After going down from the status of top class recruiter to no-recruiter, the e-commerce giant Flipkart may not be seen this year in the campus placement process of 2017 at IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow or any other highly ranked IIM or IITs where it has already lost its status of coveted day one recruiting company.
All this is the result of the e-commerce giant’s deferred placement 2016 when Flipkart could not get the joining accomplished of the placed students on time. Anguished with the move by Flipkart to defer placement of its 18 students for 6 months, IIM Ahmedabad has drawn fresh guidelines for recruiters who may come for placement at the top rated B-school. The guidelines aim to stop recurrence of any such deferred placement by the recruiters.
Not only IIM Ahmedabad but other IIMs and IITs have also not taken the placement deferment move of Flipkart in good taste. Other IIMs have also joined IIM Ahmedabad against the policy of deferred placement being adopted by many recruiters at present. This is the key reason behind Flipkart not getting any placement invitation from top IIMs as day one company and has been pushed behind.
Although Flipkart has claimed that it is not going for placement in IIMs and IITs as it wants to groom the already recruited candidates from IIMs and IITs, the facts are otherwise and Flipkart may not get a chance in placement 2017 to recruit from IIMs and IITs.
Recruiters to define the policy first
Recruiters coming for campus placement at IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow among others will now need to define and share their recruitment policy before coming to IIM 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."
Flipkart on backfoot
Flipkart in placement 2016 announced deferred joining date and proposed 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 later asked them to join the company sometime in December 2016. Earlier the students were supposed to join and start working with full salary from June 2016 onwards.
IIMs strict for Placement 2017
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 accordingly lost the trust as a big hiring company at IIMs. Not only IIM Ahmedabad but also other top rated IIMs and IITs have 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. This has not been done by the E-commerce giant.
Delay of 6 months in joining did cost each candidate a loss of 6 month salary and in many cases it was beyond Rs.10 lakhs for one candidate. Flipkart offered a compensation of Rs.1.5 lakhs for the delayed period but the same was not acceptable either to IIM Ahmedabad or to the recently recruited candidates who felt that Flipkart had cheated them as the compensation of Rs.1.5 lakhs cannot make up the loss of Rs. 10 lakhs. Besides, the company was not able to furnish any legal job guarantee to the candidates.
IIMs scrutinising profile of recruiters
Despite showing interest in recruitment process at IIMs, the profile of the recruiters at IIMs has come under scanner. After the deferred placement move of Flipkart, many more reputed recruiters had shown interest to offer placement to the students. But IIM Ahmedabad will now first screen the profiles of the recruiters, their recruitment policy, and the kind of roles they would offer to the students before allowing them to come for Placement 2017.
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”
Highly expensive education at IIMs requires the students to avail fat education loans which cannot be repaid sitting idle. IIM Ahmedabad had taken the entire episode very seriously and had 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.
The letter from IIM Ahmedabad criticized the poor handling of campus recruitment offers made by the company. The specific mention in the letter said "The matter of campus hiring could have been handled much better with campuses forewarned well in advance and engaged as partners in this decision making" The move by the e-commerce company made the graduates of IIMs look out for other alternatives to earn their livelihood.
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