After two muted years, summer placements at the country’s premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are showing clear signs of revival. Early reports from IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta point to a rebound in hiring activity, with more recruiters on campus, stronger participation from consulting and finance firms, and stipends holding firm at record levels.
At IIM Calcutta, the number of recruiters rose to 183 in 2025 from 175 last year. While the average monthly stipend this year stood at `1.85 lakh — nearly unchanged from 2024 — it remained significantly higher than `1.65 lakh in 2023 and `1.59 lakh in 2022, reflecting steady upward movement over time.
The trend was even more pronounced at IIM Bangalore, where consulting firms led the revival. In 2025, summer placements for the PGP and PGP-BA 2025-27 batches saw 282 consulting offers, compared with 230 last year.
“Marking a record high, management consulting accounted for 46% of all offers, up from 38% last year. Roles in investment banking and e-commerce domains saw a notable increase, while offers from the healthcare sector rose by over 70%. Nearly 30% of the participating organisations were first-time recruiters,” IIM Bangalore said in a statement.
Recruiters and placement experts attribute this upturn to improving business sentiment and rising corporate hiring budgets.
Karthikeyan Kesavan, director and head of business (permanent recruitment) at Adecco India, said: “The hiring budgets across corporate India have gone up after the second half of 2025 and will likely remain high till 2026.
The hiring sentiments are slowly picking up, with consulting and fintech sectors riding the wave. Not just the legacy IIMs, even the newer ones are witnessing a pickup in momentum.”
The shift comes after a turbulent year for management graduates. The competitive job market, slowdown in the tech sector, and macroeconomic pressures had weighed heavily on campus recruitment in 2024. Many firms had turned cautious, and only a handful of institutes reported growth in placements.
Experts said sentiment began to turn once global and domestic uncertainties started easing. “There was a lot of uncertainty around tariffs at the beginning of the year, and companies across the board were reluctant to hire MBAs from marquee institutes,” said Balasubramanian Narayanan, senior vice president at TeamLease Services. “Compare that to today — the uncertainty around tariffs is relatively lower, and there are green shoots visible in volume growth in our economy as well. This has given confidence to Corporate India to hire more in numbers.”
According to experts, an economic rebound is typically followed by accelerating hiring in consulting — a trend evident this year. Consulting continues to be viewed as a stable and opportunity-rich domain.
“Even when businesses struggle, they still turn to consultants to navigate uncertainty, optimise costs, and improve efficiency,” said Mukul Goyal, co-founder of Stratefix Consulting. “Large to mid-sized consulting firms are no longer confined to broad strategy or business development mandates. The industry has evolved towards micro-specialisations, with niche areas such as digital transformation and process improvement now consulting services in themselves. This fragmentation is driving growth across firms, creating new revenue streams and employment opportunities for 20–50 MBAs per service line.”
Beyond consulting, other sectors such as finance, e-commerce, and FMCG are also driving placement momentum. “FMCG companies have benefitted from stability and a continued rise in rural demand and GST-led price cuts of various product categories,” Narayanan added. “Durables, electronics, retail, and e-commerce have posted record numbers in the festive season. Companies in such consumer-led businesses hire graduate and management trainees in anticipation of an improvement in overall demand. The recent buying patterns indicate that the companies are bullish on the consumption story.”