Finance and consulting firms are making a beeline for premier management institutes as well as second rung B-schools, making a larger number of offers and doling out higher stipends for summer placements.
Some of the top B-schools such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta, and IIM Bangalore, claim to have witnessed a marked improvement in summer placements this year, signalling a revival in the economy.
According to Prof U Dinesh Kumar, Chairperson, Career Development Services, IIMB, this (for the current batch) has been one of the best summer placements the institute has had in recent years. “There is a clear signal from the recruiters that the economy is reviving, and the industry is looking for talent in large numbers to manage the post-pandemic market,” he said.
The summer placements, which offer an internship opportunity to first year management students, have been exceptionally good this year with most B-schools wrapping up the process in a record time and bagging a good number of offers.
B-schools have also witnessed a rise in the average stipends paid to students. Nearly 30-35 per cent of the pre-placement offers bagged by a management graduate during the final placement process typically come through their internship stints at such summer projects.
Consulting, finance rule the roost
Summer placements for the PGP and PGP-BA Class of 2021-23 of IIMB saw 542 offers, leading to all 513 students who appeared for placements being placed over two interview days.
Consulting companies made 181 offers led by Accenture with 33 offers, followed by Bain & Company (22) and The Boston Consulting Group (22). Some of the top recruiters wereKearney, McKinsey, Tata Consultancy Services, Alvarez &Marsal, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young among others. “We witnessed an increase in high-paying offers across sectors. We saw a rise in offers for finance roles, while consulting continues to be most sought-after,” HarshitVerma, Student Placement Representative, IIMB, said.
IIMC completed its summer internship placement week for its 58th batch by securing a record-breaking 570 offers for 476 students, with 142 firms participating. The placement drive saw the expansion of Hold & Wait (50 extra offers), Dreams (36 extra offers) policies which allowed all students to hold multiple offers and enabled companies to find a better company-student fit.
Bucking the trend of consulting being the largest recruiter, the finance sector saw hiring in higher numbers (121 students), narrowly pipping consulting (120 students) for the spot of top recruiting sector. The two sectors together accounted for 50 per cent of total hires.
Some of the top financial institutions such as Bank of America, Blackstone, Macquarie and top consulting firms Accenture, Bain & Co., BCG, and McKinsey participated.
The firms that participated in the first cluster of the summer placement process for the PGP class of 2023 of IIMA comprised five cohorts — investment banking & markets, management consulting, niche consulting, cards and financial advisory and private equity, venture capital & asset management.
As many as 50 firms participated in the process. BCG was the top recruiter with 26 offers, followed by Kearney with 24 offers. Other prominent recruiters in the consulting domain included regular recruiters such as Alvarez &Marsal, Arthur D Little, Auctus Advisors, Bain & Co, E&Y, GEP Consulting, McKinsey, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Strategy.
IIM Kozhikode closed the summer placements drive for the 25th batch of its PGprogramme and the second batches of PGP Liberal Studies and Management, and PGP Finance, the largest ever batch, by Day 3 of the recruitment week.
Close to 132 recruiters participated in the summer placements, which offered internships to 559 students with the highest stipend pegged at ₹3.74 lakh. The average stipend for the cohort was ₹2 lakh which is an over six per cent increase from last year's figure.
Xavier School of Management, which completed summer internship placement process for its largest-ever class of 470 students (2021-23), saw a 16 per cent rise in median stipend offered to the batch, which rose to ₹1.27 lakh a month while average stipend offered increased by five per cent y-o-y to ₹1.28 lakh a month.
The batch comprised students from business management and HR management programmes across both XLRI Jamshedpur and Delhi-NCR campuses. The highest stipend offered was ₹6.8 lakh for two months in the BFSI sector.
Sets the tone for final placements
The rise in average stipends bagged by students at summer placements this year might ring in good news for B-schools as they can expect a similar trend to continue during the final placements slated next year.
A number of second rung management institutes as well as some of the top B-schools had felt the brunt of the Covid-induced slowdown in the final placements which ended around March-April this year.
While the overall recruitment process at premier B-schools was not affected, however, the second rung institutes had a tough time ensuring 100 per cent placements. The average pay package was either muted or witnessed only a marginal rise this year as compared to the previous year for a majority of B-schools. However, the good show at summer placements is likely to set the “right tone” for final placements next year, industry experts said.