Slowdown not a word at B-school placements

‘Where’s the slowdown?’ is the common question asked on B-school campuses. While B-schools agree the market conditions are adverse, they are pleasantly surprised at the participation by major sectors, recruiting in good numbers. From the Indian Institutes of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and Calcutta (IIM-C) to other major B-schools like Xavier Labour Research Institute (XLRI) and Xavier Institute of Management-Bhubaneswar (XIM-B), campuses have seen traditional sectors recruiting in decent numbers.

At IIM-A, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) emerged as top recruiter across clusters, taking 15 students against 17 last year. Last year, IBM was the top recruiter from IIM-A, hiring 21 students. Accenture recruited 13 students this year against 14 last year, McKinsey & Company and Capgemini made 10 offers each, and Bain & Company selected nine students from the batch.

“The demand for IIM-A graduates continues to be high, and has overridden concerns of a general slowdown in hiring activities in 2012-13,” said Kirti Sharda, Chairperson, Placement Committee. Other companies which recruited from IIM-A include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Asian Paints, HUL, ITC, Kraft, L’Oréal, Mars, Nestle, P&G and Pepsi, among others.

At IIM-C, the slot zero of final placement saw finance and consulting majors recruiting students from the campus. While 135 offers were made during the premier slot zero held on March 3 and 5, much of it came from finance and consulting sectors. A total of 25 students from IIM-C have secured final placements in Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co, McKinsey and AT Kearney, along with Accenture Management Consulting, Opera Consulting, and Hay Group among others.

“Finance proved once again to be the stronghold of IIM-C with several top-notch firms coming to the B-school for slot zero placements despite the economic slowdown. Some of the financial majors like JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Standard Chartered among others flocked to the campus to recruit students in large numbers during the slot zero process,” IIM-C said in a statement.

At XLRI and XIM-B, finance and consulting majors, followed by information technology (IT) and marketing picked up students. Prominent recruiters at XLRI include Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank, Nomura, Goldman Sachs and Development Bank of Singapore. Standard Chartered Bank was the largest finance recruiter whereas treasury roles were offered by Axis Bank and ICICI Bank. L’Oréal, Airtel, Dr Reddys and L&T Finance offered roles in corporate finance.

“All the major finance, consulting, IT and infrastructure companies have visited our campus, despite the much-anticipated economic slowdown. This has shown that placements have been pretty successful across B-schools this year, especially with finance and investment banks coming back,” said Sabita Mohanty, Faculty Coordinator (Placements) at XIM-B, refusing to divulge details.

About 75 recruiters participated at XLRI placement process, with 255 offers being made for a batch of 240 students. The batch size at XIM-B stood at 180 students. At Mumbai-based Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, the response from companies has been better than last year, said a placement committee member. The institute begins its placements next week, as pre-placement talks on campus are underway.

Source: Business Standard, March 7, 2013

Slowdown skips IIMs: Pre-Placement Offers remain buoyant

Joel Xavier, Manager, Student Affairs and Placements, at Indian Institute of Management-Udaipur (IIM-U), is upbeat. “Twenty-five companies had come for summer placements last year in October-November 2011 and they placed 57 students. These students successfully completed their summer internships in April-June 2012,” he said.

Its older peer, IIM-Bangalore, is no less bullish, as it has already received over 40 pre-placement offers (PPOs) compared to a total of 93 at the end of last year. Such offers at the institute keep trickling in till December which is when lateral placements begin.

Almost all IIMs said a muted economy notwithstanding, the final tally for PPOs will beat last year’s records, with some of the biggest names ranging from Hindustan Unilever, McKinsey and the financial sector giants turning up for placements this year. PPOs are placement offers to final year students who are, or were trainees, in the company during their internships. The IIM PPO process begins every July and goes on till final placements conclude in March-April of next year.

