B-School Placements 2012: Less bulk recruitment this year

This year B-schools are viewing a new change in the process of recruitments. In many B-schools the final placement process is going on and some of them have completed the process. This year companies from finance and IT sector are hiring just 8-12 students as compared to 25-30 students of last year.

For example some big names like ICICI Bank, HDFC and TCS have just selected a handful of students from ICFAI Business School, Mumbai, according to Hema Sisodia, dean (corporate relations and campus placements). She said, “These five or six regular bulk recruiters used to pick up over 35 per cent, but this year they have hardly picked 25 per cent.”

Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) said firms from the IT sector have changed the pattern of the recruitments and hiring less number of students. Sabita Mohanty, faculty co-ordinator (placements), said, “From 25-30 recruitments last year, the figure for this year has come down to 8-10. This year, firms are making offers in a more focused manner. They are looking for the right fit. As a result, the numbers have reduced.”

IIM-A also agrees with this points and said that this year the situation is little different than the last year. Saral Mukherjee, chairperson (placements), said, “The number of offers per recruiters are likely to go down this year, with 18-20 being the maximum. However, most of these will be international financial companies. We don’t know if domestic firms will follow suit.”

To reduce the effect of economic downturn this year the management institutes had invited more companies to participate in the placement process. For instance K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research (SIMSR) has invited 300 firms for placement process, but only 63 companies coming to its campus for placements and another 20 are expected to join soon. N D Sharma, placement coordinator at SIMSR, said, “By now, we should have placed all our students like we did last year. But so far, only 85 per cent of the 120-strong batch has been placed.”