Finance dominates IIMB placements

The financial sector may have taken a beating in the 2008 crisis, with even the apostle of the 'greed is good' philosophy, Gordon Gekko, abandoning the sector in the latest Wall Street movie.

But this year has seen the sector back to its roaring best, and this was reflected in its aggressive scout for fresh talent at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).

At the recently concluded placements at IIMB, job offers from the finance sector rose by a third year-on-year. This year, nearly 36 per cent of all offers made by firms to IIMB's students were from the financial sector, up from 27 per cent last year.

With this, IIMB has recaptured some of the clout it wielded with finance firms before the crisis. In 2008, the sector had accounted for nearly 40 per cent of all job offers.

In a media release, IIMB said 332 students from the flagship Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) received 461 offers from 105 companies. Interestingly, the number of companies has fallen from 120 last year, despite the number of students increasing by 80. This was partly due to the aggressive manner in which IIMB courted more companies in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Consulting firms also made a beeline to make offers at IIMB, with the percentage of offers rising from 22 last year to 31. Sales and marketing made up 21 per cent of all offers, general management seven per cent and operations and product management six per cent of all offers.

Of the 461 offers made this year, 84 were pre-placement offers. At least 90 per cent of students received one or more offers. This year also saw students receive offers in Singapore, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Dubai, New York and London.

Prof P D Jose, Chairperson, Career Development Services, said: “This year’s PGP placement season was well received by recruiting organisations and the entire process was smooth, given the size of the batch and the logistics involved. We are thankful to the companies that participated in the process, which resulted in a greater number of offers to our students.”