IIM-Raipur, which has around two PPOs in hand, is focusing on having international placements on campus and is also inviting more number of consultancy firms. “A lot of consulting firms largely restrict themselves to older IIMs. This year we have approached them to recruit from our campuses too and so far the response is positive,” said Sanjeev Parashar, Placement Chairperson, IIM-Raipur. IIM-Raipur has a batch size of 48 students to place this year.

Devi Singh, Director of IIM-Lucknow said the institute has got a positive response from its recruiters as well as students who have returned from summer internship. Lucknow saw about 419 strong batch participating in summer internships this year. Godwin Tennyson, Placement Chairperson at IIM-Trichy, says “market is volatile for sure, but demand will certainly be there.” PPOs at IIM-Trichy will keep flowing in till February 2013.

Recruiters are equally bullish. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which emerged among the topmost recruiters from the IIMs last year has this year extended 27 PPO offers to students who interned with BCG in the summer of 2012. “These candidates will join BCG in 2013. Of this 26 are from the IIMs while one is from Harvard Business School,” said Ravi Srivastava, Partner & Director, BCG. “BCG business continues to grow at a rapid pace, and we will continue recruiting in large numbers this year as well,” Srivastava added. At Mumbai-based RPG group, 35 students interned during the summer from 10 B-schools this year and the company says it looks forward to an aggressive recruitment season.

Technically all students who intern are eligible to receive PPOs. However different firms have different policies — some do not offer PPOs, some do not have plans to offer full time employment and also some firms offer PPI (Pre Placement Interviews). These firms put the candidates through one more final round of interview before the final placement process and then offer them a job if they qualify. All students are eligible to go through final placements. Every year all our students get one or more job offer through the campus placement process.

Source: Business Standard, August 29, 2012

Graduates from top B-schools, IITs make a beeline for e-tailing companies

Raj Kuruhuri, 24, has been working for e-commerce start-up BuyThePrice.com for over a month now. Kuruhuri, who graduated from Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Indore this year, opted to join the online deals site that started only in late 2010, rejecting offers from major technology players. The meteoric rise of the e-commerce segment in the last one year is driving sharp minds from the country’s premier B-schools and engineering colleges to be a part of the sunrise industry.

This year, Snapdeal made over 20 offers across IIMs and 75 at IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), e-tailer of books and electronics Flipkart hired 120 graduates from IITs and 23 from IIMs and other top B-schools. Online fashion store Myntra hired seven IIT graduates, five from Indian School of Business (ISB), and two from the IIMs this year. Naaptol, which was among the first-timers at the IIM campuses this year, made 15 offers across leading management schools, including Narsee Moonjee and ISB, all of which were accepted.

Industry experts point out that it is the prospect of bigger responsibilities and faster growth that are driving the graduates to look for opportunities in the e-commerce space. “I was looking at various sunrise sectors, but I was particularly interested in e-commerce because of the pace at which it is growing. What worried me about joining an established firm, is that I feared getting lost amongst 150,000 other employees, without ever knowing what my work was actually amounting to,” says Kuruhuri. In his one-month stint with BuyThePrice, Kuruhuri has laid his hands across departments, including sales, operations, promotions and category development. “This in a big firm would be unimaginable. Also, the people you work with drive a lot of passion into you, because their lives are built around their organisations,” he says.

This year, of the total 423 offers at IIM-Bangalore, 4% were from the e-commerce firms. The first-timers among the e-commerce companies this year at IIM campuses include RedBus, Valyoo Technologies, Via, and Naaptol. “We went to the IIMs for the first time this year. A total of 15 offers were made across the top-tier B-schools, all of which were accepted. Average salaries for IIM grads was R12 lakh, others were R6-9 lakh. We hired 10 IIT graduates with a package of about Rs. 600,000-900,000 as well,” says Naaptol.com e-commerce head Sachin Singhal. The company has a staff strength of 1,500 and is adding 70 people every month.

