Robust B-School summer internships hint at better final placements ahead

Stipends rise even as consulting, finance sectors lead recruiters' pack at B-schools

If some of the early summer placement results at some of the top business schools (B-schools) are anything to go by, the upcoming final placements might just get better even as revival takes hold post pandemic.

Not only have average stipends for two months grown by 5-10 per cent, but there has been a rise in highest stipends over last year as well.

For instance, XLRI-Xavier School of Management not only wrapped up summer placements in just two days, but also attracted the highest stipend of Rs 6.8 lakh for two months in the BFSI sector, up from the highest stipend of Rs 5 lakh for two months received last year. Placing its largest ever batch (2021-23) of 470 students of the Business Management and Human Resource Management programs across both XLRI Jamshedpur and Delhi-NCR campuses for summer internships, XLRI saw highest number of offers made by the consulting cohort at 127 including firms like BCG, Bain and Accenture Strategy, among others.

Similarly, Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi posted a nine per cent increase in its average stipend of Rs 2.62 lakh for two months, along with the highest stipend of Rs 5 lakh offered by the BFSI sector.

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode which wrapped up its summer placements process by bagging internship offers for all of its 559 students, saw an increase of 6.4 per cent in its average stipend of Rs 2 lakh per annum over last year. The virtual summer placement process for the 25th batch of its flagship post-graduate programme (PGP), the second batches of PGP Liberal Studies and Management, and PGP Finance at IIM Kozhikode also saw the highest stipend of Rs 3.74 lakh a year being offered.

IIM Indore, on the other hand, posted an eleven per cent increase in its average stipend of Rs 2 lakh, even as it attracted the highest stipend of Rs 4 lakh this year.

Given that B-schools are increasingly witnessing around 30-35 per cent of total final placements offers coming from pre-placement offers, the significance of summer placements continues to grow year-on-year (YoY).

For instance, while 33.33 per cent of the students at XLRI received PPOs in the previously concluded final placements, last year FMS Delhi had attracted 65 pre-placement offers (PPOs), forming nearly 30 per cent of the total number of offers received during the final placement process.

Similarly, about 29 per cent students at IIM Kozhikode procured PPOs in the previous final placements process held earlier in 2021, highlighting the success of previous summer internships.

According to A Kanagaraj, Chairperson, Placements at XLRI-Xavier School of Management, the B-school was able to shatter all of its previous records, owing to the current phase of economic resurgence.

On the other hand, IIM Kozhikode director Debashis Chatterjee stated that the premier B-school was able to secure a broad mandate of offers amid a challenging economic and business environment was possible due to an encouraging participation from recruiters and alumni support. "We also believe the tremendous response to summer placements is an optimistic omen to our forthcoming final placement season," Chatterjee added.

Among sectors, consulting, finance (BFSI), general management and sales & marketing majors led internship offers across campuses.

At FMS Delhi, 102 companies participated in the summer placements process with 74 companies being slotted and 290 offers made to the batch of 2021-23. Top legacy recruiters on campus included Accenture, Amazon, Bain & Co, Boston Consulting Group, Coca-Cola, Flipkart, HUL, ITC, Kearney, Microsoft, Media.Net, Nestle, Standard Chartered, Tata Administrative Services among others.

About 37 per cent of students were hired in Consulting and General Management domains, an increase of 72 per cent from last year. The companies that took part in the campus placement include Accenture Strategy, Bain & Co, BCG, Kearney, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Everest Group, KPMG, Synergy Consulting, Adani, Capgemini, JSW, Mahindra, Piramal Group, RPG, and Tata Administrative Services.

Around 132 recruiters including 64 new recruiters extended summer internship offers to 559 students at IIM Kozhikode, with the cohort comprising candidates with average 26 months of pre-MBA work experience, with a 39 per cent gender diversity and 40 per cent non-engineering graduates at IIM Kozhikode.

At IIM Kozhikode, the Sales & Marketing, Consulting and Finance were the most sought after roles on campus contributing up to 73 per cent of the total offers being made. Top recruiters at IIM Kozhikode including Accenture Strategy, Amazon, Asian Paints, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Citibank, Deloitte USI, Flipkart, Goldman Sachs, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, PwC and TAS extended an aggregate of 146 offers to around 21 per cent of the batch.

Sales and Marketing contributed 25 per cent of offers on campus and saw participation from firms like Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto, Coca-Cola, HUL, ITC, Johnson & Johnson, Loreal, Lubrizol, Marico, Nestle, PepsiCo, Pidilite, Reckitt Benckiser and Samsung among others.

Meanwhile, IIM Indore too saw consulting lead internship offers, picking up 25 per cent of the batch, followed by BFSI (17 per cent), FMCG (15 per cent) and IT/Analytics (14 per cent). Moreover, of the over 150 recruiters participating in summer placements process for the 573 participating candidates from the two-year flagship Post Graduate Programme (PGP) and 5-year Integrated Programme in Management (IPM), over 30 were first time recruiters.