Indian firms back in favour

At B-School campuses:

For students in the final year of management, pre-placement offers
begin next week. Those in the first year will start picking companies
to train during summer holidays. The upheavals in global finance have
hurt their optimism, but no one is worried about not getting a job.

There will be plenty of jobs on offer, and they are unlikely to come
with salaries lower than last year, students and faculty at several
IIMs and other management institutes told HT.

“There used to be a 10-15 per cent annual increase in salary offers.
This year, we expect 2-3 per cent growth, but companies will not reduce
salaries offered,” said Abbasali Gabbula, final year student at S.P.
Jain Management Institute in Mumbai, where pay offers averaged Rs 14
lakhs last year.

What could possibly be missing are the six-figure dollar salaries
from global financial firms. For instance, the highest offer made
during last year’s campus hiring at IIM, Calcutta was Rs. 1.36 crore
per annum, from a global investment bank that was not named. Lehman
Brothers topped the chart at XLRI, Jamshedpur, where overseas offers
averaged $90,000 and the highest domestic offer was for Rs. 32 lakh.

Such fancy salaries often prevented many homegrown companies from pitching for talent at these institutes.

While the financial turmoil has somewhat dented pay prospects for
management students,  “many companies that earlier went back empty
handed would have an opportunity to hire our students,” said Piyush
Sinha, who chairs the placement committee at IIM, Ahmedabad. Students,
who are keen on working overseas, might explore options in Asia, rather
than looking at Europe or the US, he said.

What the article does not state is that there is likely to be a shakeout in the placements of the B Schools outside the top 25. Let's hope the majority of the students get a good future.