Associate Offers from International Firms / I-Banks Put IIMA Students at Par with Ivy League Grads

The final placements at IIM Ahmedabad were held in 3 slots of recruiting from 8th March to 12th March 2007. 235 students in the batch of 2007 were eligible for Placements 2007, which saw a total of 86 firms on campus.
At the end of Slot Zero, there were only 95 students available for interviewing on Slot One, whereas the last day had only those students who were specifically targeting companies scheduled for Slot Two. A significant portion of the batch (around 60% or 140 students) had been placed or had opted out by the end of the much-coveted Slot Zero of placements, which saw as many as 17 firms on campus (94 were Slot Zero acceptances and the remaining 46 included entrepreneurs, Laterals / PPO acceptances and off-campus acceptances). Refer to Table 1 for the batch profile of the IIMA batch of 2007, and to Table 2 for sector-wise distribution of jobs accepted by students.

Some leading investment banks and consulting firms such as Bain, BCG, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, McKinsey and Merrill Lynch continued their long-standing association with IIMA. The highest number of offers was given by Lehman Brothers (17 offers - 14 acceptances), Merrill Lynch (15 offers - 14 acceptances) and McKinsey (13 offers - 12 acceptances). Apart from that, firms such as Blackstone Real Estate, Fischer Jordan, ING, Opera Solutions and Value Partners were some of the new additions in Slot Zero this year. A total of 63 students accepted international placements. Refer to Table 3 for the geographical distribution of jobs accepted by students.

Major (Retd.) Devashish Chakravarty, the Coordinator of the Student Placement Committee, said, "Even as international recruitment across campuses appeared to be going down in anticipation of a weakening in the markets, recruitments in IIMA bore out the fact that high quality of managers are essential irrespective of the business cycles."

PPOs & Associate Offers

The start of the year saw a flurry of pre-placement offers (PPOs) from firms that students worked in during summers. As many as 81 students got PPOs this year, which is a reflection of the quality of IIMA grads working in various organizations.

There were 11 associate offers from investment banks and 12 associate offers from international consulting firms, 4 of which were made to students without work experience. All these offers were at par with those offered to Ivy League B-school graduates.

Prof. Bakul Dholakia, Director of IIMA, said, "This substantial elevation in job roles being offered at entry level in investment banks and consulting firms has been a sign of IIMA's fast-growing reputation as a global brand, which can now compete with the best B-schools in the world."

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