IRMA Placements Kick Off with 48 Job Offers from different Sectors of Rural Domain

The campus of India's premier rural management institute, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) was abuzz with excitement as the placement season kicked off here on Sunday.

Jobs in the rural sector being a non-glamorous option for MBA students was once again proven a myth at IRMA with 48 organizations offering jobs. The job offers were numerous and diverse, with organizations engaged in livelihood activities, tribal welfare, disaster management, health improvement, and other fields showing their interest in recruiting students from IRMA. Microfinance and Government welfare organizations seemed to be the flavor of this season with organizations working in the sectors offering around 30 vacancies. Although private and public sector banks, which were major recruiters till last year, did not turn up for recruitments this year, the students did not face any dearth of options to choose from.

Day Zero saw organizations working in different sectors of the rural domain like BASIX, IFMR, GCMMF, NDDB, SKS Microfinance, Tribal Welfare Departments (Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh) visiting the campus to recruit students from the current batch. Even during the gloomy days of recession last year, IRMA was able to place its students within two days. The trend continued this year too, with Day Zero seeing around 90% of the students accepting offers. A few students, who were placed on the second day, had deliberately waited for specific organizations to visit the campus. The final student to job ratio at the end of the placements was 1:2.53. The average salary this year was INR 6 lakh p.a, which was an increase of around 20% from the previous year.

The highest salary offered was INR 9.5 pa by IFMR, Chennai. Hyderabad based microfinance organization, BASIX, picked up 13 students from the current batch, the highest among all the organizations. 9 students opted for IRMA's traditional recruiters, GCMMF and NDDB, while ITC e-Choupal recruited 3 students. This year also saw two overseas placements from HiWEL, an organization working on a unique concept of providing education to the under-privileged children through computer kiosks. Gujarat State Disaster Management Agency roped in a student to work in disaster relief and management, while Madhya Pradesh recruited a student to work on a World Bank project.

Placement Committee members said that all the students of the batch have been placed with organizations of their preference. The successful placement of the students has shown that IRMA continues to be the premier institute in providing rural management education. Established in 1979 in Anand, Gujarat, IRMA offers a one of a kind course on rural management. With three fieldwork segments and a course curriculum spanning from cooperative management to strategic interventions in rural areas, IRMA is the apex institute in its sector, and this was certified again this year, with organization aggressively recruiting from its campus.

Concluded.