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Rural management is catching the fancy of top corporate recruiters, who are making lucrative, record-setting offers to the newly graduated students from the Institute of Rural Management—Anand (IRMA).
At the recently concluded final placements of the 37th batch of the Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PRM 37), multinational giants with a rural focus and agribusiness operations, such as the Tolaram Group, Cargill, Godrej Agrovet, Kancor, ITC and the Zuari Group joined the conventional recruiters — dairy and farmer cooperatives — as top recruiters, setting a record for the country’s first rural management institute.
As the talent hunt turned fierce, the maximum compensation package was a stunning ₹46.50 lakh per annum.
During the three-day placements from February 12, a record 114 companies participated and made 315 offers to a batch of 180 students.
Tapping latent potential
“There has been a resurgence of corporate interest in the rural sector, with the private sector offering record salaries, which averaged ₹12.17 lakh per annum against ₹10.57 lakh last year,” Pratik Modi, Placement Coordinator, told Businessline .
“This shows that corporates have realised the importance and latent potential of the rural sector.
“They have started strengthening rural operations. IRMA’s curriculum is designed to create capabilities to manage rural operations, hence there is a great deal of demand for IRMAns,” he added. Among other top recruiters were diversified conglomerate Afri Ventures Ltd, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Mars International. About 4-5 students had opted out of the placements to pursue entrepreneurship, while 18 students received pre-placement offers from various organisations. In its 39-year history, the institute has maintained a 100 per cent placement record, but only recently has the quantum of compensation offered started to match that of premier B-Schools.
“Earlier, our placement policy was focussed more on the development sector, which suited NGOs, multi-lateral agencies, government development agencies and cooperatives,” Modi noted.
“But after realising the growing needs of the private sector, we expanded our policy horizon and invited corporates and business groups for recruitment, and provided the right fit between the profiles and our curriculum,” he added.
Amul, the top recruiter
While ‘Amul’ marketer, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF), remained the top recruiter, inducting 16 candidates, other cooperatives and producers’ collectives recruited a total of 30 candidates.
Global consulting leader KPMG recruited candidates for consulting roles, while several banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and CSR foundations also made picks.
The median salary offered by NGOs, cooperatives, and government development agencies, too, was up, with the average salary touching ₹9.42 lakh per annum against ₹9.37 lakh last year.
The combined average salary for the current batch stood at ₹11.39 lakh per annum, against ₹10.22 lakh last year).
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