Companies lap up Mudra grads in 4 hours  ( February '22,2001, ET)

BLINK, and you might have missed a job at one of India’s biggest ad agencies. This year’s placement season at Mudra Institute of Communication-Ahmedabad lasted just about four hours, with all 55 students of the batch of 2001 being signed up before lunch on Day 1 itself.

The number of jobs up for grabs this year was around 100 and, in a recruitment twist, it was the agencies that were eliminated before the interview stage. “Everybody came with their shopping lists, but left with their bags half full,” MICA director Anil Kulkarni said.

While most of the top agencies offered packages in the Rs 2-2.5-lakh range, with the average salary at Rs 2.82 lakh, the highest offer this year was Rs 8 lakh from I-Maritime, a shipping consultancy which hired four students for their Website development arm.

Market research agencies ORG-MARG, IMRB and Mode Research picked up four to five students each, while ad agencies Hindustan Thompson Associates, Leo Burnett, Mudra, and Lowe Lintas hired between four and seven students each.

Recruiters such as Blowplast and the Taj Group of hotels picked up students for their marketing teams. Rahul Gupta, brand manager, RPG Retail, said, “Initially, most placements were in advertising, a lot of people have moved on.” But for the advertising industry, the attraction is specialised training.

Anirban Mazumder, account director, Leo Burnett, and part of the MICA batch of 1997, says, “There is very little time to get people inducted into the peculiarities of the business.” General business students still have some misconceptions about the industry: it’s glamorous and creatively free-wheeling. So, he says, Leo Burnett specifically focused on MICA. Professor Kulkarni agrees, “Placements happened in February this year, after most other institutes were through.”