Battling global macroeconomic instability and visa uncertainties — that crept in after the Trump administration took charge in the US — the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIMA) successfully concluded placement season with higher number of offers and higher average salaries, despite some traditional recruiters giving placements a miss.
“The job market was tough this year. The sentiments among recruiters reflected the same. While some of the multinational corporations (MNCs) are going through a hiring freeze, there were some regular recruiters at IIMA who were wondering how many students they can recruit this year. In other words, sentiments of IIMA’s traditional recruiters were on a downward spiral, but some new-age technological firms have shown interest in recruiting. Despite the struggle, we have managed a successful completion of the placement season where both the quality and quantity of offers have gone up,” Professor Vishwanath Pingali, Chairperson (Placements), IIMA told businessline.
When asked what kept some of the traditional recruiters away from IIM-A during the placements that were held in three clusters on January 31, February 3 and 6, Pingali said, “The uncertainties regarding visas after a regime change in the US and a global marco-economic instability, did play a role in keeping some of the big MNCs — especially in the technological domain — away from the campus. These entities preferred to wait and watch instead of committing to placements.” He however did not name the recruiters who gave the campus placements a miss.
The Professor said that the IIMA managed to tide over the crisis but falling back on new recruiters and seeking help from old contacts and supporters. “When some of our traditional recruiters expressed their inability to visit the campus this year, a bit of panic had definitely set in. But the placement committee reached out to new recruiters, leveraged our old contacts and also sought help from people who have traditionally supported IIMA. We have invested a lot in globalising our brand and that is also paying off. We have observed in IIMA that when the market is bad, there is a significant amount of trust recruiters place in recruiting students from IIMA,” he added.
Boston Consulting Group with 35 offers, made the most offers, followed by Accenture Strategy with 30 offers during the placements where students were placed across 30 cohorts. Though traditional recruiters from the US stayed away, there were some new recruiters from the finance sector in the US who came to the campus. In addition there were a few recruiters from GIFT City and some from Ahmedabad who attended the campus placements at IIMA.
Asked if the salaries offered showed any adverse impact of the slack job market conditions, Professor Pingali said, “I am being very cautious while saying this as we are still collating our placement data. We have made a slight uptick in average salaries this year. High-end consulting firms have shown tremendous faith in IIMA this year.” The placement Chairperson said while consulting did well, offers from firms operating in the finance space “performed decently” as international offers for roles in Middle-east and European markets were on “expected lines.”
Among the Investment Banks, Goldman Sachs was the largest recruiter, making nine offers, closely followed by Avendus Capital with seven offers. Similarly in the General Management domain, Tata Administrative Services made the highest number of offers (five), followed by GMR Group with four offers. Amongst the new recruiters onboarded, some key firms were GMR Group, Pekers Group, Pluckk and Showtime Consulting. In the Laterals processes, FinIQ Consulting made the highest number of offers (11), closely followed by Navi Technologies with 10 offers.