B-School laterals are a mixed bag

Placements 2012 at management institutes across the country may turn out to be a subdued affair, if lateral placements are any indication. Premier institutes like the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and XLRI, Jamshedpur have reached out wider to new companies to compensate for lesser hiring numbers from regular recruiters.

Consulting, information technology (IT), e-commerce and IT products are among the sectors that are looking good, while those like banking and financial services and fast moving consumer goods have scaled down the number of offers. The process began at some of the IIMs in December, while others started in early January.

At IIM-Lucknow, for instance, where some 200-odd candidates with an average work experience of 32 months have gone into lateral placements, IT and general management companies are showing greater interest. “The impact of the economy is being felt in terms of numbers per company. But if we are losing out there, we are making up in terms of new companies,” says KV Nitin, recruitment coordinator.

“We have some exclusive recruiters in retail, IT and e-commerce,” he adds, explaining that international executive search firm Michael Page International is making its debut on campus, while Olam International and Deloitte are among the regular recruiters. E-commerce, oil and gas, renewable energy and retail are “among the hot sectors.”

Institutes have done their groundwork and dug deeper into their databases, expecting the number of offers per company to come down because of the overall slowdown. As a result, a number of new companies making their presence felt on campus. At IIM Calcutta, first-timers on campus during lateral placements include a US-based IT product company, and more from the power and manufacturing sectors, says IIM-Calcutta placements chairperson Amit Dhiman, who refused to disclose their names.

More than 100 students at the institute have been placed so far. These include about 78 candidates who have received pre-placement offers and nearly 40 who have been hired during the laterals process. At IIM-Bangalore, the lateral placement process started in mid-December and is still in progress, with around 246 students qualified to participate. “It is going very well, with 45-50 companies having confirmed their participation. We are expecting 100-plus offers during laterals,” said Sapna Agarwal, head of IIM-Bangalore’s Career Development Services.

About 75 of the institute’s students already have PPOs in hand. According to Agarwal, IIM-B has had organisations from consulting, FMCG, technology, manufacturing and general management making offers. “Though some companies have made fewer offers than expected, there are others who have made double-digit offers so it balances out,” she adds.

At XLRI Jamshedpur, apart from around 60 pre-placement offers (PPOs), some 35 offers have come in during the lateral placements which kicked off in the first week of January. Among those who have already visited are regular recruiters like Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Accenture. “We tried to widen our net. While financial sector companies are fewer in number, operations and consulting are doing well,” says placements chairperson Rajiv Mishra.

At IIM Indore, too, more than a 100 candidates have been placed so far in about 14 companies. Among the top recruiters so far are Cognizant Business Consulting — which has hired about 28 candidates from the campus, compared with 12 last year and Deloitte India, which hired 12 candidates this year compared with eight in the previous year. The institutes did not disclose salary figures, while IIM-A did not wish to reveal details till the process was complete.

Source: The Economic Times, January 24, 2012