Reporting
Placement report format: the numbers, and how to compute them honestly
A field-by-field register schema, the denominator problem that makes the same batch look like three different results, how to report salary without an outlier doing all the work, and the report structure that answers every reader at once.
The annual placement report is the only artefact most people outside the cell will ever see, and it is read by audiences with incompatible interests: management wants a trend, accreditation wants definitions and evidence, prospective students and parents want a realistic expectation, and recruiters want to know who else hires here. Almost all placement-report trouble comes from one avoidable thing — a percentage published without the denominator that produced it. This guide covers the internal document and its arithmetic. How external ranking and accreditation frameworks define outcomes, and how to keep one data spine that satisfies all of them, is on the NIRF placement ranking page.
What this guide gives you
- A column-by-column placement register schema you can build in a spreadsheet
- A worked, clearly-illustrative example of one cohort under four different denominators
- Salary reporting that does not hinge on a single outlier
- The evidence file that makes every number defensible
01Four readers, four questions
| Reader | What they actually want | What annoys them |
|---|---|---|
| Management and governing body | Trend against previous years, and which branches or programmes moved | A single headline number with no comparison basis |
| Accreditation and ranking submissions | Definitions, cohort boundaries, and evidence for each count | Numbers that do not reconcile with the register or with last year's submission |
| Prospective students and parents | A realistic expectation for someone like them, by branch | A highest-package headline that describes one person |
| Recruiters | Who else recruits here, at what level, and what happened to those hires | A logo wall with no roles, no counts and no dates |
02The register schema
The report is not a document you write; it is a query you run. That only works if the register carries the fields below, captured during the season rather than reconstructed after it. Keep one row per student for status and one row per offer for outcomes — students with multiple offers break any single-table design.
| Field | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Roll number, name, programme, branch, admission year | The cohort key. Admission year, not just graduating year, because cohort questions are asked both ways. |
| Expected and actual graduation year | Students who take an extra year change which cohort they belong to. Record both. |
| Registered for placement (yes/no) and date | The basis of the most-used denominator. Without a date you cannot reconstruct who was in scope when. |
| Eligible for placement under institutional policy (yes/no, reason) | Different from registered. A student may be eligible and choose not to register. |
| Opted out, with reason | Higher studies, competitive examination, family business, self-employment, medical. This is the field that makes an honest denominator possible. |
| Final placement status | Placed, unplaced, opted out, higher studies, entrepreneurship, not traceable. |
| Consent to publish name/photograph/package | Personal data. Recorded consent, per use, or you publish aggregates only. |
| Personal email and phone that survive graduation | Every outcome question after graduation depends on this field having been captured before it. |
| Field | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Offer ID, student roll number, drive ID | Links the offer to the drive that produced it, and lets you count offers and students separately. |
| Employer legal name and sector | Legal name, not the brand — subsidiaries and group companies are counted separately in most submissions. |
| Role title and work location | The two facts every prospective student asks about and most reports omit. |
| On-campus, pool, or off-campus | Outcome attribution. Off-campus offers belong in the register but should be labelled. |
| Fixed pay, variable pay, one-time components, stipend during training | Recorded separately. Collapsing them into one figure is the origin of most salary-reporting disputes. |
| Offer date, acceptance or decline, date of decision | Offers made and offers accepted are different numbers, and both get asked for. |
| Service agreement or bond: amount and duration | Material to any honest description of the offer. |
| Evidence held: offer letter reference and location in the file | The difference between a number and a defensible number. |
| Joining confirmed (yes/no/unknown) and date | The number recruiters care about most, and the one almost no report contains. |
03Denominator discipline: the same batch, four percentages
Placement percentage is meaningless without stating what it is a percentage of, and the four common denominators can differ enormously for the same cohort. The example below uses invented round numbers purely to show the arithmetic — it is not data about any institution and is not a benchmark of any kind.
| Basis | Count | Placed | Percentage | What it honestly means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total students in the graduating cohort | 600 | 390 | 65% | The broadest measure. Includes students who never sought placement. |
| Students eligible under institutional policy | 540 | 390 | 72% | Excludes those barred by academic or participation rules. |
| Students registered for placement | 460 | 390 | 85% | Excludes those who opted out for higher studies, examinations or self-employment. |
| Students who appeared in at least one drive | 430 | 390 | 91% | The narrowest common basis, and the one most often quoted without saying so. |
Boundary decisions to write down once and apply consistently
- Do students placed off-campus count? Most institutions include them; say so explicitly.
- Do internships that converted to pre-placement offers count as placements, and in which academic year?
- Do students who received an offer and declined it count as placed? State the choice; both are arguable, only one is yours.
- Are higher-studies and competitive-examination students removed from the denominator, or reported as a separate outcome category alongside placement?
- How are students with backlogs at the point of the drive treated if they graduate late?
- Are group companies and subsidiaries counted as one recruiter or several?
04Reporting salary without letting one offer do all the work
Salary is where placement reports lose credibility fastest, because the numbers that are easiest to publish are the least representative. Three disciplines fix most of it.
- 1
Report the median, not the average
A single unusually large offer moves an average substantially and a median barely at all. If you publish an average, publish the median beside it — the gap between them is itself informative, and readers who understand the difference will assume the worst if only the average appears.
