student to understand the work culture and expectations of the company.
The companies also realise the potential of the students during the training period, he said, and added: “When interests and expectations of interns and companies match, it culminates in pre-placement offers.”
During 2016-17, students received 73 PPOs. This academic year, 46% of the PPOs were from the information technology sector.
Core sector jobs
Core and research and development sector accounted for 29%, while 19% of the offers were from the analytics, consulting and finance sector. About 6% of the offers came from the FMCG sector.
The most number of PPOs came from international companies such as Texas Instruments and Microsoft, each with 12 offers.
Qualcomm made 10 offers while Goldman Sachs and American Express made nine offers each.