According to an IIM-B report, the e-commerce sector this year was represented by Flipkart, InfoEdge, Snapdeal and Amazon. Flipkart recruited six students offering senior manager profile in sales and marketing, and supply chain. Companies feel that there aren’t many experienced people in the e-commerce space yet, and supply and demand are not proportionate. “The obvious place to look for is these colleges, where they may not be experienced in the field, but are definitely bright enough to work in it,” adds Sachin.

Recruiters point out that the age profile of the candidates from top B-schools are between 25-30 years and they look for jobs that offer areas to explore. They have a huge appetite for learning and start-ups give them that opportunity. Notwithstanding the global recessionary trends, 2011 witnessed a resurgence of the e-commerce sector. The largest investments in the space till date came last year when Snapdeal.com raised $40 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and Fashionandyou.com raised $40 million from a group of investors led by Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital. In all, in 2011, this space saw 32 investments.

“In the last one year, the sector was successful in attracting a lot of funding from major VC/PE players that equipped the e-commerce players to pay heavy cheques to get talents from top management and engineering institutes. Money, and at the same time chance to do something new and exciting attracts these candidates,” said Sangeeta Lala, Senior Vice-President (Sourcing), of staffing company TeamLease Services.

Average salary offered by an e-commerce company to an IIM graduate varies between Rs. 1.2-1.5 million. While at IITs it is between Rs.700,000-1 million. “Salaries for tech and management freshers have been in the range of Rs. 1.2-1.5 million annually plus ESOPs and other benefits. For laterals, compensation was adjusted accordingly. At ISB it was in the range of Rs. 2-2.5 million because of lateral hires,” says Myntra.

“This year, we have made about 20 offers across IIMs and 75 in IITs. We have hired from top-tier schools for functions across marketing, sales, operations, product management, and vendor management. This year for the first time we visited IIM campuses,” said head of marketing at Snapdeal.com Sandeep Komaravelley. Snapdeal, which currently has 1,200 people, started its operations in February 2010.

However, some are of the opinion that it is not always that start-ups can match the offers of other big players but try to match them with benefits like ESOPs. “Start-ups can’t always match salaries quoted by the biggies, but we do tend to make up with perks like ESOPs. This has more to do than providing a monetary value. It instills a sense of entitlement, and ownership, and in many ways makes people want to do better,” says Buytheprice.com founder and CEO Ranjith Boyanapalli. The firm made two offers in IIM, Indore and Ahmedabad this year and both were accepted. Operational for two years now, the company currently has about 70 employees.

Source: The Financial Express, April 24, 2012

Placements dispel worries over new IIMs

An IIM is an IIM, no matter where it is. (Well, almost.) That seems the message from placements at the three Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) at Raipur, Ranchi and Rohtak that will see their first batch of students graduating this year, with companies offering salaries that are just a little lower than those offered at the handful of B-schools that follow the older IIMs in any listing of India’s top management institutes.

Officials at the three business schools said all their students who sought jobs had received offers in a year that has seen business sentiment dip and the economy slow. That doesn’t seem to have affected the three schools, which still operate from temporary campuses. It wasn’t easy, admits M. Kannadhasan, Chairman (Career Development and Placement Office) at IIM-Raipur (which abbreviates as IIM-Rp). “It was a challenge, but we did a good job,” he said.

IIM-Rp said the average annual salary offered to its students was Rs. 1.25 million; IIM-Ranchi (which abbreviates as IIM-Ra) Rs. 1.32 million; and IIM-Rohtak (IIM-R) Rs. 1.22 million. These numbers (provided by the respective schools) compare favourably with Rs. 1.21 million at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), although they are lower than the Rs. 1.38 million at Gurgaon’s Management Development Institute (MDI) and Rs. 1.63 million at New Delhi’s Faculty of Management Studies (FMS).

Average salaries offered to the graduating batches at IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B) and IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) weren’t immediately available, although they are likely to be significantly higher. According to media reports, last year, the average salary at IIM-C was around Rs. 1.75 million. At IIM-A (which follows a stringent reporting standard for salaries), the number, as disclosed by the school, was Rs. 1.63 million.

