IIM placements bring cheer amidst downturn

Summer placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Calcutta helped bring some cheer amid concerns that offers may be difficult to come by in the backdrop of the current downturn. Both institutes reported 100 per cent placements with IIM-B placing 268 graduates and IIM - C placing 300 graduates.
 
Of the 268 students placed by IIM - B, 24 per cent accepted positions in consulting firms, McKinsey and Co hiring the maximum. Finance companies offered positions to 21 per cent, investment banks to 20 per cent, marketing firms 13 per cent, general management 13  per cent and others 5 per cent.
 
 IIM-C reported placements of all its 300 students who have received offers from companies in investment banking, consulting, general management, marketing, media and private equity. The total number of companies that came for campus recruitments rose to 110.
 
At IIM- B 110 companies participated in placements, a 50 per cent increase of last year's 65. The IIM placement authorities had called greater number of firms as compared to last year on expectations of declining offers per company. 

Saurav Mukherjee, chairperson, placements, IIM-B, said the average number of offers has come down from 4 per firm last year to 2.5 this year.

International offers, too, declined at IIM-B with 85 getting international offers as against 105 last year. The decline registered is on account of both fewer international offers and also because of preference of students for the domestic placements, according to Aditya Kashyap, member, students placement committee at IIM-B. International offers came from ICICI Bank, Bank of Muscat, UAE Exchange and Result.

According to Mukherji, the companies had come with more stringent selection criteria this year, but given the quality of students the companies ended up making offers much beyond their targeted numbers.

The placement committee reported that the average domestic stipend had increased and not decreased as was being being feared in the current scenario. The committee declined to give further details of the offers.