BENGALURU: After setting a record recently in hiring from the nation’s leading engineering and management schools, the Indian startups are now beginning to go back on their words or are curbing down the salary packages, reports ET.

The campus placements in colleges during the November-January had remarkably increased where startups were competing to hire the best talent. However, the startups are presently focusing more on the profitability and paring costs considering the recent funding crunch. Weariness amongst investors in increasing as startups are failing to lay solid foundation of businesses despite spending their cash. This in turn is affecting the recruitment process as pressure on startups increase to improve their strategies.  Ecommerce startups like Ola and Snapdeal, surprisingly did not turn up for campus placements for this academic year. However, few months ago these two companies were in the forefront to recruit from the premier engineering schools competing against the search engine giant, Google.

"Student interest in joining startups is high and the number of offers from these companies made up around 50pct of the total offers this year — the highest in three years," said TV Devi Prasad, head of placements at the IIIT-Hyderabad. "However, some companies have gone back on their commitments."

Swiggy, food delivery startup, was also found to be absent from the placements at the institute.

In addition to this, joining date of students hired from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad by Stayzilla was delayed from April-May to July-August further lowering their compensation packages to 20lpa, excluding stock options. The original offer made to the students by the company was not revealed.

"We had selected people keeping in mind a growth target of 8-10x. But given the current market environment, we are capping the growth at 4x," said Yogendra Vasupal, cofounder, Stayzilla. "Also, we are increasing efficiency on operations side and increasing automation." he added.

Furthermore, sources also disclosed that there are cases where some startup companies have make salary corrections in final offer letters whereas some bring up issues of non-compliance with packages or positions after the joining.

"Some of the startups that registered with us this year for placements did not turn up. In the last 2-3 years, the All-IIT Placement Committee has been increasingly discussing the action to be taken when startups do not live up to their commitments on compensation and job descriptions." said V Babu, Adviser, Training and Placement, IIT-Madras.

However an exception to this slowdown scenario, Paytm has continued with its hiring across India. "We have hired from campus placements in all tier 1institutes across India this year," said Amit Sinha, VP,  Paytm.

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