IIMs Extend Placements: Clouds on the Horizon!!!

For Placements 2009, it’s an extended season this year across Indian B-school campuses. The concept of Placement Season (or Placement Week) came into being when MBA degrees and management graduates were accorded dazzling lime-light sometime in year 2000 and catapulted to dizzying heights. Since then, all Indian B-schools have tooted their claims of “100% Placements in a Single Day” or “Whole Batch Placed Within a Few Hours”, or something along the same lines, and not even second- or third-rung B-schools, let alone any of the BIG SIX, were ready to admit, even grudgingly, that there are always those few at B-school campuses for whom Placements Season extends way beyond one week.

Even with the economic downturn, Indian B-schools continued their chant in last quarter of 2008, that the global economic crisis hasn’t affected their summer placements at all. Check Summers Stories from Top Indian Institutions. So the recent news in various media about IIMs extending their placement seasons, come both as good news and bad news. Bad news for the fact that it just confirms the worst fears about the current job scenario. Good news for the fact that finally some acceptance has come from the B-schools that the placement situation seems bad this year.

Infact most of the B-schools are actually following Rolling Placements this year, where the placements started early and would be spread over a period of 2-3 months, with no specific Placement Week as such. And for institutes like IIMs, it meant extending their usual Placement Week by another week. IIM Calcutta is holding placements in two phases – the first phase ended February 27, and the second phase began on March 2.

As per Economic Times News, “Institutes like IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) and IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K), among others, are doing their best to keep recruiters happy by keeping the placement season open-ended, giving more elbow room to companies so they could hire students at their own convenience, and not within the time limit set by the institutes as was the case until last year.”

Another Business Standard News highlights the situation at IIM Bangalore which has also extended its Placements by one week. To quote from that news, “The gravity of the problem can be understood from the fact that while earlier recruiting companies were in a hurry to come for the placement at the earliest to take away the best of the students, now the placement committee is preferring to wait for the ‘preferred’ companies (recruiters) till they come for the placement as they are showing no sign of hurry.” So IIMs are inviting more companies (than usual) across diverse sectors to ensure quality placements for the entire batch.

Further, if the meager reports trickling in regarding placements are anything to go by, there are snippets about such and such company coming to so and so campus, but there are, however, no tell-tale details about the number of offers made or the salaries offered.

Infact most recruiting companies that used to frequent IIMs campuses during this time, are going this year for campus interviews simply because they don’t want their relationship with the premium B-schools to be affected. According to media and industry sources, there has been very little or even no increase in salary offered to most of the IIM students this year. So what could be the situation of placements at other Non-IIM B-schools this year is anybody’s guess. Keep checking CoolAvenues’ Placement 2009 Section for latest updates on this scenario.