IIM graduates PPOs offer jumps to Rs 18-30 lakh per annum

This year the pre-placement offers (PPOs) for final year management graduates of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has jumped to Rs 18-30 lakh per annum in comparison to last year’s average of Rs 8-12 lakh per annum, as many multinational firms are hiring new talents as they see revival in their businesses.

One of the IIM officials informed, “Students who already have many years of experience have got PPO packages of Rs 30-40 lakh per annum. We expect people with more work experience to get Rs 50 lakh per annum during the final placements.” Some of the IIM students told ET in most of the IIMs the number of PPOs for the 2008-2010 batches has already reached to 50-60, except IIM-Shillong as it has only 63 students. According to IIMs during the final placement in March 2010 the PPOs will be double.

An IIM-Ahmedabad official said, “This year, investment banks seem to be keen on final placements too. We are clearly seeing an uptick in the market, but at the same time this is just cautious optimism.” He added, “We are not taking it easy and are reaching out to more MNCs than before.”

Some of the global consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte and AT Kearney, besides technology companies such as Huawei, Intel, Dell, Pfizer, HP and Google have also shown interest in participating during the final placements next year.

Thus, this year India’s premier business schools is expecting a good part of their campus placements from companies such as P&G, Diageo, HUL, City Bank, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, Barclay’s, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America - Merrill Lynch, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and public sector banks. According to sources such companies have already started offering lucrative PPOs or are having talks with IIMs for hiring.

However few students are opting to graduate in finance. For instance, from the Harvard Business School only 28% of its 2009 graduating class is taking up career in finance. As per school statistics, around 40% of the 2008 students pursued careers in finance and over 20% opted for consulting career. David A Garvin, a C Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School said, “Now, there is fall in the number of students pursuing these domains. Students are taking up operational roles, line management and entrepreneurship.”

After getting cue from the global peers, IIMs have also started working in this direction and are searching new roles in sectors such as healthcare, pharma, telecom IT, real estate, media, PSUs, education, energy, logistics and entrepreneurship, IIM Shillong chief corporate relations and external affairs Arijit C Majumdar said.

IIM Bangalore second-year student Vineet Sharma, a marine engineer, told he is looking for the role in general management and might join his own business venture called Oilfield Warehouse and Services (OWS), as his organization is planning for an international expansion in Middle East and Africa and Singapore. While IIM Lucknow second-year student told he is interested in sales and marketing in the pharma industry.

Chirantan Shah, a placement committee representative at IIM Kozhikode said this year most of the students are showing interest to join start-ups as they know it is a great learning process to attain knowledge of multiple roles such as equity, marketing and sales.

Hariharan Sriram, the external relations secretary at IIM Calcutta, told students are now showing interest in domestic opportunities as well as to work in countries in South East Asia which have better economic outlook.

PSBs to visit top B-schools again for recruitments

Last year during the placement season the public sector banks (PSBs) were able to snare management graduates from top business schools such as the Indian Institutes of Management, therefore getting motivated from the last year decision the PSBs have decided to go for aggressive campus recruitment this year.

Bank of Baroda chairman and managing director MD Mallya said, “We have had a fantastic experience last time when we recruited from the top management schools in the country. The quality of talent was extremely good”.

Earlier this year during the placement season in March the bank had hired around 200 students from various B-schools, including the IIMs, this year also bank has decided to hire around 350 students. He added, “We are looking to add talent to facilitate our expansion plans and plan to hit the campuses soon”.

In fact PSBs decision to hire students from IIMs and other B-schools is basically its necessity and not just out of craze. Approximately 40 per cent of their workforce, around 8 lakh people are going to retire in the next two years, therefore PSBs are ready for large-scale recruitment drive. Banks will be hiring at all levels and for this they have decided to visit B-schools as well.

Bank of Maharashtra CMD Allen Pereira stated, “We will hire in sizeable numbers and will visit management schools during the upcoming placement season. But not all the positions that fall vacant will get filled up as some jobs get eliminated as a result of improved technology over the years”.

In the last year placement season, the bank had hired from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, among others.
United Bank of India CMD SC Gupta informed his bank is looking to hire around 1,700 people in the next one year at all levels and for this it will be visiting management schools such as XLRI. On the other hand UCO Bank has decided to visit IIMs and other B-schools this year to hire around 100 MBA graduates.

In the last placement season more campus recruitment was done by PSBs mainly because several foreign banks, affected by the global credit crisis and the recession in the West, did not visited Indian B-school campuses. The position of private banks in India was somewhat similar to as foreign banks.

Many job seekers are giving preference for PSBs over private banks may be because of challenge of working in a public sector company or the due to job security in the an uncertain world.

According to government data, last year there has been decline in the number of students being recruited by MNCs from IIMs it was as much as 45 per cent. in 2009 placements MNCs hired around 497 students from six IIMs as against 920 a year before.

Even in the salaries there was a major change, as most of the IIMs witnessed decline of up to per cent in average salary offers.

IIM Calcutta external relations secretary Paul Savio pointed out, “Last placement season, the decision to join PSBs may have been guided due to lack of opportunities from MNCs. But this year too, many students are interested in joining PSBs and other such enterprises. This is even as the economic situation has improved”.