Placement is the climax of two years of grind at any management institute. Reputation and Recruitment, starting salaries, offshore placements tell us how the Institute is perceived by the corporate - Indian as well as foreign. With the mushrooming of the MBA Institutes across the country due to indiscriminate issuing of permission by AICTE, the graduating MBA aspirants are in general confusion about the Institutes outside the top-10 institutes. But the corporate are clear about the top-10 Institutes. And at the end of two year grueling, it all boils down to the placement, which is the day of deliverance. And the Placement 2000 was a landmark in the Indian B-school placement scenario. There were many reasons for this fabulous season.

Domino effect of Internet
First and foremost was the Internet related, which had a cascading effect on the salaries. Though dotcoms themselves did not exactly set the B-school campuses on fire, but they had a lateral, indirect effect on the placement. With the people in lower and middle management level in the corporate houses leaving their smooth, progressing, well defined careers in favour of the lure and promise of dotcoms, the corporates were facing a crunch of the people. People being groomed for key positions were leaving in droves to set up dotcoms or joining IT/Internet related companies, big corporate were put on back foot after a long time.

Bullish Wall Street and BSE
Another important factor was the bullish run at the Wall Street. A strong US market and the Internet mania also saw the leading recruiters at US B-schools like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey bearing the brunt of many rejection slips in favour of dotcoms and the venture capitals. With the booming markets, more people were required for the expansion plans. And the performance of Indian MBAs being recognised and respected by US firms, they also were looking towards their share of Indian MBAs from leading Indian B-schools.

The effect
And this all led to the revision of the salaries at the top Indian corporate. There was almost 100% hike in the salaries by marketing firms to get the best at the best B-schools. HLL increased its salary offering at IIMs from around Rs. 2.5 Lakhs to Rs. 5.5 Lakhs. Similarly, P&G hiked the salary to Rs 5.5. Lakhs , up from Rs. 3 Lakhs a year earlier. Asian Paints increased from Rs. 2.5 Lakhs to Rs. 4.5 Lakhs. Heinz, Cadburys were others with increased packages. Consultancy firms and banks were also not far behind. McKinsey and BCG increased their offers to Rs 8.5 Lakhs from Rs. 6.5 Lakhs to ward off temptations of W all Street I-banks. In addition, Consultancy firms also recruited people for overseas postings as additional incentive. Banks were also not far behind with ICICI upping its offer to Rs. 6.5 Lakhs.

With such a huge percentage increase in salaries, those who did not adjust fell behind. Ernst & Young, a day zero company fell to day one, primarily on account of its failure to revise the package substantially.

...but read the fine prints also
In all this hype about zooming salaries and overseas placements, there are things that nobody is talking about or rather nobody wants to talk about.

MBAs with high prior work-experience do face problems in the placement week and then there is always the left lot. So there are people who are/will be missing the goldpot.

Read more about the experience of getting left out in the placements in Paradise Lost.

Apart from this, the Indian B-Schools are still way behind in infrastructure compared to their US counterparts, course material is of vintage quality and there is acture shortage of good faculty. Read in detail about these in article Caveat.

So, still there are miles to go.....

Placements 2001

Read complete story of Placement 2001 as it happened along with analysis and comparison across the B-Schools and segment-wise analysis.

Placements 2002

Read complete story of Placement 200 as2 it happened along with analysis and comparison across the B-Schools and segment-wise analysis.

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