New Delhi: The economic slowdown hardly seems to have deterred employers from actively pursuing candidates through on-campus recruiting programmes as majority of employers are displaying optimism in terms of hiring as well as salaries, says a survey.

According to global human resource consulting firm Aon Hewitt's Campus Study 2013, majority of surveyed organizations reported no change in the campus hiring numbers planned for this year.

"Campus hiring trends are a lead indicator of the general market sentiment towards hiring. The study results are clearly indicative of the somewhat optimistic, yet cautious sentiment of India businesses," Aon Hewitt India Partner, Talent & Rewards, Sandeep Chaudhary said.

Chaudhary further said "while it may be some time before India witnesses a growth rate of 8-9 percent again, for now corporate India surely is keeping its head high and planning for the long term."

With regards to compensation offers, majority of organizations reported no plans of increasing the fixed compensation for the 2013 batch of management graduates. Of the ones who did report an increment, the average increase was 9 percent both for tier 1 and tier 2 campuses.

The consumer products and financial services sectors continue to be the top paying industries year-on-year.

Sectors like, consumer, engineering/manufacturing, and automobiles reported a stable outlook with a majority reporting no change in hiring plans as the hiring pattern in these sectors is dependent more on the sectoral performance and not so much on the macroeconomic conditions.

On the other hand, organizations who did report a revision in hiring trends were primarily from the financial services and hi-tech sectors.

For management graduates, on an average organizations reported offering 11 Pre-placement Offers (PPOs) to interns and 19 Pre-placement Interviews (PPIs) for the 2013 batch.

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In comparison, BTech / BEs average numbers of PPOs and PPIs were much higher with organizations offering 44 PPOs and 66 PPIs on an average for the 2013 batch.

The Aon Hewitt Campus Study 2013 covered compensation and hiring trends across different tiers of management and engineering campuses received participation from over 170 organizations.

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