Job offers for IIM-Bangalore graduates melt down

Bangalore, March 4 : Graduating students of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) are feeling the heat of the global meltdown, with fewer job offers and lower compensation this year at the summer campus placements, a top official of the B-school said Wednesday.

"It’s tough times for our grads in finding suitable placements with proportionate compensation. Though interviews started on February 27, it has been extended by over a week or two, as more companies have been called to make offers at the campus recruitment,” IIM-B director Pankaj Chandra told IANS on the sidelines of a function.

Unlike in previous years during boom time, the first day of campus hiring, termed slot zero, saw few takers for the IIM-B grads. With global financial, consultant and investment banks reeling under the impact of the US financial meltdown and worldwide recession, the choice of placement and compensation has been limited due to lower intake and tighter budgets.

“Like any other sector of the economy, we too are impacted as we are also part of it. We are confident that the entire batch will be absorbed though not in the same manner as their seniors from previous batches were,” Chandra said at the release of a book titled "Indian Economic Superpower", authored by Jayashankar M. Swaminathan of the University of North Carolina, US.

Of the 260 outgoing students, about eight-ten have opted out of placement services to set up start-ups and become entrepreneurs.

“Though the placement process used to get over in three-four days when the economy was doing well, we have extended it by over 10 days, as some Indian firms have sought dates in the first and second week of this month,” IIM-B placement director Sourav Mukerji told IANS.

In contrast, last year, the entire batch of 256 students was placed on the first day with more than 50 percent of them (133) getting lucrative offers in slot zero.

One of the prospective students, who did not want to be named, said some of them were planning to turn entrepreneurs or explore alternative jobs or an academic career. Legal profession is emerging as another choice.

Unlike in the past, Indian firms across verticals such as manufacturing, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), healthcare and BFSI (banking, financial and insurance) came in large numbers not only for hiring, but also were preferred in the absence of enough lucrative offers from multinationals and overseas firms.

--IANS