The Hindu Business Line : IIM-A placements: All 263 students get plum offers

Dispelling anxieties about possible reduced hiring due to the sub-prime crisis and the expected recession worldwide, nearly100 firms from all over the world flocked to the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) last week for the summer placement process and hired all the 263 students with plum offers.

The process was set in motion, for the batch of 2007-09, on November 13 and lasted till November 18. The recruitment, which was divided among three slots during the six-day period, saw all the students getting successfully placed in their choice of sectors, an institute spokesman said here on Monday.

These students will now be paid stipend for training and internship for a period of seven to eight weeks, the spokesman added. Sector-wise, financing and investment banking firms enrolled the highest number of students, 35.9 per cent, followed by consulting 22.4 per cent, marketing, operations and general management 20.5 per cent, finance and others 15.4 per cent, and private equity 8 per cent.

Slot Zero

More than half of the batch (134 offer acceptances) was placed on the first day of placements. A total of 157 students got the job of their choice and opted out of the placement process by the end of the much-coveted Slot Zero (Day-1), highest number in the history of business school placements. Last year, the figure stood at 120. The number of Slot Zero firms increased sharply from 25 last year to 36 this year.

Even the Slot Zero offers spanned across sectors. Although top investment banks and consulting firms continued to have the highest number of acceptances, the students got a much more diverse pool of firms and roles to choose from.

Along with big players in the private equity domain, there were firms like Google, which offered a role in business development; Amazon (Logistics), the star recruiters in the IT/ITES domain; Chicago-based Starcom MediaVest Group, a leading global marketing communications networks, which came exclusively to IIM-A, and gave international roles involving business development and communication strategy.

Diverse offers

The diverse background of the students was one reason for the variety of offers. Close to 35 per cent of the batch has prior work-experience in non-IT areas, like engineering, finance, manufacturing, operations and marketing among others.

With the global private equity firms gung-ho about India, their numbers at the placements grew five-fold. Many of the global players like Blackstone PE, General Atlantic, Audax and Greater Pacific Capital visited the campus for the first time.

Other new firms on campus included investment banks and financial service majors like Macguaire, Rothschild, AIG and ING. Consulting majors Arthur D. Little and Value Partners recruited for summers for the first time. General Atlantic and ING recruited exclusively from IIM-A.

New Trend

Another trend this year was the willingness of firms to offer international postings for marketing roles. Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, Dabur and the Aditya Birla Group offered positions abroad to summer interns this year, in addition to Procter & Gamble (P&G), which used to be the only firm in this league till last year.

The total number of firms participating in the Summers Placements 2008 was close to 100. Continuing the roll by the top investment banks, Goldman Sachs had the highest number of acceptances (17), followed by Lehman Brothers (15) and Merrill Lynch (13).

Among the consulting firms, McKinsey and Co, the Boston Consulting Group and Bain and Co led the charge. The private equity sector saw a total of 15 acceptances. Altogether, 123 students from the 2007-2009 batch will be interning abroad across various firms and functional roles.

Building businesses

The idea of building businesses from scratch and higher levels of responsibility seemed to have gained popularity among the students. This year, based on student interest, a ‘Start-up Fair’ was organised on October 20 and 21, in which over 90 first year students interacted with nine start ups. The firms spanned across sectors ranging from education to finance.

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