BANGALORE: In the backdrop of the global economic slowdown, members of the largest ever Post-Graduate Programme batch at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, will head out to choose their summer placement destinations starting this Tuesday.
More than 110 companies from around the globe are expected to come knocking at the doors of IIM-B to roll out offers to 276 students for an eight-week internship starting April 2009.
With mayhem continuing at Wall Street and consulting giant Lehman Brothers, which made a dozen offers last year, already missing from this year’s placements scene, the mood among students is nervous.
Yet, the placement team has braced itself for the challenge.
“This is the largest-ever batch of Post Graduate Programme students at IIM-B and obviously we have invited a lot more companies on campus this time.
Besides consulting firms, banks, general marketing companies, we expect companies from other sectors like media, sports management and lifestyles to make more offers,” Aditya Kashyap, IIM-B student and member of placement cell told the Express.
Last year, the entire batch of 249 students was placed in a span of just four days. Breaking previous records, about 120 placement offers were made on a single day. The institute had broken yet another record of 110 students going abroad for the two-month internship.
This year’s batch at IIM-B has the highest number of engineers. The average work experience of two to three years is also much higher than the previous batch.
Like last year, consulting firms and banks will dominate slot zero this year too.
In 2007, investment banking accounted for 68 per cent in the internship profile of the students, while 17 per cent opted for management consultancy.
Lehman Brothers turned out to be the major recruiter, selecting 13 students, while JP Morgan and Macquarie took the second position by recruiting 11 students each.
“Given the bigger batch size, we expect the whole placement process to last five days this year. Despite the recession there are a number of companies making their debut at IIM-B. We can reveal the names only after the process is complete,” Aditya Kashyap added.