B-schools are modifying their placement process to overcome the dip in recruitment opportunities this year.
To ensure that the available opportunities are evenly distributed, management schools are putting cap on the maximum number of offers that can be bagged per student.
With offers from traditional sectors such as finance and investment banking drying up, institutes are also looking for “greener pastures” in emerging sectors such as e-commerce.
According to Prof. Amit Dhiman, Placement Chairperson, Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C), the institute had to do a lot of “legwork” this year.
Spot offer system
“We had feelers that the recruitment process might not be too easy this year. So we did a lot of legwork and spoke to a number of companies from diverse sectors. As a result, we got good response from e-commerce and technology firms this year,” Prof Dhiman told Business Line .
IIM-C also went for the “spot offer system” – which means that if a student - who already has an offer in hand - bags another offer from a company then he should opt out of the placements in order to release the slot and conserve job losses.
“Till last year, we were slightly more relaxed in the final placements and allowed a student to bag multiple offers, however, this year, we brought in some restrictions to narrow down their choices,” Prof Dhiman said.
IIM-C limited the number of offers per student at two this year, against three-four offers in a normal year.
Additional efforts
Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Rohtak, which went for the final placement of its first batch of 47 students this year, took additional efforts to ensure jobs for everyone, said Mr Pranit Upadhyay, Student Placement Co-ordinator.
“Given the current economic scenario, most companies have curtailed their hiring plans. Under these circumstances, adding a new campus was not on the cards even for top notch recruiters,” Mr Upadhyay said.
XLRI, Jamshedpur, however, did not take any special measure to ensure placements of its students, said Prof Rajiv Mishra, Chairperson, Placements.
“International markets were the worst affected in so far as recruitments are concerned. At XLRI, we are not too dependent on international offers. In fact for the last five years we have focused primarily on the domestic market,” Prof Mishra said.