IIM-A summers to feature new locations

It's not just the traditional destinations like the US and Europe that will lure students at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) during summer placements that begins on Friday, November 12, 2010. Internship offers for roles in the likes of Australia and Africa are set to debut this year during summer placements which would be following a cohort-based system as opposed to the Day-based system for the first time.

"Due to the improved market conditions, the number of offers per firm is expected to increase. Firms are also offering roles in newer locations including Australia, besides traditional destinations like US, Europe and South East Asia," said Mansi Chitalia, Coordinator, Student Placement Committee at IIMA.

 

Apart from Australia, institute sources also cite Africa as another potential new location for summer internships this year. Around 385 PGP students will be participating in the summer placements process. Talking about the response from firms invited for the summer placements this year, Chitalia said, "The response has been the extremely positive and the firms are very keen to offer internship opportunities to our students. The firms have also been appreciative of our recruiting processes which allows better recruiter-recruit fits."

"Summer placements are important because such hiring helps firms to build a pipeline for the future, which is reflected in pre-placement offers (PPOs). The cohort-based system is being introduced to allow companies to check their relationship with the students. And because summer internships are not final placements, the risk is low. We are expecting a buoyant summer placements process because we are in a different situation than what we were two years ago," Saral Mukherjee, chairperson, placements, IIM-A told Business Standard earlier. While the institute declined to state the number of firms set to visit the campus this year, about 110 firms visited campus last year during the summer placements last year.

Under the cohort-based system, firms will be grouped together in 'cohorts' based on the basis of multiple parameters such as roles, locations, salaries etc. and the cohorts would be scheduled in different clusters based on the student preferences. As per the tentative time-line set by the institute for the process, the clusters will be held on November 12, 15, 17, and November 18, 2010, followed by a rolling process.