The batch consisted of 73 pc students with prior work experience. Out of the total strength 38 pc had experience in IT/ITES, 5 pc in Engineering, 4 pc each in Manufacturing and Operations & 3 pc each in Finance and General Management. Although the investment banks and consulting firms continue to have the highest number of acceptances, sectors such as real estate, media, hedge funds, industrial marketing, among others made a debut on campus this year.

A total of 113 students out of a batch of 255 will be joining the financial sector this year. The major banks to recruit students of the batch of 2008 include Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Merill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays among others. In addition to this, 12 students opted for jobs in private equity. Among the private equity players, Greater Pacific Capital and Carlyle Group chose to recruit solely from IIM A. Credit Suisse also recruited exclusively for final placements 2008.

Slot Zero saw consulting firms as the preferred destination for students with a total of 41 offers. For a first time, many of the slot zero consulting firms offered international positions across USA and Europe. Consulting majors Monitor Group and Oliver Wyman made their first appearance at the process and had 9 and 5 acceptances, respectively. Monitor Group recruited exclusively from IIMA across all business schools in Asia. Other recruiters such as McKinsey (13 acceptances), BCG (8 acceptances) and Bain (7 acceptances) were among the major consulting firms participating in the process.

Even though the geographical distribution of offers extended by the firms remains the same, 76 pc students preferred working in India and 11 pc in the Asia-Pacific region. While only 7 pc opted for Europe, 4 pc for US and 2 pc for Middle-East. Many students opted for India as a location and preferred roles in India over associate offers in investment banks abroad. Furthermore, the increasingly attractive roles and packages offered by Indian firms have led to a larger number of students opting for Indian companies over MNC’s offering comparable salaries and roles. Diane Gabriel, a French student doing a dual degree program from ESSEC Business School and IIM Ahmedabad would be joining BCG in India.

The lateral placement process conducted in the months of January and February 2008 saw an increase in the number of students eligible for lateral placements from 89 last year to 112 this year. With this increase, even the number of firms participating in the process shot up to 37 making 103 offers in the process. The average salary for the laterals process saw an increase from Rs. 16.2 lakhs last year to Rs. 18.3 lakhs this year. Companies came from various sectors such as consulting, private equity, general management and banking participated in the process, and some of them recruited exclusively from IIM-A. Sectors such as private equity, consulting, technology and logistics made a debut at this process.

With eleven young people opting out of the placement system to start their own ventures, the trend of taking this less traveled road has grown stronger. These students have plans to start their ventures in areas like logistics, manufacturing, advertising, finance and agro-processing in addition to information technology. IIM Ahmedabad is also playing a part in promoting this trend. The institute recently came up with the policy of a ‘placement holiday‘, which allows graduating students who choose entrepreneurship as a career option to sit for the institutes’ placement process for two years after passing out from the institute. However, so far not a single person has availed of this policy.

Discuss here:
Placements across B-Schools, discuss here:

Share your thoughts or leave a comment.

Write Comment