IIM vs IIM for placement pie

The older Indian Institutes of Management have competition from the younger ones. After learning the tricks of the trade from their mentors, the younger IIMs are now approaching the regular set of companies that visit older IIMs for placements.

“B-schools are many, but big recruiters are the same. Older IIMs are the big daddies. So, it becomes imperative for us to devise strategies to beat competition from them. We have managed to get around three companies to recruit only from our campus this year,” said a placement committee member of an younger IIMs.

“Our batch size is much smaller compared to the older IIMs. Hence, we are fine if a company does not want to recruit in bulk. We are telling companies that if they are to recruit 15 students from a given campus, they can recruit at least five from ours and the rest from an older IIM,” the placement committee member added.

With six new IIMs — Ranchi (Jharkhand), Rohtak (Haryana), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Thiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), Kashipur (Uttarakhand) and Udaipur (Rajasthan) — the total number of IIMs have gone up to 13. While placements are on at the older IIMs, three IIMs — Ranchi, Rohtak and Raipur, among the new ones, are undergoing final placements at present. Younger IIMs say they do not have any database of companies, and contrary to claims that they would need support from the Ministry of Human Resource Development to place students, they will not seek any one’s help.

Placement details at IIMs, say placements chairpersons at these institutes, are always kept under wraps, except for the three big IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta — which largely share placement details with each others.

“In this case, the key is to begin placements early to have the first mover advantage. We try to keep our placement dates around the same time as the older IIMs. This enables us to attract the same set of companies as that of our mentors,” a placement committee chairperson said.

The newer IIMs are also dishing out a deal to the companies. If a company, on a said IIM campus has been given a day three slot, the younger IIMs are giving them zero day slots.

Prafulla Agnihotri, director, IIM Thiruchirapalli, who was also the placement chairperson at IIM Calcutta earlier, says, “I did have the comfort factor with HR directors of many companies since I headed placements at IIM Calcutta. But if these companies are recruiting from our Trichy campus, that is because they believe in our students.” Agnihotri says he invited a number of recruiters on campus to meet and interact with students. The companies have used the same platform to evaluate students. “Though many companies have come to our campus given my relationship with them, they have recruited because we are brand IIM,” adds Agnihotri.

The older IIMs say this is obvious, but is not worrying them. “This is natural. Jobs will be distributed. As the economy grows, there will be enough jobs to absorb students from newer campuses. Besides, the older IIMs are a brand and companies will come to them for recruitment.”

To have more number of companies on campus, these younger B-schools are organising live projects, colloquiums and HR conclaves to build relationships with companies.

Top consulting firms are giving the younger IIMs a tough time. “Their policy is not to recruit from a campus which is less than five to six year old, and so they are not entertaining us,” said a placement coordinator from one of the new IIMs.

It will be a while before the younger ones can flaunt the crore plus salary figures.