Next year may be better at IIM-Ra, said a student who will graduate in 2013. “If this is the response for the first batch, then we can expect a better show next year,” said Yash Aggarwal, a student of the second batch at IIM-Ra, who confessed that when his batch joined, they weren’t sure about the school, given its age and location. Such anxiety, the tag of being a “new” IIM, and India’s economic worries were only some of the challenges faced, said P. Rameshan, Director at IIM-R. The school also had to ensure its placement record was befitting of an IIM.

Some firms said they will only consider recruiting from the school in the future, he admitted, but there was no shortage of companies willing to hire students from the first batch. It helped that Rohtak is close to Delhi and its environs, he said. Still, the school took no chances, with the director tapping his contacts from 15 years spent teaching at IIM-Lucknow and IIM-Kozhikode, and also hiring a “specialist recruitment officer”.

IIM-R was the first of the three new IIMs to complete its placements, according to Rameshan. At least 27 companies participated in the process and made 58 offers to a batch of 47 students. Several students received domestic offers exceeding Rs. 2.5 million a year, said the B-school’s website. IIM-Rp said it will release details next week. At IIM-Ra, 30 recruiters made 65 offers to 43 students, and the highest salary on offer for a job in India was Rs. 2.3 million.

The recruiters will “measure the performance of the first batch”, said Bharat Gulia, senior manager of education practice at audit firm Ernst & Young, and base their hiring next year on that. Still, “achieving 100% placement with no permanent campus and an economic slowdown on is noteworthy”, he added.

Until the early 1990s, India had four IIMs (at Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Lucknow). In 1996, it added two more, at Kozhikode and Indore. In 2007, it added one at Shillong. IIM-R, IIM-Ra and IIM-Rp started operating in 2010, and in 2011, IIMs at Tiruchirappalli, Udaipur and Kashipur admitted their first batch of students.

Source: Mint, April 3, 2012

Good year for placements at tier-II B-schools

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. While top-rated business schools have seen flagging placement interest, and the war for talent has been relatively muted leading to lower salary offers, second rung B-schools are having a good year.

Cost pressures have forced corporates to hire fresh B-school graduates instead of experienced professionals. Campus hires are replacing junior level lateral hires, so up to tier-II B-schools, placements have been buoyant, despite a slowing economy.

Mr. Vipul Prakash, MD, Elixir Web Solutions, an HR consultancy, says his firm is sitting on demand from 27 clients for fresh recruitments. “So there is lot of hiring happening. In tier-II B-schools, salaries have gone up. In tier-III, however, the salaries are flat and variable percentage has gone down. In the last few years, telecom was hugely aggressive on employment. Now it is insurance and retail.”

Xavier’s Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar (XIMB), saw 100 per cent placement in the second week of January. Average placement salary offers for its business management programme also increased by 6 per cent over last year. “This year the average annual compensation stood at Rs. 1.14 million a year compared with Rs. 1.07 million last year. The median salary stood at Rs. 1.08 million a year,” said Mr. Sworen Sahu, Placement Co-ordinator of XIMB.

Even relatively less favoured university departments are reporting a decent placement season. “This year, we got some new recruiters including Goldman and Sachs. As compared to last year, our average package has gone up by Rs. 100,000 to Rs. 900,000 (per annum) this year. Having said that, the number of companies have come down from 23 last year to only 17 this year. We are expecting 95 per cent placement by March end,” says Mr. Chirag Agarwal, Placement Coordinator, Department of Financial Studies, University of Delhi.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, March 7, 2012

Slowdown hits B-school placements

With the global slowdown firmly in place, Indian B-schools are feeling the heat. Several B-schools including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are yet to complete their placements process. While many of them are usually out with their reports by February end, some might take a fortnight more. To ensure all students are placed, some B-schools are not allowing students to sit for interviews after they have already bagged an offer or they are just approaching newer sectors to make up for the lack of jobs in finance. Most of them claim slowdown has not hit the firms, but they are just being cautious in recruiting.

