Year 2009 was disastrous for management schools. Tier-II B-schools bore the brunt of the whiplash of the global recession. Even the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Indian School of Business (ISB) were not spared the rod. Major recruiters stayed away from the campus and many IIMs and even ISB had to defer the placement season.
The results of this year’s placements, though, indicate that the worst may be over at most B-schools. The figures, however, are nowhere close to the 2007 and 2008 placement levels. Yet, B-schools are taking heart from the fact that MBA grads have got desirable jobs again, with an average increase in salary of almost 20 per cent over last year.
For instance, the Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore, has managed to place 92 per cent of its students for the two-year Post Graduate Diploma in Management so far. The batch has 111 students. “At this time last year, we had placed only around 80 per cent of the batch,” says S D Tyagaraj, dean of XIME.
IT and banking were the biggest recruiters for the institute, suggesting that good times are back. Infosys recruited 16 students. IT major Wipro, which returned to campuses this year, is learnt to have made nearly 15 offers. Other IT companies like HCL, Cognizant, MindTree and IBM made multiple offers in various campuses for middle- to senior-level roles in their consulting, marketing development, business analysis and project management divisions. Average salaries offered by IT companies were in the bracket of Rs 10-25 lakh per annum.
At Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), around 38 per cent of the students got offers from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector. Investment banks and consulting companies made a big comeback this season. IT companies, too, came in larger numbers and with sought after profiles like business consulting.
“A total of 110 companies participated in the placement process and offered multiple offers to the batch of 119 students. The average salary this year stood at 12.83 lakh, 20 per cent higher than last year while the highest package touched 26 lakh,” says Udayant Khemani, a placement committee member.
At Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon, marketing and IT scored big this year but finance remained a favourite. While 35 per cent of the offers were taken up from the finance domain, the number of students opting for sales and marketing profiles has increased by nearly 15 per cent. Interest in IT and consulting also showed a growth trend with nearly 25 per cent of the batch accepting offers in these domains. The average salary for the batch stood at Rs 10.43 lakh, whereas the highest domestic salary was Rs 18.53 lakh this year.
More From This Section
Of the total 122 companies that visited the campus, 231 offers were made. Procter & Gamble, Netapp and JPMC were the companies that offered the highest salaries while SBI and Cognizant were the biggest recruiters at MDI this year.
The Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad got placement offers from international companies in the Middle East and Africa. Firms like KPIT Cummins, Deloitte, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan offered management consulting profiles while IT-ITeS firms were the biggest recruiters followed by the financial sector and public sector units (PSUs). The highest domestic salary was Rs 13 lakh offered by Airtel while the highest international package of Rs 26 lakh was offered by Jumbo Electronics.
IMT placed 400 students, according to Prakash Pathak, head, Corporate Relations. A total of 128 companies visited the campus and made 418 offers. The maximum number of students (22) was recruited by Infosys Technologies. IMT also saw 12 public sector units (PSUs) on campus like SBI, TRAI, ONGC and IDBI capital.
The School of Business Management of the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) saw 31 per cent of the batch being placed in the banking and financial services sector, 9 per cent each in the IT/ITeS, FMCG, consulting and pharma sectors. While 10 per cent were placed in the manufacturing sector, 6 per cent in services, three per cent in the media, two per cent each in consumer durables, telecom, retail and real estate and the remaining were placed in automobiles, analytics, education, logistics and market research jobs.
An average salary of Rs 11 lakh was offered for the placements of 2010 for the entire batch of 462 students. Nomura, JPMC, Kelloggs, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages, ITC, Godrej Consumer, L’oreal, Wipro Consumer, Essar, Saint Gobain, TATA Motors and Genpact made pre-placement offers.
More than half the batch of Master of Management at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay’s Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSoM) took up offers in the BFSI sector. While companies from the banking and finance sector recruited 31 per cent of the batch, the services sector recruited 20 per cent, FMCG and IT sectors 17 per cent each, manufacturing 11 per cent and infrastructure firms hired four per cent of the batch. The batch graduated with an average annual salary of Rs 12.31 lakh.
XLRI Jamshedpur, too, recorded a 10 per cent rise in the highest international offer this placement season, at Rs 55-60 lakh from Novartis. The highest domestic package stood at Rs 26 lakh made by a consulting firm for its Mumbai desk. The average domestic package this year stood at Rs 14.2 lakh, a rise of close to 20 per cent over last year’s figure. The placement process attracted 75 companies who offered a total of 205 offers to a batch of 120 business management and 60 personnel management and industrial relations (HR) students.
With contributions from Archana M Prasanna & Kirtika Suneja