Global slowdown takes toll on IIM's summer placements

Wednesday, 02 October 2002, 19:30 IST
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AHMEDABAD: Summer placements at India's top business school, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) here, is the latest casualty of the global recession. Though 11 foreign companies arrived to recruit IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) students for summer training this year, only 43 offers have been made. Last year 10 leading foreign companies had come to recruit the students and had made 48 placement offers. Ravindra Dholakia, in charge of placements at IIM-A, blamed the global recession for the fewer offers. Top officials of the foreign companies, however, told the institute's authorities that they would recommend further recruitment in view of the students' extraordinary qualities. On September 28, or "Day Zero", eight foreign companies including Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Union Bank of Switzerland and Warburg, HSBC London, ABN Amro London, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank sought placements. "Day Zero of the placement exercise was held at Mumbai instead of Ahmedabad as the officials of the eight companies were unable to come here in view of the disturbed situation," said Dholakia, referring to the attack on the Swaminarayan temple last week in which 32 people were killed. Lehman Brothers picked up 11 students, the largest among the lot. Goldman Sachs came in second with six students. Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro picked up three students each, while Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley picked up two students. UBS Warburg and HSBC London picked up one student each. Last year foreign placements were done through video conferencing following the September 11 terror attacks in the U.S. This was done to ensure the students did not miss their internship in top foreign companies. Dholakia said the institute had to send its students to Mumbai to meet head hunters of the top international companies as the firms did not want to take risks following the temple attack in Gujarat capital Gandhinagat on September 24 and subsequent strikes called by the Congress party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. "We conduct our summer placement exercise over weekends and from now on the remaining companies will visit the campus," Dholakia said. "It was an extraordinary situation and we had to come out with a contingency plan so that the students do not miss out on the opportunity to work with top international organisations." Summer placements are an integral part of the academics at IIM-A. Every year students are sent to reputed organisations to get exposure and gain experience. Once they return, the IIM faculty evaluates their performance. During the placement exercise, companies are allocated days of interaction with the students to pick their choice. Top priority is given to foreign companies and eight of them were scheduled September 28. Three more foreign companies are scheduled to visit the IIM-A campus next weekend for recruitment of students. Said Dholakia: "We are proud that top bosses of eight foreign companies had come to India to interact with IIM-A students exclusively. They did not go to any other IIM but came for IIM-A." IIM-A has the highest number of foreign placement offers among all IIMs.
Source: IANS
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