India - Summer Placements bring cheer to IIMK students

R.Madhavan Nair

KOZHIKODE: With 102 companies participating in the summer placement process, the 261 students in the Class of 2010 of Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) got placed in companies of their choice.

This year marks an improvement in terms of participation of companies compared to last year even though anxieties about a drop in recruitment were in the air because of economic slowdown. There was also an increase in students intake by 42 per cent. Last year, only 66 companies participated, a spokesman for IIMK said on Tuesday.

IIMK students received 14 international offers across various functions and in locations like Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Dubai, South Africa and London.

Banks and other financial institutions increased the number of offers. “We were quite impressed by the profiles of the students at IIM Kozhikode,” said Sharad Goenka, Sr. Vice President, Corporate Banking, HSBC. Some of the other banks that recruited were Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, American Express, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank. Investment banks like JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Edelweiss Capital were bullish on students. Roles in private equity were on offer from Tata Capital and IDG Ventures. A total of 27% of students will intern in finance companies.

A large chunk of students opted for strategy and consulting roles. Arthur D Little, one of the world’s top management consulting companies, offered roles in its Dubai office. The Freudenberg Group reaffirmed its relationship with the institute by picking up students for strategy and operations roles based in Germany and Hong Kong.

“I am quite excited about going to Germany,” said Harshad Karandikar, a first-year student, who was among those selected for summer internship by Freudenberg.

Regular recruiters like Deloitte, Hewitt and PricewaterhouseCoopers had accepted students for consulting roles. IIMK also had niche roles in the marketing and operations consulting space by Frost and Sullivan and i2 Consulting.

Wipro and IBM also offered roles in their consulting and strategy divisions. About 20 per cent of the students would be interning in consulting companies in India and abroad. “I was impressed by the processes followed by IIMK during the summer placements. The work done by the placements committee is commendable,” said Thomas Kuruvilla, MD Middle East at Arthur D Little.

Marketing companies participated as before. While Nestle and Coca-Cola offered roles for the first time, regular recruiters like Hindustan Unilever, Colgate Palmolive, Marico, ITC, Aditya Birla Group and Johnson & Johnson picked students for roles in branding, sales and marketing, operations and logistics. Coca-Cola was one of the companies offering highest domestic stipend at Rs.1 lakh for the duration of internship, while Vega Foods, a Singapore-based company offered US$6000.

Participation from the sunrise sector was also encouraging. Many students opted for internships in media and real estate companies. Sony Entertainment Television, Viacom, Star News and BBC World offered both creative and marketing roles, while Ansal API, Godrej and ABG Infralogistics offered roles in real estate.

This year too traditional recruiters gave summer internship roles in broader business divisions. In systems and IT/ITeS vertical, Cognizant gave roles in Business Consulting and TCS gave roles in capital markets. Taiwanese hardware manufacturer ASUS participated for the first time. Conglomerates like Mahindra & Mahindra and international consortiums like the Buhler Group and Dutch State Group also took students for general management and strategy roles at international locations.

Summers 2009 also marked a paradigm shift in the attitude of the students towards exploring non-traditional avenues for internships. The Entrepreneurship-Cell at IIMK held a start-up fair, in which 25 start-up companies participated and more than 150 enthusiastic students from the first and second year interacted with them. Several students who were interested in learning business hands-on in an entrepreneurial environment actually chose to do their internships in these start-ups rather than established companies.

The start-ups offered varying profiles in investment banking, private equity, social entrepreneurship, educational services, media, healthcare, travel and tourism and rural marketing. This was the first start-up fair at IIMK, and the tremendous response it generated ensured that it becomes a yearly event.

“With the global economic slowdown and with many firms resorting to lay-offs and recruitment freezes, many had feared that this would adversely affect campus placements,” said Dr. Keyoor Purani, Placements Chairperson at IIMK. “However, IIMK has bucked the trend by finishing summer placements in time and with great success,” he said.