Placements 2005 at IIFT

Someone very rightly said, "Success often arrives on wings". It sure did and in fact, it flashed past the IIFT MBA (IB) class of 2005. It was Placements 2005 and continuing on its track record, IIFT pulled all aces this year too. Such was the brilliance displayed by the students that they saw their placement dreams coming true in a niche of 27 top-notch companies.

IIFT, being one of the country's premier business schools, boasts of producing India's finest global business managers. With a 40-year strong brand image to its credit, IIFTians live up to the motto 'where excellence is the way of life'. And this credo is further corroborated through the IIFTians holding eminent positions in organizations all around the globe.

In continuation with its long relationship with IIFT, ITC led the pack of recruiters and constituted the cr¨me de la cr¨me of the corporates on campus. The international recruiters OLAM, Backes & Strauss, Kuok Oil and Grains, among the others, accounted for 10% of the batch getting placed on overseas assignments. The day saw the big blue IBM as well the domestic conglomerate Aditya Birla Management Corporation in foray for the IIFT placements process. This was followed by the spate of IT companies, which substantiated the gung-ho in the IT market emerging as the major recruiters for the day. The IT sector accounted for 30% of the job offers. And offers poured from the behemoths like Hewlett-Packard, Infosys, Wipro among others. The ease with which the placements were accomplished was aided by the fact that 20% of the batch had been placed through the lateral and the PPO channel. Pharma companies like Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Lupin along with the FMCG and Trade majors like ITC, Cargill and Godrej actively participated in the process. Financial institutions like SBI, Power Finance Corporation; Energy giants like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, GAIL and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited; Auto majors - Maruti, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, and knowledge based firms like Pulsar Knowledge Center are among the companies that visited the campus this year.

The speed of the process was remarkable in the fact that the entire batch was placed in few hours, so that 38 companies of the 65 scheduled and slotted companies had to go back without recruits. The batch of 2005 has found its niche in a range of 27 companies. But the real icing on the cake was the compensation package offered.

Lateral Placements at IIFT this year were also excellent with a substantial chunk of the batch getting lateral offers from major companies like HP, RAMCO, BIRLASOFT, Infosys, Wipro clearly marking the confidence of the corporate world in the talent of IIFT.

The corporates who visited the campus were also happy with the caliber and quality of the candidates that they recruited. In the words of Mr. Knadvian, CEO, Backes & Strauss, "The candidates are excellent and the whole activity was very intense and well organized." Another corporate from KPMG Advisory Services who was here as an advisory with Backes and Strauss was also highly impressed with the batch and said "IIFT has a pool of excellent candidates having good skills in communication, International Policy and Risk Management."

Commenting on the offers that IIFT students have received, Mr. Prabir Sengupta, Director General, IIFT, said, "The boundaries between international and domestic business are fast disappearing and it is in this context that IIFTians have an unbeatable edge."