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.