IIM-Kozhikode, which had concluded its placement process by March 3 last year, will take at least a week more this year. G Sridhar, chairperson-placements at the institute, said, “The market is a bit slow this year. We should be able to get over with it by the end of the week.” To ensure that the process gets over soon and all students get a job offer, the institute this year has not allowed multiple offers to one student.

IIM-Indore has a unique problem affecting their placements this year. The size of the batch passing out has gone up from 240 last year to 450 this year. Bhaskar Chaudhary, secretary of the student placement committee at IIM-Indore, said, “Last year, we were done with placements by mid-February. This year the batch size has almost doubled. We are done with three phases and there is one more to go. The job market is not as buoyant as it was last year.”

Though IIM-Ahmedabad has already completed with four clusters of students, there are a few students who are yet to be placed. According to their website, the final placement process of the institute will now proceed on rolling basis where in firms will be invited to campus based on student preferences. Amith JM, the member of the cell, however, said that the slowdown has not affected their placements, but refused to divulge details about the numbers of students already placed out of the batch of 373 candidates.

IIM-Bangalore refused to comment on the trends, before their reports would be out, this week. XLRI, though has completed the process, the number of job offers have gone down claimed Ashish Srivastava, member of the placement cell . “Last year, the average job offer made to each student was 1.3, this year it came down to 1.2. Job offers made to students was affected, especially in the finance sector,” Srivastava said.

Source: The Times of India, March 6, 2012

B-schools get big recruiters despite slowdown worries

The much talked about economic slowdown does not seem to have impacted the placements at the country’s premier management institutes with the season characterised by big recruiters, better salaries and interesting profiles. Both Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and others have placed their students before time and with the firms of their choice. For instance, BCG recruited 19 grads from IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) against last year’s 11 while IIM-Calcutta wrapped up its placement season in four days as against the five days allotted for the process.

On the other hand, at XLRI Jamshedpur, the highest domestic salary was Rs. 4 million compared with Rs. 2.3 million last year while Delhi-based Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) recorded a highest domestic offer of Rs. 1.9 million per annum up 22% from last year.

The batch at IIM-C comprising 356 students received 423 offers from 83 companies with 108 offers being made in slot zero which is the most coveted slot for recruiters. “Despite the economic downturn, IIM-Calcutta has been able to provide diverse opportunities to its students. The alumni played a very crucial role in this bad market scenario and were there to support us whenever we needed them. This shows the strength of brand IIM-Calcutta – very much in demand by recruiters, aided by a strong alumni base,” said IIM-C Placement Chairperson Amit Dhiman .

Similarly, XLRI concluded its final placement process in less than four days, with 98% of the batch getting placed within the first three days. “An unprecedented 284 offers made to a batch of 235 students and 73 companies participated this year in the final placement process,” the institute said in a statement.

BCG made almost 45 offers to seven B-schools last year and this year, it increased the number of offers to 60 of which 50 are with the IIMs. The average salary at Mumbai-based S P Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) was Rs.1.54 million compared with Rs. 1.4 million last year and 51% of the batch had offers of Rs. 1.5 million and more.

As for the first time recruiters, Zurich Financial Services, a major financial services group, recruited exclusively from IIM-C (first time from any B-school in Asia) for its Zurich and New York offices while IBM Consulting participated in the final placements for the first time. Lenovo recruited for the first time from IIM Calcutta for its sales and marketing profiles. IIFT saw more than 33 first-time recruiters such as Duferco Group, Stemcor ,German logistics giant Duegro and Shree Renuka Sugars in supply chain and logistics, KPMG and Technopak in consulting, Goldman Sachs in asset management and Flipkart in e-commerce.

Source: The Financial Express, March 6, 2012

Indian companies, the flavour of IIM placements this year

The global economic meltdown following the sub-prime crisis in 2008-09 and the recent Euro zone crisis seems to have prompted the premier B-schools like the IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) to look at the domestic market for recruitments.

