IITs turn into hiring grounds for universities

KOLKATA: Despite struggling with a severe faculty shortage of their own, Indian Institutes of Technology are churning out a steady stream of talent for others in the education space.

IITs, both old and new, have become talent hunting grounds for institutes such as Amrita University, Shiv Nadar University, Sandip University, Amity University and CV Raman College of Engineering as well as coaching centres like FIITJEE, Aakash Educational Services and Perfect Academy, which are scooping up M.Tech, MSc, PhD and even B.Tech students for faculty roles.

At IITs of Madras, Kharagpur, Hyderabad, Indore and Patna, academic recruiters have accounted for close to 120 hires at placements this year. Among them, Kharagpur, at 39, has seen a 52% increase in hiring by those in the education space. At Patna, the number has more than doubled to 23 from 10 last year.

The IIT brand is a big draw, say placement cells.

“IIT students are known for their high quality in terms of technical knowledge and productivity, which is why educational institutes prefer to have them in teaching positions,” said Amarnath Hegde, professor-incharge of training and placement at IIT-Patna. “Also, they can bring research productivity in terms of publications and sponsored projects,” he added.

Recruiters have been hiring IITians for various levels including senior and junior subject faculty, assistant professors, associate professors and professors. The top picks are usually M.Tech and PhD students.



“Progressive private universities prefer the PhDs. Other universities that hire for teaching programmes prefer M.Techs because they can be recruited at smaller salaries,” said Manu Santhanam, adviser, training and placement at IIT-Madras.

Top recruiters at IIT-Madras this year included Vignans Institute of Information Technology, which hired six students, and Vasishta Educational Institutions and Perfect Academy, which took four each. Salaries, said Santhanam, ranged from Rs 3.6 lakh at the lower end up to Rs 14.4 lakh per annum. For IITs, which often have large batches to place, this band of recruiters becomes crucial once the initial phase of placements is over.

There are also many students who prefer to take up a career in academics as opposed to a corporate job.

Nishant Ujjawal from the M.Tech batch of IIT-Patna is one of them.

Ujjawal, who completed his B.Tech from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology before joining IIT-Patna, has taken up a job as assistant professor in civil engineering at JECRC University. He is keen to pursue a career in academics, and research and development, and the JECRC dean, he said, has been encouraging him to do that. “He urged me to go for conferences, said they would provide funds and acquire whatever equipment I may require for my work,” said Ujjawal.

In an increasingly competitive environment, having IITians as faculty also helps build a better perception around the institute, feel experts.

The field of education has seen a lot of demand for teachers and researchers across the board, said Pradeep Yemula, placementin-charge, IIT-Hyderabad.

Six institutes or universities including FIITJEE, Shriram Educorp and Aakash Educational Services have visited IIT-Hyderabad so far during this year’s placements, extending 25 offers. Average pay was Rs 8.05 lakh a year.

JECRC University and Sandip University are among those that have made offers at IITIndore where the process is still ongoing.

Aakash Chaudhry, CEO, Aakash Educational Services, said his organisation hired 22-23 IITians this year as assistant lecturers. “We take in MSc candidates because these people have done their post-graduation in pure sciences and have a high level of knowledge, which makes them good candidates for faculty. Once on board, they are taken through a six-month training programme,” he said.

What is driving this trend is IITs’ strong Master’s and PhD programmes, said professor GP Raja Sekhar, chairman of the career development centre, IITKharagpur. Madanapalle Institute of Technology and Science, and BITS Pilani were among those who recruited from Kharagpur.

IIT-Mandi said training the next generation of faculty for Indian science and technology institutions is one of the important goals of its PhD programme. “Besides training our students to do high-quality research and to develop their own independent research directions, we emphasise on training as teachers. All full-time PhD students are assigned duties as teaching assistants every semester,” said director Timothy Gonsalves.