Lateral placements at IIMs shows improved hiring environment

Placement news network

Collegekhabar.com

9^th February, 2010

The ongoing lateral placement season at the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) for the class of 2010 has shown an improved hiring environment, setting the tone for the final placement that will commence in the middle of this month. 

Nearly half the students in the class of 2010 across the six IIMs have work experience. At IIM Ahmedabad, the process is currently under way. 

Though the institute declined to share details on recruiters, students who have had a background in industries such as financial services, consulting, marketing and IT/ITeS have been getting job offers. IIM-A’s class of 2010 has 290 students, with about half of them having work experience. 

The consensus is that the mood across the IIM campuses for the class of 2010 is better than 2009. “The numbers seem better than 2009, but have not reached the 2007 and 2008 levels, which calls for guarded optimism,” said Hariharan Sriram, external relations secretary at IIM Calcutta. Here, the batch of 280 students has about 60% in the laterals. Among the key recruiters are Cognizant Business Consulting, Deloitte and the Hinduja Group. 

At IIM Bangalore, the lateral placements began in the third week of December last year and will continue till February 15. The institute has new recruiters from sectors like retail, infrastructure and hospitality. It has a batch size of 266 and over three-fifths of students have work experience. 

At IIM Kozhikode too, the scenario looks promising. So far, over 25 companies have participated in the lateral placement and have hired around 80 students. Some of the key recruiters are Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and Cognizant Business Consulting. 

About 15 companies are participating in the lateral placements at IIM Indore. Some of the key recruiters have been Cognizant Business Consulting, Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Syntel, Genpact and Jindal Steel & Power. 

At IIM Lucknow, the tilt towards the IT sector is obvious. “Participation has improved sharply among IT companies and those from the financial services sector. We have also consciously targeted the IT space, given that two-thirds of the batch has IT experience,” said RL Raina, placements coordinator at the institute. Here, the batch size is 320, of which 200 students shave prior work experience.

Source: Economictimes