B-schools Upbeat As Early Placement Encouraging  ( February '10,2003, FE)

With the technology sector making a comeback and corporates from traditional industries going all out for a talent hunt, the placement season in Mumbai- based B-schools is now becoming a carnival of sorts.

For instance, at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), 101 students received placement offers of a total batch strength of 116 on February 6 which was day one of placements. The average compensation was Rs 6.55 lakh per annum cost-to-company (CTC). The Tata group picked up around 14 students and this was the highest intake on day one at the management campus.

Informs JBIMS IInd year student Manish Daruka: “TCS, Telco and TAS are some of the corporates from the Tata group for which students were hired from our campuses”. The placement process is still continuing.

As for campuses like the SP Jain Institute of Management Studies and Research (SPJIMR), 81 companies participated in the placement process with corporates like HLL, Tata group, GE group, Cadburys, Nestle, Perfetti, Asian Paints, Wipro Group and PepsiCo.

Says SPJIMR chairperson (external relations) Abbasali Gabula: “About 81 companies participated in ‘Placements 2003’ of which 18 companies were unable to see candidates, since there were none left.”

HCL, GE and Tata group picked up the highest number of students—12 each. The companies that participated at JBIMS included Colgate Palmolive, Philips, Gillette along with banks like Standard Chartered and Citibank. Pharma companies too participated in the placement initiative at JBIMS including Hyderabad-based Dr Reddys’ Laboratories Ltd.

According to management campuses, what sets apart this year’s placement endeavours is the fact that corporates posted a higher demand for talent at entry-level profiles for functions like marketing and finance while there were more lateral-level demand being posted by companies for jobs that related to operations and information management profiles.

Another distinctive feature is the fact that the highest compensation was offered by the US-based Trinity Corporation. This was the company that participated in placement initiatives at three campuses—Nitie, IIT Som and SPJIMR.

Adds Mr Gabula: “The US-based Trinity Corporation offered the highest salary of Rs.12.9 lakh per annum.”

Further, according to Mr Gabula, Oracle was on campus to recruit for its Dubai-based venture and conducted video conferencing interviews with seniors at Dubai. “This resulted in two offers for our students,” he says.

This year SPJIMR integrated the autumn placement with the final placements which resulted in an all-time high of 31 pre-placement offers of which 27 were accepted. The campus claims that the GE group, TAS, Telco, Johnson & Johnson and Wipro gave pre-placement offers (PPOs) after Autumn placements and came back to the campus for more candidates.

Informs SPJIMR Hon Dean ML Shrikant: “Next year, we will be extending this initiative to Development of Corporate Citizenship projects where the students work with an NGO or CSR division of a corporate to get sensitised to real India. This implies that the companies can pick up a said number of students, put them through a project with their own NGO or an NGO sponsored by them.”

The companies can also evaluate how the student works in an unstructured environment, offer them Autumn projects in their companies in September and if found suitable, give them PPOs. This, academicians affirm, will eliminate the hyped up auction process which takes place during the final placements at B-schools and result in a more informed choice on the part of companies as well as the students who would be chartering into the corporate universe.