"Aye, every inch a King!"

Shakespeare
King Lear, Act IV, Sc. 2

Placement 2001

Placement 2001 affirmed that Placement 2000 was not a flash in the pan. The demand for Indian MBAs continues to be strong and growing, with more and more foreign firms coming to India for recruitment. While the dot com bubble has gone bust, economy is ambling along, a far cry from the blistering pace as was in Placement 2000, still the good show at Placement 2001 put a stamp of approval on the B-schools of India. Gone are the days, like Placements in years 1996 and 1997, when due to slow growth in economy, even IIMs had trouble in placing the whole batch within the placement week. Indian GOMBAs (Grossly Overpaid MBAs) have arrived!

And things have not been very different in the US B-schools either. While many of Stanford Graduate School of Business, who left the studies in middle to join the dot com bandwagon (12% in 1999), have since returned to resume their studies, entrepreneurship fever has subsided to 10% of students. Alumni Placement Cells in US b-schools (a facility for alumni unheard at IIMs) are receiving calls from alumni to help in their career choices as alumni return from dotcoms to the security of Old economy jobs. Lack of Alumni Placement Cells at IIMs is just one of the many instances to show that IIMs need to gear up if they have to sustain their presence in the International B-school hierarchy!

Entrepreneurial spirit was low, though Venture Capital jobs were still coveted. Investment Banking and Consultancy were back in vogue. Class of 2001 had benefit of learning from the experience of Class of 2000. Students chose safer bets and joined Investment Banking & Consultancy passing over dotcoms. Infact dot coms were not there on the scene at all with their cash running out, and difficult funding scenario. IT firms got their share of students as well. Marketing firms too were happy.

Overall sanity was restored!

• Foreign players / Offshore Recruitment
• Consultancy
• Finance
• Dot Com Craze and IT
• ESOP
• Marketing

The real winner is the Indian MBA, who has arrived in International Business World. With a BANG ! After the fabulous placements with 40+ overseas offers at IIML and 70+ offers at IIMA, IIMB and IIMC, besides many overseas offers at other top 10 B-schools across country, it's clear that top B-schools have managed to carve "a league of their own" among recruiters world over.

Next year and the years ahead will see the entry of other big I-banks from Wall Street such as SSB, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette (purchased by Credit Suisse), Bear Sterns, Chase, Merrill Lynch. Besides companies like Nike, ranked 14th among desired companies by US MBAs are still to recruit from IIMs. Goldman Sachs would be recruiting for placements for Wall Street from other IIMs as well. Bain, Monitor can be expected to be among the "dream companies" at the IIM campuses.

Sandeep Kumar
CoolAvenues.com
In association with
Placement Committees of B-Schools

That was a fabulous placement season in first quarter of circa 2000. That was a time when even the cynics were confident. With US in decade-long unbridled growth, economy was booming and markets (read NASDAQ) was cruising towards Troposphere at Mach 1.0. Everyone was happy, particularly so Jeff Bezos (Time's Man of The Year!). Internet offered a life-time chance to make it filthy rich before you could spell "Revenue Model". VC money was flowing as fast as Champagne does on uncorking the bottle. All it took was ideas, which were aplenty. Predictably, people flocked to embrace the net. Even 12% of MBA class at Stanford left studies to jump onto dot com bandwagon. Net effect - a bumper placement in B-schools in India. US Inc. came calling, beckoning the best and the brightest to the promised land in the paradise city - where the grass was green and gals (oops... job profile) were pretty. The show was aglow! Unprecedented foreign offers, huge salaries, multiple offers per student - GOMBAs never had it that good ever (Grossly Overpaid MBA….i.e. GOMBA for uninitiated)!!!

Markets, barometer for the heath of economy, are down. NASDAQ, the Mecca of technology stocks, is ambling at snail's pace after crashing at Mach 2.0. BSE Sensex, touted to touch 8000 by October 2000, is barely hanging in at 4000 level since July 2000. GDP growth predictions have been scaled down to 6%. VC money for start-ups resembles state of liquor sale in prohibition-enforced Gujarat - everyone knows it is available, nobody knows where! Many of 12% of Stanford's MBA class have since returned to pursue MBA programmes. IPO filings have been adjourned sine die. Purists still say technology stocks will grow as in last decade. Skeptics deride the claim. Both agree that Internet is like vitamins, "They can't make you grow stronger in a second, but will complement your regular diet."

All said and done, we, the alumni will be eagerly awaiting the results at our alma mater. Will there be another dream placement or there ain't any fizz left in the economy? Will the US Inc. call the shots and lure away the best, a la Pied Piper(.... . or a la Axe Deo effect? Will the Indian firms like Wipro, Infosys, Godrej get a chance to recruit from IIMs, unlike last year? Will consulting firms announce + 10 offers at IIMs? Will the number of offers per firm decline? Will students start/ join dotcoms turning the back to the corporates? Which Institute will see maximum offers per student? Which B-school comes first? Will the recent rankings in BI/BT be justified?

In short, did chicken cross the road?

Answers to these and many more questions will be answered in this section - "Placement 2001". Also a forum Discussion" is there for MBA alumni and students to discuss the saga as it unfolds.

Interested? Smitten?

Last year CoolAvenues.com created history by first ever live coverage of the placements at any B-school across world (Read Placement 2000). This year too, we will strive to offer you latest updates from campuses. We start by checking placements at NITIE, SP Jain, XIMB, SIFT. We will cover more campuses as the placement happens.

Watch out this space at India's # 1 MBA community portal.

Placements 2000

Read complete story of Placement 2000 as it happened along with analysis and comparison across the B-Schools and segment-wise analysis.

Archives
Read about the pre placement scenario from our archives