While the economy economy has not shown robust growth this fiscal, human resource consultants are seeing direct impact on jobs in 'niche' roles, fashion technology, design institutes have seen good placements
Rajeev Garg, a 20-year fashion design student is thanking his stars for taking a wise decision to take a one year break in 2009 before pursuing a course in the field of fashion designing. While his friends took away an offer of Rs 4 lakh package after completing their three-year course last year, Garg has been offered a Rs 6 lakh job with a retail firm. This is considering the fact, that all of them pursued the course in the same institute.
While the Indian economy has not shown a robust growth this fiscal, and human resource consultants are seeing a direct impact on jobs in 'niche' roles, fashion technology and design institutes have seen a good placement season. In fact, institutes including National Institute of Design (NID), National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and Pearl Academy have seen better placements this year, in terms of salary and number of companies visiting the campus, compared to last year.
Take Pearl Academy in New Delhi, for example. This year, 90% of their students have been placed in reputed firms, compared to 85% last year. Rohit Sharma, Head-Corporate Relations, Pearl Academy, New Delhi said that the number of companies visiting their campus has increased substantially. "While the total count of recruiters was over 70 last year, this year we have recorded more than 100 companies coming to our campus and hiring students from Pearl Academy," he said.
The average salary for an entry level position for a student qualified in fashion technology or design ranges from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 6 lakh, depending on the size of the firm. If a student manages to get placed with a design companies run by celebrity designers including Satya Paul, Ritu Kumar and Tarun Tahiliani, the starting salary is 20-30% higher than other firms, according to industry experts.
While NIFT placements are currently underway and will get over only by June 2013, Sibichan K. Mathew, Head (Industry & Alumni Affairs) at NIFT said that the number of firms recruiting from the campus increased from 186 last year to 192 in 2013. He, however, added that the number of students participating in the placement decreased from 1615 to 1601. "The number of students confirmed so far is 689 compared to 802 last year," he said.
NIFT has seen changes in the type of firms visiting the NIFT campuses too. The new firms that visited the campus included Trident, Adidas, Samsung, Hennes & Mauritz, Brand Marketing India, apart from new start ups.
The average salary at NIFT is Rs 3.2 Lakhs per annum. Mathew further informed that the median salary for under graduate students ranged from Rs 2.4 lakh to Rs 3 lakh with Fashion Communication and Accessory Design bagging the highest offers and Leather Design and Textile Design students taking the lowest. The median salary for post graduate student ranged from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 3.7 lakh with Master of Fashion Management students getting the highest and Master of Design the lowest.
NID has also seen a surge in pay packages over last year. In the placement week in December 2012, (all three campuses), a total of 100 companies attended it. A total of 234 offers were given in the pay range of Rs 6.5 lakhs to Rs 13 lakhs per annum. Industry sources said that the packages at NID have risen by almost 20%, with companies from sectors like IT also making their presence felt.
Entrepreneurship has also been a preferred choice by some of the students in this field. NIFT, for instance, has a structured curriculum to equip students to become entrepreneurs. Mathew explained that though the exact number of students pursuing their own business would be known only after May 2013, he added that fashion business as such provides a lot of opportunities for start ups.
At Pearl Academy too, students have been enthusiastic about starting their own ventures. While the exact details of this year's batch were not available, since the placements are still on, last year they had almost 20% students who opted to start their own business enterprises.
Placement officials of other institutes in Maharashtra and NCR region, who are yet to begin the placement process, also expressed optimism about the qualify of offers being doled out to students and increase in number of companies taking the 'campus recruitment' route. Symbiosis Institute of Design in Pune, for example, will begin the final placement process in April and have invited companies to visit the campus and conduct interviews on the same day, in the latter half of April.
