IIT Kharagpur plays down FB 'hurt'

With less than a fortnight to go for placements to begin at the IITs, the most talked-about thing on the campuses is perhaps the fact that Facebook and Twitter are not coming for this year's placements. And IIT Kharagpur is no exception. The administration is, however, putting up a brave face.

Since Twitter never recruited from IIT-Kgp, it only has to lick the Facebook hurt. Last year, the social media site had recruited four students from here. The rest of the recruiters have confirmed their participation to IIT-Kgp, though the number of students that will finally get picked up at the end of placements might be sizeably lower than last year. Last year, 131 students got selected.

Perhaps more than Facebook, the campus is ruing the fact that Rio Tinto, the mining major from Australia, will not participate in placements this year. It has wound up its India operations after completing its contract here, said the institute's placement cell. Similarly, Mitsubishi, another recruiting major, is also likely to be absent.

The campus blames it on the economic slowdown. "Recruiters are likely to hire fewer candidates this time, though they haven't clearly mentioned this. Since most other major recruiters are coming, I don't think we should panic too much," said Sudhir Barai, faculty member in charge of placements.

The two foreign investment banks that are most sought-after here, Barclays and Deutsche, have confirmed participation. IIT-Kgp is a favourite haunt for banks because they recruit heavily from the financial engineering department here.

"If we are able to forget our Facebook pain, other favourites like Microsoft, Google, Slumberger, Cairns, Amazon, Linkedin, Yahoo, Adobe, Texas Instruments, Cisco and Samsung are coming," said Barai. But while 10 years ago, the jobs that MNCs offered were mostly for their foreign outfits, these days they hire for their Indian offices.

"For most of these companies, it made sense to open shop here. A large number of recruits are often selected to go abroad later," Barai explained. The placement starts on December 1 and most foreign companies participate on the first two days.

 are not coming for this year's placements. And