Most of these institutes – which once used to rely largely on international offers – are now looking at attracting Indian companies across various sectors for campus recruitments. The recent crisis has also encouraged these institutes to look at new and emerging sectors such as e-commerce. Plans are also afoot to tweak the courses to meet emerging demand of the industry.

According to Prof. Ashok Banerjee, Dean, New Initiatives and External Relations, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C), there has been a “correction” in the nature of placements post the 2008 crisis. “With the global economy moving into a recession, the over-dependence on multinational corporations has come down. The Indian market has, however, been posting a steady growth and so are the companies here. This is prompting them to hire,” Prof. Banerjee told Business Line.

Realignment
This, in turn, has brought about a sort of realignment in placement process. “Earlier, Indian companies were not getting good slots in the placement process but now, with the demand from MNCs coming down, they are also getting a good slot and able to select from the best of the candidates,” he said.

Investment banking has been one of the worst affected following the crisis, said Prof. Amit Dhiman, Chairperson – Career Development and Placements, IIM-C. “The number of offers, particularly from i-banks, has clearly come down this year but this has been more than offset by the participation of new companies and new sectors,” he said. IIM-C had some concerns with regard to placements this year and did a lot of legwork to attract newer companies and sectors. “There were some feelers that the recruitments might not be very easy; so we talked to a lot of new sectors and companies. A number of technology firms, for instance, hired in large numbers this year. This apart, there was also lot of interest from e-commerce companies,” he added.

There has also been a churn in the kind of courses opted by the management graduates. “Pre-2008, more than half of the batch of students would opt for finance and there were no takers for courses such as operational management and human resource management. This was an aberration and this has been corrected to a great extent now as finance and investment banking are one of the worst affected areas in so far as placements are concerned,” Prof. Banerjee said.

Course pattern
Courses such as logistics and supply chain management and operational management have been slowly catching up, he added. According to Prof. Rajiv Mishra, Chairperson, Placements, XLRI Jamshedpur, the course pattern has to change keeping in mind the changing needs of the industry.

“Courses have to be dynamic in nature keeping in mind the needs of the industry. At XLRI, we encourage the faculties to make modifications in courses as and when required. This year, for instance, we saw some e-commerce companies coming in for recruitment. We can have some new curriculum built into our existing course to focus on the needs of specific industries,” he said.

According to Prof. Banerjee, placements would continue to be a challenge till 2015. The job scenario in the global front might not look up immediately and there could be a change in the profile and nature of jobs coming to B-schools. “Things are not going to change drastically at least on the global front. However, in India, a number of banks will face a mid-management crisis post-2013 as there would be a huge exodus of staff on account of retirement. The profile of jobs and company will change – we will see more number of public sector units and Indian private sector companies hiring from B-schools,” he said.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, March 5, 2012

Campus beat: Legal eagles in demand

It’s not just the premier engineering and management institutes which are smiling this placement season. Law colleges across the country have also seen good placements, in addition to salary hike of anywhere between 20 and 30 per cent. Law schools say, apart from the usual law firms, many other companies have also recruited from campuses this year.

At the Government Law College (GLC), Mumbai, 120 students of a 240 batch size have been placed. The institute says most of the students who sought placements have found one. The institute say many students do not appear for placements as they have their family practices to get back to or articleship to attend. Students enrolled in three year law programme go for articleship in the second or third year, and students who have enrolled for a five year law programme go for articleship in the fourth year.

Companies that recruited from GLC include AZB & Partners, Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co, Desai & Diwanji Tata Group of Companies, Colgate Palmolive and LIC Housing, etc. A total of 65 companies came for placements and offered annual salaries of anywhere between Rs. 500,000 and Rs. 1.45 million. Last year, the range was between Rs. 500,000 and Rs. 1.2 million.

“We tweaked our placement policy and decided to hold it twice this year against only once earlier. So, we held it once in September 2011 and again this January. This ensured a good mix of companies on campus,” said Shruti Rajgarhia, general secretary, placement committee, GLC. Students have been picked up for profiles in litigation and corporate.

