The Hindu Business Line : Highest salary offer Rs 1.44 cr at IIM-A

Ahmedabad, March 11Dispelling anxieties and rumours about reduced hiring due to the sub-prime crisis and the global economic slowdown, most students of post-graduate programme-general (PGP) at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have raced ahead with offers of fat pay-packets in this year’s placement process as well but fewer of them are going abroad.

India is flavour of the season, with 76 per cent of students getting placed in the country itself this year. Old favourites US, Europe and the Middle East appear to be losing their sheen and accounted for only four, seven and two per cent placements, respectively, whereas the Asia-Pacific carried the remaining 11 per cent, indicating the global economic power-shift to the East.

Ms Dianne Gabriel, a French student in a dual degree programme, would be joining BCG in India. “This is where the growth is and I wanted to be part of that growth,” as she put it.

The highest international acceptances this summer ranged from $2,80,000 (nearly Rs 1.12 crore) to $3,60,000 (Rs 1.44 crore) depending on minimum and average bonuses, although the actuals are expected to be 20 per cent higher as most IIM-A alumni’s performance has shown so far. The highest domestic acceptance was in the range of Rs 50 lakh-70 lakh, the IIM-A Director, Prof S.K. Barua, told a press conference here today.

The average domestic salary amongst the accepted offers this year is Rs 17.85 lakh, a jump of 30 per cent from last year’s Rs 13.7 lakh. The average international salary is $1,19,000.

Sectors such as real estate, media, hedgefunds, industrial marketing made a debut on the campus. A major shift was seen in the nature of jobs offered.

“The focus has shifted from managing wealth in structured entities to creating wealth in unstructured enterprises, such as microfinance,” said Prof P.K. Sinha, Chairperson (Placements).

Many opted for India over associate offers in prominent investment banks abroad and many more chose the packages of Indian companies over the MNCs offering comparable salaries and roles. Many have been offered non-entry-level jobs this year.

In the final placement process conducted from March 6 to 11, more than 90 firms participated, including 30 newcomers from different sectors.

Altogether, 161 out of the batch of 255, had been placed or had opted out by the end of the slot zero of placements which saw 25 firms participating.

Despite the grim situation in international financial markets, 113 students will be joining the financial sector this year. At a time when many banks have imposed ‘hiring freeze’ on their international recruitments, the students of IIM-A have been preferred over students from other business schools across the world,” he said.

Altogether, 11 students opted out of the placement process to set up their own enterprises. The major banks to recruit students of the 2008 batch include Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, among others.

In addition to this, 12 students have opted for jobs in private equity, including Greater Pacific Capital, Carlyle Group and also Credit Suisse which recruited solely from IIM-A. In a break from the past, the slot zero saw consulting firms emerge as the most-preferred destination for students.

For the first time, too many of these firms offered international positions across the US and Europe. Consulting majors Monitor Group (9 acceptances) and OliverWyman (five) came for the first time with the former recruiting exclusively from IIM-A across all business schools in Asia.

Long-time recruiters McKinsey, BCG and Bain accounted for 13, 8 and 7 acceptances.

A total of 41 offers was made by slot zero firms at the final placements itself.

Finance (45.95 per cent) and consulting (30.89 per cent ) carried the lion’s share of placements. Other sectors were real estate (1.22%), operations (3.25), marketing (6.10), entrepreneurship (3.66), IT-ITeS (2.03), and general management ( 6.91 per cent ).

In the lateral placements process carried out in January and February, 112 students got placements compared to 89 last year while the number of firms participating shot up to 37. They made a total of 103 offers with an average salary increasing from Rs 16.2 lakh last year to Rs 18.3 lakh this year.

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