Friday, October 31, 2008

Global meltdown to affect placements in management institutes

New Delhi: With the global financial crisis hitting several sectors, top management institutes are worried it will adversely affect the job prospects of their students, who are expecting a drop in the number of offers and the pay packages.

Several top notch companies have already conveyed their intention to freeze campus placements, while some have decided to hire limited candidates in final placements.
Top management institutes fear that the hike in average pay packages could be down by 20%, whereas students are apprehensive of a more severe downturn.

“Market meltdown will definitely affect the final campus placements with indications that companies would squeeze their requirements to a bare minimum. Companies, which had recruited 5-6 students during last campus placements may now restrict the number to one or two,” Prof Sourav Mukherjee, placement Chairman, IIM, Bengaluru (IIM-B) said.

The situation has also forced IIM-B to invite more companies to take part in the placement drive.

“This year we are approaching more companies from non-financial sector,” he added.
With lesser chances of investment banking companies — the worst hit by the crisis — seeking campus selection, institutes are turning to greater number of companies from the non-financial sector.

About 30% of the companies that annually come for campus selection at IIM-B are from the financial sector.

Investment banking sector, which used to bring in hefty pay offers, may also refrain from recruiting this year and this could pull down the upper limit of pay packages.
“With chances of investment banking companies coming for campus selection diminishing, students may not get big pay package offers,” said Prof Prashant Salwan, Chairman (Placements), IIM Indore said.

He was, however, confident that passouts would suitably be placed in other sectors.
“Pay packages for fresh students may not be as attractive this time. For the last five years, the increase in annual package offered to fresh graduates used to be in the range of 20-30%, but now it could be in the range of 10%, average salary being Rs14 lakhs,” said Prof Sushil Kumar, placements Chairman, IIM Lucknow.

Ameet Padiyar, convener, placement committee, IIFT, New Delhi said: “Some companies have indicated that they will not come for recruitment this season as they are reviewing their requirements and placements will be on freeze till they complete the review.”
With four more months to go for the placement season, others are still in the process of gauging the impact.

Students, on the other hand, are expecting a drop of almost 30-50% in the annual pay-package.
“We are in stress because the meltdown is going to affect our careers badly. This time we expect pay package offers less by 30-40% than last year.

“Last year 173 students received 367 offers and average annual pay package was Rs13.7 lakhs”, said Sachin Sharma, a third semester student of IIM Indore.

Normally, about 4,500-5,000 jobs are offered to the 1,600 odd pass-outs from the seven IIMs alone. Besides, there are several other institutes like IIFT, XIM & XLRI, Symbiosis, ICFAI, Mudra and SPJIPMR, whose pass-outs also get a good number of job offers.

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