At Symbiosis Law School, Pune, the situation is much better than the school anticipated. “Initially, we felt that we would have to face the pressure of recession in December, but companies have been continuously flowing in to recruit. IDBI Bank, for example, has come in after a long time,” said Sonal Jain, placement assistant. Of a batch of 200 students, 150 students have opted for placements at the school. The average student salary here ranges between Rs. 300,000 and Rs. 1.4 million annually. Several companies, including big corporates and financial institutions, have visited the campus this year. Placements at the campus began last July and will go on till end of next month. Jain added that students who do not want to go for litigation usually opt for placements and it varies from year to year.

At National Law School University of India (NLSUI), Bangalore, only six students are left to be placed from a batch size of 65. “All top law firms came to our campus. We also contacted a lot of companies which, though were reluctant initially, did visit our campus,” said Deepija Kinhal, a student of NLSUI. Rs. 1.2 million has been the highest offer at the campus so far.

At Campus Law Centre, Delhi University, it was a good mix of companies ranging from the public sector to private sector which picked up students. Several media firms, NGOs and individual litigators also visited the campus placements. A placement head of a law school said that though they expected the situation to be like 2008-9 recession, placements have picked up pace in 2012.

Kamala Sankaran, Convenor, Placement Assistance Cell and professor at the campus law centre in DU is of the view that the bulk recruiters, that is the LPOs would be visiting the campus in March. Their placement season concludes on April 15. Salaries for students ranges between Rs. 600,000 and Rs. 1.2 million in case of a corporate profile. Already 10 per cent of the students have been placed. Of the 400 students here, two third students have opted for placements. “Usually, this is the case, since some of them opt for judiciary exams and other competitive exams and focus on them,” said Sankaran.

A placement head of a law school added that though they expected the situation to be like the 2008-9 recession, placements have picked up pace in 2012 and will be even better in the next two months. “The law firms are continuing to recruit. There is no slowdown in this space,” said the placement head.

Source: Business Standard, March 1, 2012

Recruiters treat class of 2012 at top B-Schools like bonus babies

Vying for the best talent, recruiters at top B-schools are compensating 2012 grads with hefty joining bonuses in a year of moderate hikes. The creme de la creme of Class of 2012 at premier B-schools like Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade ( IIFT), XLRI and Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi, have received bonuses ranging from Rs. 100,000 to Rs. 300,000 this year. The Class of 2011 had to settle for joining bonuses ranging between Rs. 40,000 and Rs. 50,000 and on rare occasions, a lakh or so.

“In premier institutes, there is still a struggle for talent. It is only in the lower order (of institutes) that companies can relax a bit,” says Sandeep Chaudhary, regional practice leader, compensation consulting, Asia-Pacific, Aon Hewitt. “For the best talent, competition remains high,” says Elango R, HR head, MphasiS. The ITeS firm has offered a joining bonus of Rs. 100,000-200,000 to 10 students it has picked from IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Lucknow and Indian School of Business (ISB). But it has not raised its compensation package this year, which ranges between Rs. 900,000 and Rs. 2 million.

“The joining bonus trend is here to stay for some more time,” says Rajiv Krishnan D, director-human capital, Mercer. “They (companies) want to be absolutely sure they break into the top 90th percentile and rope in the best.” That is perhaps why consumer goods and hospitality major ITC Ltd has for the first time offered a joining bonus of Rs. 300,000 to campus recruits. The company picked up 70 students from management institutes, including the IIMs and FMS Delhi. Sources at IIM-Calcutta confirmed joining bonuses to ITC recruits.

“Since we rely more on pre-placement offers to students, the joining bonus component helps attract the best of talent,” says Rahul Gama, VP (HR), Godrej Consumer Products. Apart from a joining bonus of Rs. 100,000 to 11 campus recruits, the company has also increased its average campus offer this year from Rs. 1.3 million to Rs. 1.5 million.

Source: The Economic Times, February 29, 2012