Iim Lucknow Placements Defy Doomsayers

scene 1: A roomful of young people with nervousness writ large on their faces. Some-body shouts for Hemant Agarwal and he rises, hastily stubs out his cigarette, adjusts his tie and reaches out for the file that is secure in his left hand.

scene 2: An hour later, 23-year-old Hemant emerges from another room, beaming. After much back-thumping, he fishes out another cigarette, lights it deliberately and takes a drag with considerably greater relish. He has just landed himself a job as a management trainee with Mashreq Bank in Dubai. The package: about Rs 9 lakh per annum.

Hemant Agarwal is not the only one beaming at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L). In less than three days, about 53 companies, including the likes of Proctor & Gamble, Philips, Citibank, Coca-Cola, Deloitte & Touche, Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Hindustan Lever, ICICI and Maruti Udyog snapped up the entire class of 98.

 

We had a great first day, with about 15 companies making spot offers to 54 students. With each passing hour, the number of students left to be placed decreased, exults Sushil K. Sharma, professor of computers and information systems and chairman of IIM-Ls placement cell.

Placement season at IIM-L, the first of the four IIMs to be visited by corporates this year, certainly sent out heartening signals to anxious B-school grads. Mashreq Bank, which had hired four students from IIM-L last year, took three more this year, at an annual package of 82,552 dirhams (against 60,000 dirhams in 1997). Said an excited Hemant Agarwal, It was my dream to be with Mashreq.

Corporates were gushing too. Says Mashreq Banks relationship manager (staffing), Fazal Khan, We come to Indian institutes as the fundamentals of students are strong and they adapt very fast. Mashreq also goes head hunting in Pakistan and the US.

The sought-after recruiters this year included ANZ Grindlays Bank and Asian Paints. All seven offers made by Grindlays were accepted, as were Asian Paints six offers.

Expansion-oriented information technology major Infosys offered 17 jobs, of which nine were taken. Hindustan Lever scored four out of five.

As the sun sets on the 200-acre campus of the IIM-L, its party time as 180 students take a well-deserved breather before going back to their gruelling daily routine. There may be a slowdown out there in the big bad world, but for now, these young men and women arent complaining.

The future is theirs, and theyve already realised the dream that brought them flocking to the campus: To earn loads and perchance learn a little.