IIFT Beats Recession, Achieves 100% Placements

Meltdown of the markets from October led to lay-offs across sectors all over the world and most organizations seemed to be putting their growth plans on hold. Yet Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), managed to rise to the challenge, ensuring 100% placements for its students, and in the process, adding 20% more recruiters to its previous year’s numbers. In times like these when a lot of companies were not recruiting in large numbers, what made IIFT stand out was the diversity of the recruiters across various sectors, offering a plethora of profiles.

This placements season at IIFT witnessed 62 companies coming and recruiting students, a 20% rise over the previous year. The top players across all sectors marked their presence on campus. Industry leaders like ITC, Colgate Palmolive, Nomura Holdings, Coca Cola, M&M, Bharti Airtel, Titan, Bajaj Auto, Cargill, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, ICRA, Unicon, Eli Lilly, Vodafone, etc., visited campus for recruiting students for various roles like marketing, sales, corporate finance, treasury, international business, etc. 

New Recruiters

A pleasant surprise this year was the number of new companies on campus. With over 38 new companies on campus, students got to chose from a large variety of industries and roles. Companies across diverse sectors like manufacturing, telecom, trade, IT, logistics, microfinance, pharma, exports, infrastructure, etc., visited campus. 

Some of the new recruiters on campus were Mahindra & Mahindra, Unicon, Bajaj Auto, Usha International, A.P.Moller Maersk, Infosys BPO, Godfrey Philips, GVK Bio, Gateway Rail Freight, Darashaw, Fino, LMJ International, Virgin Mobile, Eli Lilly, Triton Group, Eka Software, Copal Partners, etc. All the companies were extremely satisfied with the standard of the institute and the students, and had a great first experience at IIFT.

Students also showed a lot of interest in start-ups this year. Some of the start-ups like Emergent Ventures India, Vignani Solutions, Fino Analytics, offered niche profiles in carbon consulting, financial modelling, micro-finance and business development.

Compensation Packages

This year saw a rationalization in pay structures across the country; thus, the average salaries offered at IIFT also dipped marginally, but keeping the scenario in mind, the students were more particular about the roles and profiles they were being offered. They were willing to compromise to some extent on their salaries as long as they were offered a good role in the organization of their choice. The highest salary offered this year was Rs. 19.0 Lakhs, by a financial services firm. The average salary was around Rs. 8.09 Lakhs. 

Public Sector Organizations

In the current economic scenario, the PSUs are among the few organizations that are doing well and have major growth plans in the near future. That propelled a lot of students to apply for marketing, finance, trading & international marketing roles in government sector organizations. More than 10 public sector organizations visited the campus recruiting 30% of the students in the batch. Some of the prominent public sector recruiters were BHEL, STC, PEC, Bank of Baroda, SAIL, IDBI Bank, NMDC, MMTC, CDC, IIFCL, ECGC, etc.

A break-up of the different sectors which students have gotten into is given below: -

Functional Split

IIFT managed to retain its niche in International Business & Trading with 26% of the batch getting recruited for those roles.

Sales & Marketing also was among the favourites that students opted for, with 30% of the batch getting placed in the same. Some of the companies that offered marketing roles were Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, ITC, ICI Paints, Usha International, Coca Cola, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Steel, Titan, Colgate Palmolive, Glenmark, Eli Lilly, GVK Bio, Godfrey Philips, etc.

With a lot of new companies coming in this year, students also got recruited for roles in Operations, General Management, Trading also. Some of the companies that offered roles in these areas were Bertling Logistics, Virgin Mobile, A.P.Moller Maersk, Triton Group, Cargill, Gateway Rail Freight, Mitsui Trading, etc.

The IT & Consulting space were represented by the likes of Arthur D. Little, Cognizant, Avalon Consulting, HCL, TCS, Genpact, Infosys BPO, CDC, Eka Software, who offered roles in pre-sales, business analysis, consulting and product management, etc.

The Banking & Financial Services players offered lucrative finance roles to students. Some of the companies that recruited students for finance roles were Nomura Holdings, Axis Bank, ICRA, Care Rarings, Bank of Baroda, Darashaw, KA Securities, Copal Partners, Sara International, IIFCL, etc. 

Mr. Munish Bhargava, the Corporate & Placements Advisor at IIFT, said, “Despite the economic slowdown, we achieved 100% placements of our students. The recruiters included increased companies from sectors like trading, logistics, pharma, microfinance, etc., and PSUs. The students were willing to compromise on their pay structures for good roles of their choice.”

A list of all the recruiters who participated in placements 2009 can be found below: -