Speaking to MBAUniverse.com, Prof Subir Verma, Chairman, Corporate Relations and Placement Committee, said, "We have received PPOs from 10 companies as on date, and expect to bag almost 30 PPOs." Last year, 12 students from MDI were offered PPOs -- 9 were from PGPM and 3 from PGP-HR. The final placement week at MDI is slated for February 25.
Opting Out of Placement Season (OOPS), which is very much in trend during placements in leading institutes like IIMs, is clearly showing increasing diversion of students toward entrepreneurship at MDI too. Commenting on the trend Prof Verma said, "We are seeing this OOPT trend from last two years in MDI and we have supported this trend by starting innovation and entrepreneurial center at MDI."
Noticing that financial sector is emerging as the most preferred choice by MDI students, Prof Verma said, "There is mark shift in choices that students make today as bulk of students i.e around 70 students are opting for career in finance. The phase where people saw finance in narrow terms of corporate finance is over." According to MDI, large numbers of students are opting for career related to equity research, portfolio management and investment decision.
Marketing and Human Resource are the next choices. Forty students have chosen to pursue marketing jobs, and 32 students are looking for HR jobs.
According to Prof Verma, "PPOs are just a reward for student's good work during their summer internship. But its important to note that PPO is not final placement, because students still have choice to reject these offers when they get better choice during final placements."
So while industry sees PPOs as a way to locking in talent, smart management grads are likely to use it to their advantage in final placement season. Said Prof Verma, "Though companies believe that by offering PPOs they lock in there candidate now, but it is not a certainty. These candidates can use these PPOs in their CV to negotiate with other companies in final placements."
