14 cos on Day Zero of IIMB placements

Day zero, the first slot for placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), which ended here on Friday afternoon, saw 14 companies landing on the campus to hire its students. This is a major move upwards from the five that turned up last year on day zero.

The companies included Dresdner, Captive One, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, A T Kearney, HSBC, British Telecom, Barclays, Temasek, Bank of America, GM, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and BNP Paribas. The places for which graduates have been hired include US, London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

Commenting on the candidates this year, Gauri Gupta of BCG said, "The batch this year was very good. Specifically, they were sound on analytics and had a high level of maturity."

"I had high expectations when I was coming here. And I was still pleasantly surprised. The quality is outstanding. The students here at IIMB are exceptional," said an executive from HSBC London.

Day zero denotes the first phase of placements for IIMB where the top rung of companies including investment banks and consultants land to hire students for their international locations.

Day one, which starts on Saturday, will see the second rung of companies including names such as Proctor & Gamble, Hindustan Lever Limited and Citibank arriving at the campus.

Around 120 companies are expected to come to IIMB for placements this year.