The placements this year saw a new high. The highest domestic salary offered was Rs. 29 lacs while the average salary was a high Rs 13.84 lacs, JBIMS informed MBAUniverse.com. What's more, each student was made 3.08 offers on an average.
JBIMS also reports a whopping 100% rise in the number of investment banks on campus along with a plethora of niche profiles on offer in sectors ranging from Consulting to Capital Markets, Telecom to Media, and Real Estate to Conglomerates.
Divyesh Sanjana from the Placement Committee said "A melange of profiles of every possible kind across all sectors and a plethora of offers to choose from, are few of the factors that led to the path breaking placements for the outgoing batch - precisely the goal we set out to achieve as the Placement Committee at JBIMS"
However, it is not the soaring salaries, but the choices and focus on profiles students have that makes this year's placements unique, says JBIMS. A striking example of this trend was Anand Patil, from the Finance Batch who grabbed an offer from Yes Bank as a Senior Manager for their Investment Banking division. "Challenges in a young organization are something I look forward to and aligning my growth story with that of the organization will give me a great amount of satisfaction", says Anand, who also had offers from a top consulting firm and a leading MNC bank, along with a pre placement offer to boot.
This year also saw part-time projects (off-summer projects, a concept unique to JBIMS) getting converted into offers. Arjun Khanna bagged a prestigious buy-side equity research profile with Principal AMC on account of the same. Students bagged offers from companies like Nestle and L'Oreal on the basis of their performance in contests held by these companies.
Let's look at placement trends at JBIMS by sector:
Investment Banking
The number of i-banks visiting campus doubled this year with 17% of the batch taking up this career path. I-banks such as Citigroup (for their Global Markets Division) and Morgan Stanley Investment Bank, top i-banks such as Avendus Capital, Enam Securities, ICICI Securities, JP Morgan Chase and SBI Capital made offers this year.
Consulting
Consulting continued to be an extremely sought after profile on campus. Leading consulting firms like McKinsey & Co., Accenture Business Consulting, Deloitte, Ernst & Young (Business Advisory Services), PricewaterhouseCoopers participated in the process. Leading HR consultant Mercer offered positions for their Human Capital Advisory Services.
"It's been an enriching experience interacting with JBIMS students. The zeal and passion of students is commendable and makes them stand out in the crowd. They are definitely future business leaders. We hope our relationship continues to grow stronger", said Nimisha Rana Pathak representing Accenture Business Consulting, which made offers to 5 candidates.
Capital Markets
A strong focus towards careers in India's Capital Markets was reflected in this year's placements. The highlight of this year's placements is the separate Equity Research process held at the behest of the students. With leading brokerage firms such as ICICI Securities, SSKI, Principal AMC, Kotak Securities participating, students of the Batch of 2008 are well on course to unlocking real value from Indian stock markets.
Banking and Financial services
Barclays Bank PLC and Yes Bank participated for the first time at JBIMS, with Barclays making as many as 7 offers. Roles ranged from treasury to corporate banking to retail banking. For e.g. ICICI Bank recruited for their Investment Banking, Treasury, Project Finance and Wealth management divisions.
Top recruiters from banking included HSBC, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, First Gulf Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank. The financial services domain was represented by GE Capital, CRISIL, Tata Capital, ASK Wealth Advisors, Credit Analysis and Research Ltd. and Dawnay Day AV.
FMCGs and Consumer Durables
The FMCG aspirants had many choices with all leading FMCGs such as HUL, P&G, ITC, Nestle, Colgate Palmolive, PepsiCo, Dabur, Britannia, Heinz and L'Oreal, along with non-FMCG players like Castrol, Philips and Titan making their presence felt on campus.
Niche Profiles
Infrastructure, being one sector which is expected to boom in the near future, resulted in companies such as IDFC and Feedback Ventures offering niche profiles like Project Finance and Infrastructure Consulting. Profiles in Private Equity were offered by IDFC and HDFC Property Ventures.
Telecom, too was a buzzword with 4 major telecom players including Bharti group (Telecom and Retail) Vodafone, Virgin Mobile and Idea Cellular recruiting heavily this year. 'Getting to work with an established global player still in its inception stage in India, gives me the opportunity to experience the best of both worlds. It will be a great prospect to be part of a group which has the flamboyance of Mr. Branson and legacy of the Tatas.' says Pravin Chordia who accepted an offer by Virgin Mobile.
Leading real estate companies like Lodha Group, Keppel Land (Singapore), DLF and Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj represented the Real Estate sector on campus.
Major organizations from other domains included Pfizer, Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd., Essar Group, JSW Steel and HT Media.
International offers
An emerging trend in the institute that grew stronger this year was the increased number of students preferring to be a part of the Indian growth story instead of taking up profiles abroad. International organisations such as AES Corporation, Bloomberg Singapore, First Gulf Bank, Sharaf Group and Keppel Land participated in the process.
Lateral offers
Giving due respect to the prior work experience of a majority of the students, the institute had a separate Laterals process. Companies such as Barclays Bank, Ocwen Financial and Sun Microsystems participated for the first time. IT majors including Capgemini, Cognizant Technology Services, Genpact, IBM Consulting, Infosys Technologies, TCS, and Wipro were amongst the few who recruited in the Lateral Process.
Off the beaten track
Not everyone took the plum offers that leading recruiters made. There were JBIMS students like Dhruv Sanghvi who chose to tread a different path. Dhruv turned down numerous offers including two pre-placement offers (from a prestigious FMCG and a Multinational Bank) to join a Media Conglomerate proving once again that fat pay packages were secondary to the desire for achievement and job satisfaction for the students at the institute.
Summing up the placement season, Dr. D'Silva, the placement co-ordinator and core faculty member said, "When you are the best, pay packages cease being a criterion. It was the fulfilment of their dreams which was of outmost importance to the students and this is something JBIMS has managed to achieve this year with resounding success."
