IIMB summer placements take off on day zero

Global names up offers by 80 per cent for jobs at Rs 2.2 lakh a month

Some of the biggest names in world business flocked to IIM Bangalore on Wednesday to recruit students for summer internships. Global financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, HSBC, Credit Suisse First Boston and Barclays Capital turned up to recruit students in large numbers.

Other companies that were first past the post were consulting firms like the Boston Consulting Group, private equity firms such as Temasek Holdings and Barings and hedge funds such as Sandstone Capital.

A total of 74 foreign offers were made on day zero as compared to 41 last year. Of these 57 offers were accepted. For 2004, this figure stood at 27.

The number constitutes 25 per cent of the batch of 2007. The batch strength at IIMB was increased from 180 to 233 last year. The average stipend offered to students is a $5,000 (Rs 2.2 lakh) per month.

For the past few years IIM Bangalore has seen sustained increase in the number of companies visiting the campus on day zero for their placements.

The total number of companies which visited the campus on day zero has grown by 125 per cent from 8 last year to 18 this years.

"Wall Street's biggest names are making a beeline for IIMB. This bodes well for the Indian education system in general and IIMB in particular," said Y L R Moorthy, chairperson of placements at IIMB.

Students placed on day zero will get an opportunity to work in some of the biggest financial hubs of the world like New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

"The recruiters are some of the most coveted firms at top business schools the world over. This is as big as it gets," says Pankaj Goyal, who bagged an offer from a leading investment bank based in London.

The recruiters were equally upbeat about the quality of the talent pool that they came across at IIMB. "We found the students very excited, well-prepared and thoroughly professional.

This is a great mix of people from many different backgrounds, but the one thing that they all have in common is excellence," says Sajid Navid, Global head of Emerging Markets Structuring at Deutsche Bank.

"We found a fine pool of talent and we look forward to an association with IIMB in the years to come," says Vasant Naik, Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, London who are visiting Indian Institute of Management Bangalore for the first time this year.