IIM Calcutta’s final placement process for the batch of 2008-2010, had kicked off on 6 March 2010 and concluded on 10 March 2010, lasting for a total of five days at the end of which all students who sat for the process were placed.

The process was conducted in slots, with each slot lasting for two days. Slot-0 took place on the 6th and 7th of March, Slot-1 on the 8th and 9th, and Slot-2 began on March 10th. The process came to an end in the middle of slot 2, with all 278 students who sat for the placement process receiving job offers at the end of the fifth day.

BATCH PROFILE
The batch of 2010 comprised of 35% freshers and 65% students with prior work-experience. Among them, 12 % of the students had work-experience of more than 36 months.  Among the 278 students, 22 were women students. A total of 7 students opted out of the placement process from the batch of 285.   Among them, 2 students will be pursuing further education, 2 will be working for the government in public sector firms, 2 will be starting their own start-ups and one student plans to pursue his creative interests in filming and ad-making. A fellow program student pursuing his doctorate was also placed in the finals process.

PLACEMENTS COMPARISON WITH THE PREVIOUS YEARS

PAY PACKAGES
With the economy on its recovery path, the salaries were expected to go up and they have. The average salary has seen a 20% increase over last year with the average domestic compensation excluding year- end bonuses rising to INR 15.32 lakhs this year as compared to INR 12.7 lakhs last year, a clear indication that the economic situation has improved significantly since 2009. The highest package offered (domestic) increased to INR 75 lakhs compared to INR 60 lakhs last year. The average international package exclusive of bonus is USD 123,450. Last year, it was USD 86,785.

SECTORAL TRENDS
 
-- Finance: More than 37% of the students chose to join the financial sector, with salaries considerably higher than last year. Swiss investment-banking giant UBS continued to hire exclusively from IIM Calcutta. Leading global investment banks Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Nomura, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland and Macquarie Bank all extended offers to students from the institute. Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singapore government also hired from IIM Calcutta. IIM Calcutta was the only campus in the country where HSBC hired for both their global as well as Indian arms.

American Express hired for diverse profiles like business transformation, international risk management and for American Express Banking Corporation India, and extended offers to 6 students. The major recruiters in the financial sector were Yes bank and ICICI bank. Yes Bank extended a total of 13 offers while ICICI bank made 10 offers. Some of the other major recruiters included Allegro Financial Services, Standard Chartered, Edelweiss Capital and Citibank.

-- Consulting: Consulting remained a preferred sector for students, with 27% of the students set to join consulting firms in offices across the world.  Oliver Wyman made a total of 5 offers, which is more than twice the number of offers made at any other campus in India. They also recruited for their international offices in London, New York, Dubai and Singapore exclusively from IIM Calcutta. Other big recruiters were Mckinsey & Co, The Boston Consulting Group, A.T. Kearney, Bain & Co, Deloitte Consulting and Diamond Consultants. Opera Solutions hired exclusively from IIM Calcutta amongst all the IIMs.  Accenture Business Consulting made the highest number of offers in the consulting space with a total of 15 offers across 6 different roles, of which 11 offers were made during final placements and 4 during the lateral placements. Cognizant Business Consulting extended 14 offers to students during the laterals process.

-- Others: Regular recruiters Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Nokia were back this year, offering marketing profiles, with Hindustan Unilever making 5 offers, Procter & Gamble making 4 offers and Nokia extending 3 offers. Johnson & Johnson made 4 offers at IIM Calcutta.  Some of the other leading brands which hired from IIM Calcutta for marketing profiles include ITC, Godrej, 3M and Medtronic. In general management, Tata Administrative Services made 7 offers, the highest in the sector. 6 of these offers were made during the final placement process and 1 was extended as a pre-placement offer.

INTERNATIONAL OFFERS
International Offers were made to 17 students in the batch. The total of 91 offers excluding PPOs made by the set of companies collectively referred to as Slot Zero firms was easily the highest across all campuses of the country.

LATERAL PLACEMENTS
This year, the laterals process began in the first week of January and continued till the last week of February. The minimum amount of work-experience required to be eligible for the laterals process was set at 10 months and 170 out of the 280-strong batch were eligible for the process.

46 firms visited the campus during the laterals process and 92 offers were made at the end of the laterals process. Mahindra & Mahindra recruited during laterals for the first time. i-Nautix, Star TV, Amazon and Microsoft were some of our recruiters during this process. Roles like Manager of Strategy and Asst. Vice President were offered this year to students participating in the laterals process.

The laterals process this year at IIM Calcutta was the most successful across all IIMs and enabled us to start the final placement process with 92 laterals offers and 36 PPOs, which amounted to a total of 128 offers already in hand.

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more news on MBA Placements 2010!