IIM-Ahmedabad shortens placement process

Two years after moving away from the traditional day-based placement process, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) will further modify the cohort-based system. This year, students will get shorter gaps between two cohorts. The gaps would be just enough for them to let the pressure off after one round, but not too long for anxiety levels to rise. Thus what would take about a month to get over, placements will now be completed within a fortnight. The earlier Day process was a race against time and would be wrapped up within four-six days.

Under the cohort systems companies are grouped as per their sectors and role offered and not as per the salary, as is the case in the Day process. The students would get one week between two cohorts to help them prepare better as well as attend classes during the week. However, the long gap was found to have little benefits as students would increasingly get anxious. A student feedback suggested that a gap of around two days was just what was required.

The cohort-based placement process would typically be held over one month with interviews happening every week-end. The institute also applied the same cohort-based process for summer placements in 2010. The institute claims that the system reduces stress of students and allows more time to students and recruiters for detailed interviews.

“We have decided to offer shorter gaps between two clusters this year. We will organise the first cluster on February 13 and the last cluster will be held on February 25-26. We have seen that a gap of one week between two clusters makes students restless,” said IIM-A placement committee chairman Saral Mukherjee. He added that a cohort system with shorter gaps was experimented during summer placements recently and it received positive feedback from students.

This year, the institute have clusters on February 13, February 16-17, February 20-21 and February 25-26. It will then offer rolling placements to remaining students, if any student does not get desired job. “Long gap increases anxiety among students. They think that the placements have started but nothing is happening. Two-day gap between two clusters gives time to relax. Also, it is difficult to manage a process of around a month for our students placement team and the shorter process is easier to manage,” Mukherjee said.

IIM-A was only institute to have a relaxed placement process for two placement seasons. Now, IIM-Bangalore too has decided to introduce a process where companies will visit campus on week-ends. However, IIM-A has now decreased the gap. “We shared our opinion about the revised system with shorter gaps with IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta around summer placements,” he said.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), February 11, 2012

IITs gear up for a bright start to placements; first-time hirers queue up

India Inc. may well be treading with caution on hiring this year, but on the campuses of India’s premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), there is an air of optimism around final placements. Registrations at IIT-Bombay, Delhi and Madras outshine or maintain last year’s numbers, and first-time hirers are pouring in for placements, scheduled in December. “Companies are upbeat and there is no reason hiring will stop; in fact it may even increase,” says Kushal Sen, Placement Head, IIT-Delhi. Over 150 companies have registered with IIT Delhi as of September 22.

A similar number of firms had registered last year. IIT Madras currently has 100 firms registered in their placement portal compared with last year’s 60, says Ramesh Babu, Placement Head. Foreign companies such as Japan’s NTT Communications and Infoaxe from the US, have registered for the first time this year. Among the Indian first-timers are FMC Technologies , Broadcom India, MN Dastur, eGain, Essex Lake Group and Tribi Systems. NIIT University wants to hire PhD students, says Babu. Finisar from Malaysia, which hired last year, has confirmed this year as well.

Singapore’s Sumitomo has been visiting the campus since 2009 and has also registered this year. Company profiles reveal that global salaries can go up to as much as $60,000, says Babu. R&D and engineering firm King Abdullaziz from Saudi Arabia, which had hired students for 96,000 Saudi riyals last year, is yet to register, but the institute is hopeful. At IIT-Bombay, 100 companies had registered till August, and by December, the institute expects to cross last year’s 250-mark.

Ravi Sinha, Placement Head, did not divulge the names of the companies, but expects firms from Japan, Korea, North America and few European nations. Work Applications, a Japanese enterprise resource management firm, has approached IIT-Bombay for the first time, says Sinha. Companies that are interested in hiring students from the IITs expected to get the requisite approvals from the placement committee and then sign into the placement portals. They have to mention the job profile, location and salary, based on which students can decide which firm’s interview to take.

All those who register do not necessarily come for the placements , which last till June. Not just the IITs, but Kolkata-based Jadavpur University too has its share of first-timers – Tokyo-headquartered IT firm Job Tessio and Abu Dhabi’s iron and steel firm Al Ghurair Group are in the process of selecting students. The Japanese firm is expected to offer Rs. 3.1 million per year while the latter will take care of accommodation, food and travel expenses of its employees, besides paying a salary of Rs. 360,000, according to Siddharth Bhattacharya, officer of placement and training.

Source: The Economic Times, September 27, 2011

IIM-B, IIM-C may extend campus placement period

A year after the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), changed its final placement process, its peers in Bangalore and Calcutta, IIM-B and IIM-C, plan to alter their final placement process for the next year. Both institutes are in consultation with each other to put in place a process that will extend the final placement period, making it less stressful for both students and participating companies.

“In the next five-six weeks, we will introduce changes in the placement process. Companies have expressed that they want more time for it. We, too, realised that it gets too stressful and hectic for students,” said a placement official from IIM-C. The changes in the placement process also take into consideration the fact that these institutes have increased their batch sizes. Thus, students and companies would get more time to interact. IIM-B, for instance, will have 375 students, against 350 from the earlier batch. At IIM-C, 362 students will be placed this year. The numbers will go up to 425 and 462 students at IIM-B and IIM-C, respectively, for the 2011-13 batch.

A professor at IIM-B said till IIM-A changed its placement process, most firms visited IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C during the same time of the year for final placements. A poor job market in 2009 had forced B-schools to review their placement strategy. In fact, the changes IIM-B and IIM-C are bringing in, are more or less in sync with that of IIM-A’s, where students and companies can get ample time to evaluate each other. “A spread out placement process will make our task easier to schedule firms during placements,” said the professor.

IIM-A, incidentally, was the first IIM to make changes in its placement process last year, by bringing in the cohort-based system. Under the system, every weekend saw firms from a particular sector visiting the campus as a cluster. International investment banks and consulting firms formed the first cluster. The process carried on for well over a month. The new system will ensure more interaction time between students and firms.

Source: Business Standard, September 8, 2011