Financial firms grab largest pie from IIM-A talent pool

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Ahmedabad: At the end of the summer placement process for 2009-11 batch, the country’s premier management Indian Institute of management -Ahmedabad (IIM-A) saw finance companies taking the largest pie of the talent pool.

Unlike last year, when the economy was slowing down and lesser number of banks and finance companies turned up during placements, this year, finance remained the top pick among students with 44% opting for roles in investment banking, private equity, corporate banking and treasury, while the number stood at mere 32% last year.

This year, of 312 students, 310 students sat for the placement process while two students opted out. All the students were placed by the end of fourth day.

The process was comprised of 2 slots, slot 0 and slot 1, both spread over 2 days, whereas 166 students were placed on slot 0, the other 144 were placed on slot 1.

Of the total students, 18% students opted for marketing roles in sales and marketing, branding, business development and marketing research. Consulting and general management were the next two preferred domains followed by IT.

Number of students opting for consulting has dropped significantly over the past one year from 26% in November, 2008 to 11% this year. “We observed a drastic turnaround in hiring by the investment banks over the last summer placement season. Last year, the number of offers made on Day 0 by investment banks and accepted by students stood at 35, while this year the number has shoot up to 77,” said the statement released by the institute on Friday.

“Compared to the batch of 2007-09 comprising 262 students which was placed in 6 days and the batch of 2008-10 comprising 300 students which was also placed in 6 days, the batch of 2009-11 has, despite being the largest batch with 312 students, been placed in 4 days, the shortest time in recent memory,” it added.

Placement committee chairperson Prof Saral Mukherjee said, “We had not expected such a drastic upturn in the demand for quality talent and hence the summer placements have come as a pleasant surprise to us.”