Average salary offer shoots up 22.76% at IIM Ahmedabad

Average domestic salary for students of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) rose by approximately 22.76 per cent to Rs 14.94 lakh, up from Rs 12.17 offered last year. On the concluding day of the placements, today, the average international salary also touched a high of $110,750.

While, Goldman Sachs was the top draw offering multiple roles in London, banks like Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank offering roles across Asia Pacific.

However, the present batch (2008-10), are far from the 2008 average, when the institute peaked its average domestic salary to Rs 17.85 lakh – a sharp rise of 30 per cent compared to Rs 13.7 lakh in 2007.

Out of the 110 firms who participated in the laterals and final placement process, banking and consulting firms figured amongst the top recruiters. These, however, exclude firms that extended pre-placement offers (PPOs).

Approximately 20 firms offered roles in the consulting space recruiting 29 per cent of the students and the banking and financial services sector saw 27 per cent of the students joining the workforce.

While, 15 per cent students took up roles with marketing majors P&G, HUL, Nestle, Airtel, J&J, Nokia, Philips, Titan, Cadbury, etc, 13 per cent joined firms operating in the Systems domain with some of the star recruiters being Google Inc (which offered sales, marketing, account management and business development roles), Microsoft, Amazon, Cognizant, Wipro, Mindtree and Rediff.

General Management roles were offered by TAS, the Aditya Birla Group, Mahindra, Essar, Lodha Group and Philips among others.

"In a marked development that probably is an indicator of conditions improving dramatically for IT firms, Cybage and Syntel Inc. made offers for their US operations. P&G, with four acceptances, continued with its trend of extending a majority of its offers for Singapore operations," a release from the institute stated.

With the cohort-based system in place for the first time, the institute saw more than 40 offers extended by Global Strategy Consulting firms, Global Niche Consulting firms, Global Investment Banks and Global Private Equity firms -- the four cohorts that constituted the first cluster. While Mckinsey & Co and Boston Consulting Group witnessing eight acceptances including pre-placement offers, Monitor Group saw five acceptances. Other companies that visited during this cluster were Bain and Company, Booz and Company, AT Kearney and Oliver Wyman.

"Despite a recessionary year, a larger batch, a new, untested placement process, all students of the batch were placed in the firms of their choice. With this process stretching almost one month, we have reiterated our conviction that time taken to place the batch is not an indicator of placement efficiency or effectiveness," said Saral Mukherjee, chairperson of placements.