Students appear for the written test during the recruitment drive on Tuesday. Picture by Gautam Dey

Dhanbad, July 19: Basking in the glory of last year’s placement success — a record 535 BTech students had bagged jobs in 2010-11 — BIT-Sindri is hoping for a better show this session.

The placement season (2011-2012) kicked off on a confident note today with 280 students from different streams — 75 from mechanical engineering, 85 from electrical engineering, 40 from production engineering and 80 from civil engineering — appearing for written test and group discussion conducted by Tata TRF. The two-day selection process will end with personal interview tomorrow.

Only core sector companies have been allotted slots in the first phase while software companies will come headhunting in November, as Nasscom rule allowing visit by IT firms only during the eight semester is in place during the current year.

Hence, the tech cradle has decided to invite software companies in the second phase of the placement session, which will begin after seventh semester exams get over in November.

“We have decided to provide dream status to those recruiters who will offer an annual package of more than Rs 4 lakh to Rs 4.5 lakh and also such companies that will pick up students in bulk (for example, more than 100 students). All selected students will be allowed to appear for a second interview with the dream status companies so that they get a chance of bagging better package,” said the head of the department of geology, G. Kumar, also the professor in-charge of training and placement division.

Notably, the placement graph of BIT-Sindri started recording an upward climb from 2006-07 when the number of students landing jobs shot to 406 from 155 of the previous year. Next year, 493 students were placed followed by 406 in 2008-09, 468 in 2009-10 while the best-ever figure of 535 was achieved last year.

“The students of 2010-11 batch are still receiving offers and the figure may go up to 550. We have also organised the placement sessions of diploma students of different polytechnics of the district at our institute. More than 200 students of diploma courses have already been placed in various companies last year,” Kumar said.