IIMs off to a flying start to placement

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are off to a flying start this final placement season with pre-placement offers pouring in.

Final placements at IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) start this Saturday, while IIM-Indore (IIM-I) and IIM-Lucknow (IIM-L) will begin the process next week. IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B) and IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) will start their final placements from March 4.

Students at IIM-C have already received over 100 placement offers against 56 last year. The institute says it has so far witnessed an increase in the packages offered to the students, with a few offers above Rs 20 lakh per annum. Last year, the highest offer at the institute stood at Rs 60 lakh per annum.

The recruiters who have made offers at IIM-C include Cognizant Business Consulting, Deloitte, Hinduja Group, Aditya Birla Group, Accenture Business Consulting, Mahindra & Mahindra, Virtusa, Essar and Bristlecone.

At IIM-B, recruiters have so far made over 40 pre-placement offers and 10 pre-placement interview offers. The institute says it expects some more offers to come in before it begins the final process. Last year, IIM-B received a total of 53 offers.

Sapna Agarwal, head (career development), IIM-B, said: “Things are definitely looking better. Response from companies and also market conditions, they are looking positive.”

IIM-B will place 266 students from the PGP (Post-Graduate Programme) batch and 70 students from Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (ePGP). Close to 100 companies are expected to come for hiring at the PGP batch, while it could be 70-80 companies for ePGP. Placement for PGP will start from March 4 and go on till March 10. Placement for the ePGP batch, which is a rolling process, has already begun.

At IIM-L, while the lateral placements have seen over 100 offers so far, offers for PGP is already in the range of 30-40. Last year, the institute received 25 pre-placement offers. IIM-L has 324 students to place this year.

IIM-I expects 65 companies to come to campus this year to recruit 235 students of its PGP batch.

The institutes, however, are maintaining a cautious stand on placement as the numbers are still not as good as the pre-recession (2007-08) levels. “While this is a significant improvement compared to last year and we look forward to a great placement season ahead, the mood on the campus is one of guarded optimism,” said an external relations executive from IIM-C.

Beginning this year, IIM-A has changed its placement process by scrapping Day Zero, the first day of campus interviews. Instead, there would be clusters like Investment banking and consumer durables.

Under each cluster, there would be cohorts (functions) like marketing, consulting, information technology and sales, which the students would get to choose from.

Other IIMs, however, have decided to retain the Day Zero method and might change the process next year.

(With inputs from Pradipta Mukherjee in Kolkata)