B-schools find new takers

Emerging sectors such as retail, real estate, pharma, private equity and infrastructure are overtaking traditional recruiters like IT and finance in lateral placements at business schools this year.

Lateral placements refer to executives who have taken a mid-career break to get a B-school degree.

The rapid growth in sunshine sectors has forced companies to hunt for mid- and senior-level executives at premier B-schools.

Feedback Ventures, an infrastructure consulting company, Arcelor-Mittal, and Reliance Retail are among the 25-30 companies that went to the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) this time.

In all 88 students, each with roughly 18 months of work experience, were qualified to participate in the lateral placements.

"This year, companies from non-IT sectors like retail, infrastructure and real estate have come in large numbers to recruit students for both mid- and senior-level management positions," said Jatin Matani, student placement co-ordinator, IIM-A, which started lateral placements in January.

The trend was discernible at most IIMs. At IIM-Calcutta, Arcelor-Mittal, Dr Reddy's, Ranbaxy, DLF, Tesco, Pepsi, Trident, and Standard Chartered have dominated lateral placements.

At IIM-Lucknow (IIM-L), Reliance Retail, RPG Group and Essar Group have been the large recruiters, apart from the Tata group, Birlas and the Hindujas.

"There is a lot of demand for talent in fast-growing industries like retail. Interestingly, even students feel these sectors offer exciting career opportunities," said Kirupa Shankar, member of placement committee, IIM-L.

At IIM-L, 35 companies have so far made 100 offers to 80 students eligible to participate in lateral placements.

At the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad too, the rolling placement season has attracted players from non-traditional sectors.