Summer Placement scene hots up at JBIMS

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Summer placement activity at the Mumbai based Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) is in full swing.

The coming week at JBIMS would be packed with activity related to summer placements for the junior batch. Institute expects that this year’s summer stipend to touch an average of Rs 100,000 in comparison to last year’s highest stipend of Rs 60,000.

This year so far over a hundred companies have already registered for the placement process for the batch of 120 management graduates. In comparison, last year, only 60 companies participated in summer placements at JBIMS.

Sharing information with MBAUniverse.com, JBIMS says, “This year’s summers are expected to be dominated by consulting majors and investment banks such as KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Ernst & Young. The institute is also set to have international offers this year.” It adds, “Closer home, the FMCG companies like P&G, HUL, ITC, Nestle, Colgate Palmolive, Coca Cola and Cadbury’s are expected to participate.”

Calling JBIMS as preferred choice by leading banks and financial services media representative at JBIMS said, “JBIMS continues to be a favourite amongst leading banks and financial services with companies such as Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, and ICICI confirming participation for the process.”

"CAT is the toughest, but not the only one," TIME Education advices students not to lose a year

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Some aspirants who are not finding their CAT 2007 preparations up to the mark are getting nervous and searching for experts help.

When their mock-test scores are not shoring up, they are asking: “should I start preparing for CAT 2008.” Mr Sai Kumar, Course Director at Triumphant Institute of Management Education (TIME), one of leading MBA test prep companies, answered this query and said, “Students should realize that what they are working towards is a seat at a top notch B-School and not necessarily ‘doing well in CAT’. CAT is the toughest B-School test anywhere in the world, but it is not the only one!”

Given that there is no guarantee for doing well next year, Mr Kumar advices students not to give up on CAT 2007 and wait for next year. Said Mr Kumar, “The moot point is that one should not lose a year in the hope of doing well in CAT 2008. Rather one should take the best possible option available to them currently as one can never predict that performance will ‘certainly’ improve in the next year.”

A few top B-schools other than Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), who run their own entrance tests, are also offering good quality education to the students. Emphasizing this point, Mr Kumar says, “The so called ‘gap’ between the world class IIMs and the other top 20 B-schools in the country is decreasing year after year and currently all of them are within striking distance of the IIMs.”

Apart from CAT, its time aspirants also put other entrance exams into their plans to hedge their risks. Said Mr Kumar, “Students should hedge their risks by also writing other major entrance tests in India like Xaviers Aptitude Test (XAT) for XLRI, Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) for Symbiosis Group of Institutes, National Management Aptitude Test (NMAT) for Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, ICFAI Business School Aptitude Test (IBSAT) for ICFAI Business School etc. These exams are not as difficult as the CAT and as such students tend to perform better in these tests. Thus more opportunities open up to the students who diversify their risk!”

Students can appear in other important management entrance exams include XAT on January 6, 2008; FMS Entrance Test for Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University on January 13 2008; IIFT Admission Test for Delhi based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade on November 25 2007; Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET) for Indian Institute of Technology (IITs B-schools) on December 9 2007; NMAT on December 30 2007; SNAP and IBSAT on December 16 2007.

Emphasizing the importance of not losing a year, Mr Kumar says, “Thus aiming to get into a good B-School in 2007 itself should be the aim and any thought that one entertains of cracking the exam in 2008 would only weaken the preparation and not strengthen it.”

Concludes Mr Kumar, “The way forward is to steel yourself and take CAT 2007 as if it is the only attempt you have got in your life!”

Final Placement ‘08: IMI Delhi bags 9 PPOs, expects increase in international companies

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Delhi based International Management Institute (IMI) has set its placement process rolling with 9 Pre Placement Offers (PPOs) from five leading companies: Genpact, Asian Paints, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, DSCL, Grail Research, MB Holding ( Oman).

IMI is expecting more PPOs in coming weeks. Says Mr Amrish Sharma, Administrative & Placement Officer, IMI Delhi, “We have already received 9 PPOs. We expect 7 to 8 more companies, including International Companies, to make PPOs to our students.”

At IMI, the placement season will formally begin from January 3, 2008. The placement process is divided into two phases: lateral and final placement. The lateral placement process will start on January 3, 2008, while the general placement process will be held between January 15-19, 2008.

Some of the companies that are expected to visit IMI for final placements ‘08 include RPG Group, ITC Ltd, UBS, HSBC, Asian Paints, Jumbo Electronics ( Dubai) and MB Holding (Oman).

Overall batch strength at IMI is 186 students. Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) has 112 students, Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource (PGDMHR) has 44 students and Executive PGDM has 30 students. According to IMI, 54 % students in PGDM batch are of engineering background while 22% of commerce background.

Use engineering strategies for management goals

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BHUBANESWAR: The management professionals of today should think and rethink on pioneering engineering strategies for optimum utilisation of resources, said experts at a management seminar organised by city-based Asian School of Business Management here on Saturday.

Inaugurating the seminar, advisor to Prime Minister’s National Advisory Council Swamy Parthasarathy stressed development of intellectual capital through promotion of puritan and value-based model in place of globalised business model.Managing Director of State Bank of Indore C.Narsimhan emphasised on the changing priority of the banking sector addressing both internal and external customers through emotional engagements.

Parthasarathy’s book titled ‘Practice of management in the light of Bhagabat Gita’ was released on the occasion.Institute’s founder director Prof. Biswajeet Pattnayak, MP Prasanna Patsani and others also spoke. The seminar was based on sub-themes like value creation through HR, financial performance and e-governance. Heads of several corporate houses attended the technical sessions.

Pre-placement offers for IIM students touch new highs

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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.