Hiring is back with a bang with B-schools experiencing an exceptionally good year in terms of final placements with a number of institutes wrapping up the process in record time and witnessing a 20-30 per cent surge in the average pay packet. The number of recruiters from across various sectors participating in the placement process has also seen a rise. 

According to RP Yadav, CMD, Genius Consultants, companies are stepping up their business development and ramping up production with a spurt in demand. This has translated into a 15-22 per cent rise in demand for recruitment of frontline and mid-line staff with an average experience of zero-to-two years and two-to-seven years respectively.

“After the second wave when the markets opened up most companies understood that even if a third wave comes it will not last too long and that is what has happened. Unlike the second wave, when the cases were severe and there was a surge in hospitalisation, the third wave has not led to any widespread disruption. So companies (that had put their growth plans on a temporary halt) are now stepping up to meet the demand,” Yadav told BL on Campus 

While sectors such as IT, ITeS, healthcare, retail and pharma have been witnessing a huge demand; an improvement in sentiments in sectors such as tourism and hospitality has also been leading to a higher number of jobs on offer, experts said. 

Robust recruitment trend 

Xavier School of Management (XLRI) achieved 100 per cent placements for the outgoing batch of 2020-22 for its flagship programmes, the two-year PG diploma in HR Management and two-year PG diploma in business management with all 427 candidates securing offers through the final recruitment process in a single day. This includes the first batch students of XLRI, Delhi-NCR. 

The average salary increased by nearly 23 per cent at ₹30.73 lakh per annum from ₹25.08 lakh per annum in 2020. The highest domestic offer was a little over Rs 60 lakh per annum from the BFSI sector. “We are delighted to announce that XLRI has achieved the feat of 100 per cent placements in a record timeframe this year. We attribute the outstanding placements as an affirmation by the corporate world of the highly relevant management-centric education we strive to deliver to our students year after year. This stellar success is a testimony to our students’ resilient calibre in navigating the industry’s shifting trends and their future journey as young business leaders of tomorrow and eminent faculty who mould, mentor and accompany their journey,” Fr Paul Fernandes, S.J, Director, XLRI, said in a statement. 

Among the regular recruiters, Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture Strategy, Amazon, ITC and Paytm made the highest number of offers. Close to 40 per cent of the students received pre-placement offers (PPOs). Some of the new recruiters included American Express, Freshworks, Swiggy, MoEngage and Slice, amongst others. 

IIM Kozhikode completed final Placements 2022 in a record three days, compared to final placements 2021 which took six days to complete. As many as 546 students from a batch of 548 participated in the process. The maximum number of offers came from the consulting sector. Qambar Abidi, Chairperson, Placements, IIMK said in response to an e-mail questionnaire. 

Healthy demand

The institute also witnessed a surge in international offers this year. The average salaries shot up by over 30 per cent from last year despite the institute having to place its largest batch till date — 546 students across three full-time programmes. 

IIM Ahmedabad, which commenced the final placement process on Tuesday, follows a cluster-cohort placement process wherein companies offering similar profiles are grouped into cohorts, and several cohorts are invited to the campus in a particular cluster. 

At the recently conducted Laterals Placement Process concluded on January 30, IIMA saw a range of domestic as well as international recruiters. The highest offers (20) were rolled out by Paytm, followed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and American Express. Some other recruiters included Amazon, Atlassian, Flipkart, General Atlantic, Google, Infoedge, Jio, Kepler Cannon, Microsoft, Oracle, Oyo, among others. 

IIM Sambalpur has seen a 20-30 per cent increase in the number of companies participating in the recruitment process this year. “Earlier, a majority of big recruiters would prefer going to bigger towns but now with the whole process going online, they are looking at the IIM brand and recruiting in big numbers from the newer IIMs,” Prof Mahadeo Jaiswal, Director, IIM Sambalpur said. 

The final placement cycle 2022 of IIM Calcutta is scheduled to commence from the third week of February. According to Charanpreet Singh, Founder & Director, Praxis Business School Foundation, there is a healthy demand for students who have been trained in the right KSAs (knowledge, skills and abilities) for the digital world — knowledge of functional areas of business, data and tech skills, ability to communicate and collaborate in teams.