IIM Ahmedabad not to give recruiters liberal placement passage; plans to restructure guidelines

Anguished with the move by Flipkart to defer placement of its 18 students for 6 months, IIM Ahmedabad is drawing fresh guidelines for future recruiters who may come for placement at the top rated B-school. The guidelines will aim to stop recurrence of any such deferred placement by the recruiters. It appears that not only IIM Ahmedabad but other IIMs and IITs have also not taken the placement deferment move of Flipkart in good taste. Other IIMs are also expected to join IIM Ahmedabad against the policy of deferred placement being adopted by many recruiters at present.

Now the recruiters will have to define and share their recruitment policy before coming to IIM Ahmedabad campus for placement 2017. According to Asha Kaul, chairperson of IIM Ahmedabad placement committee, We want to send a strong message to recruiters that they should define their recruitment policy appropriately before they go to campuses.
The students of top rated IIMs and IITs may not wait for another 6 months to join and may find other available alternatives which are also equally lucrative.

Flipkart not budging
Flipkart does not seem to pre-pone the already announced deferred joining date and proposes to send revised letters to 18 students of IIM Ahmedabad for December 2016.
The e-commerce giant recruited 18 students from IIM Ahmedabad and their joining was supposed to happen in the month of June 2016. But Despite hiring the students at a package of Rs.20 lakhs per annum Flipkart has now asked them to join the company sometime in December 2016 while they should start working and getting salary from June 2016 onwards.

Strict IIMs to avoid such recruiters
IIM Ahmedabad has communicated to Flipkart Future engagement of Flipkart with B-school campuses is bound to get affected as a relationship based on mistrust and lack of transparency can never be mutually beneficial.
Flipkart may lose the trust as a big hiring company at IIMs. Not only IIM Ahmedabad but also other top rated IIMs and IITs may come on their guard before allowing Flipkart and other such recruiters to participate and recruit in campus placement in future. IIM Ahmedabad has already asked Flipkart to guarantee the job on the joining date. The letter has turned down the offer of compensation stating that the compensation should be in the form of a monthly payment starting June and not as a joining bonus or arrears for delaying the joining date.

Delay of 6 months in joining would cost each candidate a loss of 6 month salary and in many cases it may go beyond Rs.10 lakhs for one candidate. Flipkart has offered a compensation of Rs.1.5 lakhs for the delayed period but the same is not acceptable either to IIM Ahmedabad or to the recently recruited candidates who feel that Flipkart has cheated them as the compensation of Rs.1.5 lakhs cannot make up the loss of Rs. 10 lakhs. Besides, the company is not able to furnish any legal job guarantee to the candidates.

More recruiters showing interest
Highly expensive education at IIM Ahmedabad requires the students to avail fat education loans which cannot be repaid sitting idle. Besides many students believing the strength and brand of Flipkart had turned away lucrative offers from other companies. But now the graduates from top B-school of the country are not only sitting idle but are on look out for other alternatives to earn their livelihood.

After the deferred placement move of Flipkart, many more reputed recruiters have shown interest to offer placement to the students. But going by the proverb once bitten twice shy IIM Ahmedabad is going to first screen the profiles of these recruiters, their recruitment policy, and the kind of roles they would offer to the students. According to Asha Kaul of IIM Ahmedabad Lot of companies have been approaching the institute and the student placement committee is interacting with them. It all depends on the kind of roles that they are offering and whether they meet the students expectations. The choice is for the students to make

IIM Ahmedabad has taken the entire episode very seriously and has invited FMS Delhi, IIM-Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM-Indore, TAPMI Manipal, Tata Institute of Social Sciences to join the call against such recruiters who do not have clear placement policy and go for deferred placement when the students accept their offers.