Cheer returns to business school campuses

Placement season sees 30-40% rise in prospective recruiters; consulting & finance firms rub shoulders with start-ups, e-commerce players

The final placement season may have just begun at the top Indian Institutes of management (IIM), but the cheer at B-schools that have completed final placements is having a rub-off effect.

IIMs including ahmedabad, calcutta n trichy have already began placements while iim bangalore began on monday. Over 125 companies, including major consulting firms and investment banks, are participating in the placement season. The companies not only represent sectors that recruit regularly from IIM Bangalore such as strategy and finance but also burgeoning sectors such as online retail, analytics, real estate, health care and the social sector.

This year, there has been a 30-40 per cent increase in the number of companies visiting the campuses. IIM Lucknow, for instance, saw 49 new recruiters. There were 207 recruiters compared to about 133 companies last year. Similarly, XLRI Jamshedpur had 32 new recruiters. Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) received 58 pre-placement offers and pre-placement intent from companies, compared to 55 last year.



Officials from IIM Ahmedabad and Calcutta also said there was an increase of 20-30 per cent in the number of companies visiting the campus as a lot of e-commerce firms had come for the first time.  

“The average annual salary offered last year was Rs 16-17 lakh. This year, it has gone up by 10 per cent,” an IIM-A source said on the condition of anonymity. Responses to an emailed query to the institute were awaited till the time of going to press. A placement committee member at one of the other older IIMs said recruiters were offering packages higher by 10-15 per cent than last year’s.

Recruiters said the hike was reasonable. “It makes sense for us as recruiters considering the current economic scenario,” said Yugesh Goutam, executive director, HR, for KEC International and for the infrastructure sector at the RPG group.

According to Goutam, this year, his group is offering an average compensation package of Rs 15.5-16 lakh for freshers at IIMs and other B-schools, 5-10 per cent higher than last year’s. Among other recruiters, Capgemini India cited a similar increase in the compensation package it is looking to offer.

“While we are looking at a 10 per cent increase in the number of recruitments, we are also planning a similar double-digit growth in the compensation packages that will be offered,” said a spokesperson for Capgemini India. Last year, Capgemini hired 7,000-8,000 people from various campuses in the country.

Other business schools are, however, quoting a higher number. Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon, for example, had a 23 per cent rise in the average salary offered. “About 96 per cent of the batch has been placed so far. This includes all the three postgraduate courses of PGPM, PGPHRM and PGPIM,” said Kanwal Kapil, associate professor & chairperson, placements, MDI Gurgaon. The institute saw 27 new recruiters this year.

IIM-A’s first day of final placements on Sunday saw Accenture Strategy making 18 offers (including pre-placement offers), the highest by a company. Banks offered diverse roles across trading, investment banking, private banking and quantitative strategy. The second cluster of final placements at IIM-A will be held on February 16.

Institutes that have ended their final placements have reported strong numbers. Take IIM Lucknow, for example. The school achieved 100 per cent placements for its batch of 436 students. The offers included 92 pre-placement offers (PPOs), 132 lateral offers in the higher-entry placement process and 216 in the final placements. The number of PPOs this year was the highest ever and increased by 28 per cent compared with last year's figure. The top segments based on roles offered were sales & marketing (24 per cent), consulting (21 per cent), finance (18 per cent), systems/IT (10 per cent), general management (10 per cent) and operations/supply chain (10 per cent). Some of the companies that recruited in high numbers were Flipkart, Deloitte, IBM, Accenture, Cipla, ICICI Bank, P&G, Amazon, Reliance Industries, Cognizant, McKinsey, Hindustan Unilever, HSBC and BCG, among others.

Xavier School of Management (XLRI Jamshedpur) finished its final placement process in less than four days. It placed the entire batch of 245 students of its flagship Business Management and Human Resource Management Programs in three and a half days. A total of 103 prominent companies made 254 offers across domains.

Consulting and finance are the two big recruiters at B-schools this year, according to placement officials. Apart from them, e-commerce companies and start-ups have also made their presence felt.