Despite extension, IIM-A yet to place all executive programme students

For the the first time in almost a decade, the premier Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is yet to ensure a job for all the students from its third batch of the Post Graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX). This is despite the institute having extended the placement season by two months, till the last week of May.

Moreover, the institute witnessed an almost 25 per cent drop in its average domestic salaries and a 16 per cent drop in international salaries.

Placements for PGPX participants take place over an extended period of time from December to March, as the participants are considered by top-tier firms for middle to senior level positions. However, this time, 93 per cent of the 70 students seeking placements could be placed by the end of May 2009. "The institute placement office continues to provide full support in their career search efforts by facilitating interaction between these students (the remaining five) and firms that express interest," reads an IIM-A statement.
 

DOWN THE LEARNING CURVE (How the PGPX placements panned out at IIM-A)
	PGPX 2007-08	PGPX 2008-09
Average domestic salary	Rs 26,81,000	Rs 20,16,000
Average overseas salary	$145,000	$122,000
No. of domestic placements	62	63
No. of overseas placements	7	2
In process *	0	5
Entrepreneurial ventures	0	4
Did not seek placement	0	3
Total	69	77
* As of May 31, 2009

 

Unlike last year, which saw zero entrepreneurial ventures, four students from the batch have opted out of placements to start their own ventures in sectors such as clean energy, manufacturing and services. The class of 2009 has attracted a domestic average annual salary of Rs 20.16 lakh. Two students were placed internationally, at an average salary of $122,000 (around Rs 59 lakh).

PGPX is a one-year, full-time, residential MBA programme designed for high-potential professionals with substantial work experience.

In order to beat the meltdown blues, the class of 2009 had invited a particularly diverse pool of recruiters. Firms that returned for recruitment included Adani, IBM, McKinsey, Mastek, NISG, Polaris, PRTM, RPG, to name a few, while first-time recruiters included Alcatel Lucent, Amazon, Eli Lilly, eInfochips, Emergent Ventures, Hero Honda, Marg Infrastructure, NMCE, Siemens Information Systems, Sundaram BNP and VBHDC. IBM made the largest number of offers.

The release added that several growing small and medium enterprise have hired PGPX graduates for executive roles of CEO, COO, Head of IT and VP positions in sales, operations and strategy. A few students received calls from former employers.

Meanwhile, placements for IIM Calcutta’s 2nd Post Graduate Programme for Executives (PGPEX) saw the entire batch placed. This year, the PGPEX programme introduced the option of "deferred placements", so that students interested in pursuing entrepreneurial ventures could avail of the flexibility of placements services, should they need to, in any one of the two subsequent batches of the PGPEX programme. Two students availed of the deferred-placement-policy and have started ventures of their own.

However, there was an 11 per cent drop in average salaries -– Rs 18 lakh this year, down from Rs 20 lakh last year. The highest domestic salary, however, saw a steeper drop -– falling to Rs 35 lakh from Rs 45 lakh last year.

---

Also read:
March 10: IIMs to review placement plans