- 2
Separate fixed pay from total cost to company
Variable pay, joining bonuses, retention components, relocation and the notional value of benefits inflate a headline figure without changing what a graduate is paid monthly. Report fixed pay as the primary figure and state what the total includes.
- 3
Give the distribution, not the peak
A small number of bands with the count of offers in each tells a prospective student more than any single figure, and is far harder to misread. Add the count behind every statistic so a band of two offers is visibly a band of two offers.
Caveats worth printing next to the figures
- Whether the highest package is an international offer, which makes a direct comparison with domestic offers misleading.
- Whether it is a single offer, and whether the student accepted it.
- Whether figures are per annum, and gross rather than take-home.
- Whether any figure includes a stipend period at a different rate.
- The date the data was frozen — reports circulate for years and readers assume they are current.
05Evidence: what makes a number defensible
For every count in the report there should be a folder you could hand to an auditor without preparation. This is not bureaucracy for its own sake — it is what lets a new TPO stand behind a predecessor's numbers, and what prevents the reconciliation crisis that arrives with the first accreditation visit.
- An offer letter copy for every offer counted. Verbal and provisional selections are tracked separately and are not reported as offers.
- Deduplication of students holding multiple offers, with the rule stated: a student is counted once in placement counts, while offers are counted individually in offer counts.
- A signed or acknowledged declaration for off-campus offers, since the cell has no primary evidence of its own.
- Documentation for opt-out categories: an admission letter for higher studies, an examination admit card, or a written declaration.
- A dated data-freeze note, naming who froze the register and when.
- The mapping from each published figure to the query that produced it, so the number can be regenerated rather than remembered.
06The report structure
- 1
Cover and scope
Academic year, graduating cohort covered, data-freeze date, and the name and designation of the person who compiled and approved it.
- 2
Definitions
The first content section, not an annexure. Define placed, eligible, registered, opted out, and every salary term you use later. Every dispute this report will ever cause is prevented here.
- 3
Summary
Headline counts with denominators, this year against the previous two, and a short narrative on what changed and why.
- 4
Programme and branch breakdown
Counts and percentages per branch, with cohort sizes shown. This is the section prospective students actually use.
- 5
Recruiter analysis
Organisations that recruited, offers made per organisation, roles, first-time versus returning recruiters, and modes used.
- 6
Compensation
Median and distribution by programme, with the caveats above printed alongside rather than in a footnote.
- 7
Other outcomes
Higher studies, competitive examinations, entrepreneurship and family enterprise, with counts. A cohort is not divided into placed and failed.
- 8
Activities and interventions
Training delivered, contact hours, workshops, mock cycles and the assessment results behind them. This is where the cell demonstrates the work that produced the outcomes.
- 9
Observations and next cycle
What did not work, stated plainly, and what the cell will change. A report with no negative findings reads as marketing and is treated as such.
- 10
Annexures
Drive-wise summary, recruiter list with dates, and the definitions used in any external submission made from the same data.
07The failures that show up in audit
- The report's total does not match the register, usually because late offers were added to one and not the other.
- A percentage whose denominator changed between two sections of the same document.
- Offers counted that were never accepted, or counted twice for a student who held two.
- Salary figures quoted as total cost to company in one table and fixed pay in another.
- Last year's figures restated without a note explaining the restatement.
- Higher-studies students silently removed from the denominator with no count published, which reads as concealment even when it is not.
- No evidence file, so the only defence of a number is that someone remembers it being right.
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Frequently asked questions
- How is placement percentage calculated?
- It is the number of placed students divided by a stated base — and the base is the whole question. The four common bases are the total graduating cohort, students eligible under institutional policy, students registered for placement, and students who appeared in at least one drive. They can produce very different figures for the same batch, so the defensible practice is to publish the count, the base and the percentage together, and to define the base in the report's definitions section.
- Should we report average or median salary?
- Median, with the average alongside if you publish one at all. A single large offer moves an average noticeably and a median hardly at all, so an average-only report invites the assumption that it is being carried by an outlier. Better still, publish a small number of compensation bands with the count of offers in each, and state clearly whether the figures are fixed pay or total cost to company.
- Do students placed off-campus count in the placement report?
- Most institutions include them, and that is reasonable — the outcome is real. What matters is that the choice is stated in the definitions, applied consistently across years, and that off-campus offers are labelled in the register so you can report with and without them when a submission asks for one or the other. You will also need a declaration from the student, since the cell holds no primary evidence for an off-campus offer.
- How should students who chose higher studies be treated?
- Report them as their own outcome category with a count, rather than quietly removing them from the denominator. Removing them without disclosure is the single change that most often makes a placement report look manipulated, even when the underlying decision was defensible. Capture the evidence — an admission letter or a written declaration — before the student leaves campus.
- When should the placement data be frozen?
- Pick a date tied to the academic cycle, publish it in advance, and freeze on it even if offers are still arriving. Late offers go into the next reporting period with a note. A register that is never frozen produces a report that never reconciles with any submission made from it, because the underlying numbers moved between the two.
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These guides describe process and judgement, not recruiter-specific criteria. Eligibility rules, test patterns, compensation and hiring dates change every cycle and differ between campuses — always work from the Job Announcement Form and test invite you actually receive, and from the current official framework documents for any ranking or accreditation submission.