Placements at IIMK see huge job offers from financial giants

Kozhikode: Recruitment scene at Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIMK) is looking very competitive this year. The lateral placements concluded here with 35 premier recruiters from India and abroad participating in the event and making a total 103 offers to 55 students. The average salary for lateral placements this year stood at Rs 15.56 lakh per annum, an IIM-K release said.
According to sources, IIMK has faced stiff competition from its counterparts - IIMA, IIMB and IIMC. This year IIMK bagged the highest international offer as compared to other top ranked IIMs. An IIMK student was offered the highest $175,000 offer by an Indian investment bank compared to highest international offers of $130,000 and $100,000 made at IIMA and IIMC respectively. The 'offers per student' during laterals at IIMK (1.9) have been almost doubled, compared to the offers per student at IIMA and IIMC. Many believe the main reason behind this recent development at IIMK is due to the subprime crisis that affected hiring at IIMA, IIMB and IIMC. This has resulted better job opportunities for IIMK students. An alumnus of IIMK said, "We have to come to terms with the fact that best offers from international I-banks go to the top three IIMs. Yes, this time since these campuses didn't get as many offers, we benefited."However, the placement committee has claimed that this year it has laid greater emphasis on diversity among recruiters. Till four years back, no consulting companies figured in the list and only 15% of the batch opted for roles in finance. In 2007, while 25% of the batch opted for consulting roles, 33% of the batch got into the finance sector.
Major financial giants including McKinsey, KPMG, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Barclays, HSBC and Goldman Sachs started entering to the campus last year, for the first time. Indian and International recruiters have also been encouraged by seeing the type of responses that the IIMK students have shown during the recruitment process. "Since these students aren't sure of a secure lucrative offer by their side, they perhaps try harder than their counterparts at other campuses," says a recruiter from Accenture Business Consulting. Accenture has selected four candidates from IIM Bangalore, two from IIM Lucknow and eight from IIM Kozhikode.