IIM Shillong posts 100% placements despite meltdown

The impact of global meltdown seems not to have affected the country's youngest IIM here, with the maiden batch of the institute's students registering cent per cent placement in its winter internships. 

The 64-strong batch of the IIM, the country's seventh, were offered multiple internships by 35 companies, silencing critics who have fuelled apprehensions of job-cuts owing to global meltdown. 

Revealing the secret behind the success, a delighted Director of the new IIM Prof Ashoke K Dutta said, "When we approached the companies, initially they were hesitant. The challenge was to convince them as to how the products would be of help to them."

"We used the downturn to our advantage. The companies do need some extra hands for certain projects.  "We positioned our students as those who could do studies and recommend how to overcome this cycle of economic activity," he said.  This gave them the advantage, Prof Dutta elaborated.

Significantly, the Shillong IIM achieved the feat in its winter project and that too when the students had completed just two terms instead of three unlike in other IIMs.

"We used the winter to our advantage because most of the companies are used to only summer projects. Even though our students are yet to complete a year, yet they had immense entrepreneurial exposure being the first batch," Prof Dutta said. 

They had first-hand knowledge of the institution and have seen how starter needs to be grown and nourished. We were able to convince the companies that the students would be productive from the word go, the delighted director said. 

"Of course, the companies have reduced the stipends, but we are happy that we could get the concept across," Prof Dutta added. 

Top contenders to pick up students from the IIM included HDFC, PwC, Deloitte and Siemens even as a number of students opted for media and advertising firms like Ogilvy & Mather, Viacom, Warner Brothers and Euro RSCG, among others.

On the marketing front, recruiters included AC Nielsen, Cadbury and ITC.  The students are undergoing a two-month internship in January-February. 

While students showed a reluctance to join traditional i-banking biggies, core banking and asset management companies including Citigroup, HDFC, Standard Chartered, Axis Bank, Tata AIG, SBI Cap, Kotak Mahindra Bank, SREI-BNP Paribas were among those who turned up for the process.