Downslide to impact placements at IIMA

Ahmedabad: The impact of the downslide in the global economic scenario is sure to be felt in the recruitment process at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad as summer internships start at its campus this week.

Conspicuous by their absence would be former star recruiters who are no more, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Summer internship recruitment at the campus is said to be an indicator for the final placement session, and has become a source of stress for final-year students, who atre on tenterhooks, reports suggest.

IIM-Kozhikode and IIM-Calcutta, on the other hand, are showing an encouraging trend at the internship placements. However, reports quoted unnamed students of IIM-A as being optimistic about there always being jobs for IIM-A graduates, irrespective of the state of the economy, even though the premium that has come to be expected as a ''standard'' part of their compensation packages might be somewhat downsized.

Investment banks, preferred employers for IIM graduates, would mostly give the recruitment process a go-by this year. Just a year ago, the story was quite different, with the like of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and consulting firms like BCG and Bain Consulting being seen on campus for the zero slot of summer internships. Lehman Brothers, which has since filed for bankruptcy, was the second-highest recruiter, second only to Goldman Sachs, having made 17 offers.

Day Zero of summer placement at IIM-A saw an almost 50 per cent drop in the number of recruiters and offers made to students of 2008-2010 batch, according to reports. Against three dozen companies that came to the campus last year on Day Zero, this year saw lesser than 20 in attendance, making only 50 odd offers against the 120 of last year.