The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are leaving no stone unturned to ensure the presence of top companies on the campus this year. Some IIMs have even done away with, or reduced, the participation and placement fees for the final placements season.
For instance, IIM Bangalore last year pegged the participation fee at Rs 1.5 lakh for slot zero (day one), Rs 1 lakh for slot one, and Rs 50,000 for slot two. This year, it has decided not to impose the fee on recruiters. The institute will only levy the ‘student support fee’ which will be charged on each student recruited by a company.
The student support fee or the recruitment fee, too, is lower as compared to last year. Last year, the institute charged Rs 100,000 per student as recruitment fee for slot zero, Rs 80,000 for slot one and Rs 50,000 for slot two. While recruitment fee for slot zero has not been cut, the fee for slot one has been reduced to Rs 50,000 and slot two to Rs 40,000. Moreover, for its first batch of Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (ePGP), the institute has not imposed any participation fee but will charge Rs 100,000 per student as recruitment fee for domestic placement and $5000 for international placement.
IIMs generally charge two types of fees from companies participating in campus recruitment — a fixed fee as participation charge, and a variable fee per student hired. To hire PGP students, the variable recruitment fee for companies making overseas posting ranges from $5,000 (for an annual cost-to-company (CTC) of more than $100,000) to $1,500 (for an annual CTC of less than $ 60,000).
Domestic posting ranges between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 25,000 for an annual CTC of over Rs 18 lakh to less than Rs 10 lakh, respectively. For PGPX students, recruitment fee for overseas posting is $ 5,000 and for domestic posting is Rs 70,000 per student. The money is used to pitch for new companies and also used to provide hospitality services to companies that visit the campus.
“We waived off the participation fee to rationalise the structure,” says Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-B. There are 266 students from the post-graduate programme (PGP) and 70 students from the ePGP batch of 2010. Around 100 companies are expected to come to hire PGP students while 70-80 companies will vie for ePGP(s). Placements for PGP students will start from March 4 while that for the ePGP batch is a rolling process which has begun.
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IIM Indore, too, has for the first time eliminated recruitment fee and instead introduced a ‘contribution fee’, where companies have to pay Rs 50,000 upfront, irrespective of how many students they hire. PSUs, start-ups and social sector organisations, however, will not be charged. The institute expects 65 companies to come to recruit 235 students of its PGP batch. Its placement week is expected to start in mid-February.
As it gears up to conduct its first placement process, IIM Shillong too has decided not to charge any fees from companies in the current season. It expects around 30 companies to come for placements (to recruit 63 students) this year, according to Arijit Majumdar, its chief — corporate relations and external affairs. The placement process starts in the institute from February 15.
IIM Ahmedabad has decided to charge a fixed participation fee of Rs 30,000 for domestic posting by a firm and $700 for overseas posting of students of post graduate programme in management (PGPM) — its flagship programme — as well as other executive management programmes like PGPX, PGP-PMP and PGP-ABM, according to Saral Mukherjee, chairperson — placements at IIM-A.
At IIM Lucknow, fixed charges or participation fee for domestic posting range from Rs 75,000 during slot zero to Rs 15,000 for slot four and below. The institute will not charge this fee for overseas posting this year. Variable charges per acceptance range between Rs 25,000 and Rs 5,000 for slot zero to slot four and below for domestic posting, and $2,000 to $ 500 for overseas posting depending on the slot.
IIM Kozhikode, though, has not made any changes this year.