Global firms vie to grab Bangalore biz whizkids

Bangalore, March 24 (IANS) Global technology, consulting and finance firms vied to grab the best of the breed from the reputed Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) business school, with over 400 job offers for the around 370 students.

Among the top global and Indian firms, which made beeline to the campus hiring this month were Accenture, Airtel, A.T. Kearney, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Deloitte, Flipkart, IBM Consulting, ICICI, Lodha group, McKinsey and Supermax.

"We saw a strong demand for our students this year despite the bleak economic scenario. The diversity and seniority of roles offered were better than last year due to their rich work experience," B-school placement committee member Merben Jayakaran told IANS here.

"There were 423 job offers, including 41 with international postings for the outgoing batch of 371 PGP (post-graduate programme) students though eight of them opted of the placement process to become entrepreneurs," said P.D. Jose, the institute's career development services chairman.

Of the 120 offers from top 11 recruiters, IBM snapped up 17 and Supermax 16, while Accenture, Airtel, BCG, Deloitte and ICICI hired 12 each. A.T. Kearney and Airtel grabbed nine each and McKinsey eight, Lodha group seven and Flipkart six.

Similarly, 124 lateral offers were made for students with more than 22 months of work experience and 93 pre-placement offers to the batch, which is the largest in the institute's history till date.

"Consulting and finance were the sectors of choice for 180 students. Swiss Investment Bank UBS, which recruited only from our school, offered equities derivatives trading profile based out of Hong Kong. Private equity major -- the Blackstone Group (London) and consulting giant Arthur D Little (Dubai) also recruited from this school," said Jose.

Duferco group offered its coveted metal trading profile at Lugano in Switzerland. It was the only such offer made across the state-funded B-schools. Capital One hired two students for their Dallas office in the US.

Among banks which bargained hard for best talent include Deutsche Bank and American Express with six offers each, while DBS, HSBC, Avendus Capital, Goldman Sachs, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank and Axis Bank offered diverse roles in investment banking and finance domain.

Global financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley (Hong Kong), J.P. Morgan Chase, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank (London), Nomura, Goldman Sachs, RBS, UBS, Standard Chartered and Citi Global made pre-placement offers.

Consulting majors McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz and A.T. Kearney saw 37 offer acceptances, while Siemens Management Consulting recruited exclusively from IIM-B among all B-schools.

"Hyundai Motors recruited for its global leadership programme at its headquarters in Seoul. As part of its leadership recruitment programme, Hyundai visited one campus each among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian & China) countries," Jose said.

Indian IT bellwether Infosys Ltd hired students for client-services roles with postings in Europe and the US.

"A Trilogy group company offered ideation lead roles based out of Dubai exclusively for our B-school grads," Jayakaran noted.

FMCG major Proctor & Gamble recruited eight students for positions in India and Singapore.

HUL, Kraft, Pepsi, Airtel, Nokia, ITC, Johnson & Johnson, L'Oreal and Vodafone also recruited from the Bangalore B-school only.

"It is rewarding to hire from IIM-B school as the talent is promising and just what we require. Besides five pre-placement offers to all our five summer interns, we have hired four students with professional and academic excellence," Kearney India partner Vikas Kaushal told IANS.

The four-decade-old B-school offers a range of post-graduate and doctoral courses and executive education programmes. Its centres of excellence are engaged in adding value in the areas of public policy, capital markets and financial management, corporate governance and entrepreneurship.

(Fakir Balaji can be contacted at fakir.B@ians.in)