IIMs see better summer

Banking and finance companies, whose dismal performance in late 2008 caused panic among students and faculty members of the premier Indian Institutes of Management, are making up this year with better profiles and stipends.

Students are lapping up these offers. At IIM Bangalore (IIM-B), around half the students opted for internship in banking and finance and at IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), 43 per cent did so. The IIMs say the response from companies is commendable, as the batch size was fairly large as compared to the last year. At IIM-B for instance, 348 students sat for summer placements against 267 students last year. IIM-C placed 407 students. Around 64 students at IIM-B secured offers for international placement against 85 last year, while 61 students bagged offers from companies for internship at international destinations.

Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-B, said, "Initially, the institute was apprehensive about placing 350 students this year as compared to 267 last year but the response of recruiters has been very encouraging."

Companies which flocked the IIMs include Goldman Sachs, HSBC, RBS, Nomura, Bain &Co, Boston Consulting Group, Standard Chartered, Credit Suisse, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC Global, Macquarie, Rothschild, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank.

At IIM-C, a total of 140 companies showed interest in hiring from this campus, up from last year's 110. Royal Bank of Scotland made the largest number of offers to 11 students; it was closely followed by Barclays Capital and Bank of America – Merrill Lynch. IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K) concluded their summer placement process earlier this week, with IIM-K students seeing a stipend offer at Rs 1 lakh. IIM-A placed around 310 students in four days. Two students opted out of placements. Last year's batch of 300 students was placed in six days.

Summer placement is to give students an opportunity to work with companies for two months at the end of the academic year, in this case the summer of 2010. The collapse of Lehman Brothers last September and a weak global banking and financial sector forced the IIMs last year to focus on tech service firms to explore job opportunities. This year, the IIMs have all their regular information technology (IT) and IT consulting firms returning.

Also, this year's surprise has been the start-ups; non-government-organisations (NGOs) and sports-based companies showing interest. IIM-K attracted a lot of new sectors in micro-finance and NGOs. "These can add up to nearly 15 per cent of the placements," said Rohan Jaikishen, placement committee member, IIM-K. IIM-Lucknow placements chairman, R L Raina, says: "The offers are expected to rise. This is a sign of economic growth." 

Around 20 companies made offers to the 309-strong batch at IIM-K. Companies that visited IIM-K include global giants like Arthur D Little, KPMG, Hewitt, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, HUL, Pepsico and Colgate Palmolive participated in the placements.

At IIM-K, too, finance remained the top pick of students, with 44 per cent of students opting for roles in finance. Around 18 per cent of the students opted for marketing roles in sales and marketing management, branding, business development and marketing research. Consulting and general management were the next two preferred domains, followed by IT. Last year, for the 2008-10 batch, the number of offers made by investment banks and accepted by students on the opening day stood at 35, whereas this year, this number has shot up to 77.

IIM-L has seen a 25 per cent rise in offers in its first phase of the summer placements for its PGP batch of 2009-11, as compared to last year. However, the institute has put the process on hold due to mid-term examinations.

Opening day at IIM-L saw the participation of leading consultancies, including McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group, investment banks such as Deutsche Bank International and BNP Paribas, and private equity companies including Baring Private Equity Partners, the release further stated.

Major FMCG firms, including Procter and Gamble, Hindustan Unilever, Diageo, Coca Cola, Nokia, Cadbury and several others, have already participated in the summer placements process so far. The year marked the entry of several such as Singapore Telecom, Puma and Bharti Airtel who participated in the process for the first time. Among emerging sectors, companies from renewable energy, health and education sector showed interest in hiring from the campus. Several students accepted offers from a range of start-up companies as well.

At IIM-Indore, summer placements are underway and the institute will reveal details only after the completion of the process.