MUMBAI: During the placement season in March 2006, Bangalore-based software company Reach Technologies pitched hard to hire some students from the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), offering starting salaries of over Rs 8 lakh per annum. Yet, Reach, which specialises in software for the garment industry, found it tough to get even one student. These days, even marquee names like Ashok Leyland and L&T sometimes find no takers at premium institutes because they don’t pay enough to make the cut.
A fast-growing economy and the spurt in new businesses started by foreign firms are driving up demand for management graduates and raising the bar for high salaries. Pre-placement offers (PPOs) in the middle of a term have now become the norm to net students before they are snapped up by competitors. They are offered on the basis of a student’s performance during a summer internship which students undergo after the first year of the MBA programme. The brightest are thus being booked with offers of well-paying associate positions by August-September.
“It’s one of the best ways to secure quality people,” said a faculty member at IIM-B. While IIM-A has so far received nine associate positions from investment bankers for the class of 2008, IIM-Calcutta has received five such offers, up from the three associate positions they got last year, said Pratyush Mulukutla, a placement committee member. An IIM-A official said, “To date, nine students have been extended associate offers this year__the highest across all B-schools in the country. With more than six months to go for actual placements, this number represents a record of sorts.”
The number of associate offers during final placements 2007 at IIM-A was eleven. While the IIMs refused to give out information regarding compensation, it may be noted that students of the class of 2007 at IIM-C who received such offers were offered salary packages of over Rs 1 crore. “While two students were offered US $2.5 lakh, the third student joined a UK-based firm where his compensation amounted to Rs 1.1 crore (converted),” added Mulukutla. One IIM-C student has also been offered a position by UBS at its London desk.
He is the only student from any Indian B-school to have been made an offer so far. At IIM-B, placement officer Sourav Mukherji said the class of 2008 with a strength of 250 had already received about 70 PPOs. Besides, Vikram Balan said all 17 students who interned with top-notch firms like McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Co, A T Kearney and Triology have been offered PPOs.
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