IIM-A placements begin under veil of secrecy

Providing names of companies that arrived at the campus for recruitments on day zero and listing out names of the students that got record pay packages will harm the interests of both the students as well as the recruiters, said officials of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad as day zero of the IIM-A summer placements got underway on Monday.

However, according to sources, over a dozen top corporates and institutions from India and abroad arrived at IIM-A for day zero of the summer placements. These include multinational banks, consulting firms and corporates.

Rekha Jain, chairperson of the Placements Committee of the IIM-A said: "As a policy, we have decided that details of the placements will be provided only at the end of the placement sessions. Information being sent out of day zero makes both corporates and students unhappy. In either case, I fail to understand the importance of day zero. After all, not more than 30 or 40 per cent placements are finalised on day zero."

She added that this decision has been conveyed to the IIM-A director as well. "To be honest, even I, as chairman of the placements committee, do not have any information on the corporates that have come to the campus, the pay packages offered to students and the like," she stated.

An IIM-A student walking out of the placements sections, said: "Yes, I had an extended session of interviews, but that is all I can say. I think the authorities will be able to provide more information".

"A couple of years ago, we did provide information on day zero about the foreign companies that came to the campus, how much pay packages were offered and the names of the students that bagged the offers. But that brought tremendous pressure on the students that did not make it on the first day and it also caused bitterness among recruiters that came in on day one and two. We are ensuring that this is not repeated," explained an IIM-student who is co-ordinating the placements procedure at IIM-A.