India - IIM-A fears hiring meltdown

Jumana Shah

Pre-placement offers fewer, salaries lower and big recruiters missing

AHMEDABAD: Already shaken by images of employees walking out jobless from the Lehman Brothers office and with the global and domestic markets in deep turmoil, the golden boys of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, are keeping their fingers tightly crossed as the placement season draws close.

Job markets are shrinking drastically, and placements across all B-schools in the country are expected to run into rough waters. The signs are not good at all — the number of pre-placement offers have come down, salaries offered are lower and there is a near absence of the erstwhile biggest recruiters - finance companies and investment banks — from the list of companies.

Pre-placement offers are usually made by companies that start head-hunting before the formal placement season begins in March 2009.

“Students are scared about placements. Financial markets are down, and there is no way our placements can stay unaffected. It will be a task to maintain last year’s average salaries, forget the 25% growth witnessed every year,” said a second year student at IIM-A requesting anonymity.

While the student admitted that everyone would certainly get a good job, record-breaking dollar-salaries would not be heard of this year. Nearly 46% of the 2008 batch took up jobs in the financial sector; 57% of the 2009 batch did their summer placements in the banking and finance sectors. The highest international salary at IIM-A was $360,000 and the highest domestic offer was Rs70 lakh.

Though placement officials at the IIM-A strictly maintain that recruitments have not been affected by the current recession, faculty members in the know have confided that a 10-15% fall is expected in the number of offers.

The bright side is that companies are coming from industries like marketing, research, event management, consulting firms, public policy agencies etc.

Faculty placement coordinator at IIM-A Prof Saral Mukherjee said, “Summer placements at IIM-A will start on November 13. I don’t want to comment right now.” IIM-A student placement coordinator Mihir Lal was not available.