When the job-market going gets tough, IIM-K (Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode) has got going. Amidst supply-side and demand-side pressures, IIM-K has managed to climb the summer placement ladder the highest among the Tier-1 B-Schools with 102 corporate placements. Last year this was only 66.
No dame luck here, but pure sweat, swear the placement team, faculty, students and alumini who ran the extra mile anticipating the big demand shrink. Where most other B-Schools were in wooing rounds on about 200-odd firms, in utter desperation IIM-K had been in talks with more than 500 companies worldwide.
“Now that the summer intern list has come, its a double-whammy. Not just that I got a neat deal. And most of my 261 batchmates (class of 2010) are comfortably placed for their summer interns.” says Chennai-born Narmatha Ramesh, who notched up the highest domestic offer (from Coca-Cola India) at Rs 1-lakh. “Mind you, this is, despite having a relatively jumbo batch of 80 extra seat this year,” she told Fe.
The top deal in international placement for the eight-week summer internship is $6000. “Marketing is in perennial demand, if you have a passion for it,” says Mumbai-born Sam Weslely, who got this plum internship offer from Vega Foods in Singapore.
“We had 14 international offers compared to four last year,” says Sharath babu L, Member, IIM-K placement cell. In a watchworthy pointer to the emerging markets in east, the spread of the international offers is clearly towards Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and South Africa. The offer-roster is also peppered with a sprinkling of steady recruiters from London and Germany.
Marketing and branding roles are not on the fade out either, if summer intern profiles are any signposts. HUL, Colgate Palmolive, Marico, ITC, Aditya Birla Group and Johnson & Johnson have picked internees for roles in branding, sales and marketing, operations and logistics. Apart from Coca Cola India, Nestle India too is in the recruitment ring.
Real estate may be a little dull, but fourth estate cannot be left behind this season. Media firms like ike Sony Entertainment Television, Viacom, Star News and BBC World too are actively talentscouting from IIM-K student-fold.
“For IIM-K, the internee-score is not simply the early bird act. We’re now doing it round-the-year, round-the-clock,” says Rishi Tandon, Member, Placement Cell, IIM- K. Did we hear that Indian arms of overseas banks and FIs are now getting busy by the minute, thanks to the lulll in their HQs? The summer internship offer pattern shows FIs vehemently present with 27% offers for their domestic units. Investment bankers like Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Edelweiss capital are among the top recruiters in this category.
And strategy never dies. An unmissable trend is that familiar recruiting faces like Deloitte, Hewitt and PwC refused to be bogged down by the financial downturn excuse. In fact, consultancy firms came in droves. In strategy and consulting positions, Dubai-office of Arthur D Little and the German and Hong Kong offices of Freudenberg Group too made hard-to-resist offers.