The gravy train rolls into IIM-A before time

Even before the formal beginning of the placement process, international banking and financial institutions are gearing up to recruit students from the premier management school, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

Students, too, seem to be keen on opting for jobs in these sectors. The recruitment process in IIM-A starts in March.

Final-year students are also being approached for openings abroad across disciplines "" marketing, manufacturing, IT and general management.

Pre-placement offer (PPO) conversion rate topped by 100 per cent at leading investment banks, as on September 27, 2005. A PPO is a job offer from a company to a student who interned with them, well before the final placement season actually begins.

Deutsche Bank, London and New York, extended offers for the position of analysts to all the six interns it picked up in the November 2004 internship recruitment process. Lehman Brothers, London, and HSBC, London too made offers to each of its three interns, and Barclays Bank, Singapore offered associate positions to its interns.

PK Sinha, who recently took over as the chairman of the Placement Committee of IIM-A, said in a statement, "The booming economy and the success of last year's summers and finals are expected to give a fillip to this summer's process which will begin in early November."

Already, 38 students have been offered attractive positions in the firms where they had interned. Till today, 55 interns have been awarded pre-placement offers or pre-placement interviews in recognition of their outstanding performance.

Students executed assignments and were involved in live projects in all the major financial markets "" London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo, this summer.