Laid off overseas, IIM students request institutes to place them again

Approximately 300 students from the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and even Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, who were placed overseas last year, are bearing the brunt of a slowing economy. Having lost their jobs abroad, many students are requesting their institutes to help them with placements again.

Both IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta confirmed the development. "We have received placement requests from some students from the 2006-08 batch. We are trying to approach companies at a personal level and help these students get placed," confirmed a professor from IIM Bangalore. A purely informal arrangement, the institute will do this without charging placement fees.

IIM Calcutta, however, added that some students have managed to find jobs on their own in India. "Before we could help the students, they told us they have secured new jobs," said Prafulla Agnihotri, professor in marketing and chairperson career development and placement at IIM-C. ISB, however, declined to comment.

Last year, out of a batch of 255 students, IIM Ahmedabad placed around 24 per cent at international locations. Major international companies that recruited students included Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Barclays among others. At IIM Bangalore, from a batch of 256 students, over 50 per cent of students accepted overseas offers.

Besides approaching their institutes to be placed again, many of these students are asking their institutes for a teaching post. Others are now back in India hunting for a job, attempting to float their own ventures, waiting for the market to get better or have decided to change their field from finance to marketing.

Dinesh Mohan, a graduate from IIM-C, is a case in point. Mohan, from the 2006-2008 batch, is back in India, and hunting for a job. “I had interned with an international bank in Europe and was offered a job later. But barely four months into the job and the bank asked me and another friend to leave,” says Mohan, adding: “The problem is most of these companies are common recruiters from IIMs. So the students have suffered.”

He is not alone. Many of his friends from other IIMs have joined him in this hunt, having being laid-off from various IIMs, including the biggies — IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta. Mohan and his friend were recruited at annual salaries of around Rs 35 lakh.

"After this experience I have decided to float my own venture. I can’t be dependent on someone else to take a call on my professional life," Namit Chandra, one of the students told Business Standard. Chandra, who was placed in the UK with a consulting firm, is back in Ahmedabad after a brief stint of a few months.

Meanwhile, domestic alumni of these premier institutes have also been laid off. At Delhi-based Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), students from its 1990s batch have been retrenched. While some have managed other jobs, others have approached the institute to take up teaching.