Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many elite business schools in India are suffering from placement offers being revoked and reduction in offered salaries. Summer internships, on the other hand, are also affected by the pandemic.

Due to the deployment of the lockdown in various countries and the international borders getting sealed, companies have decided to rework their hiring plans and have postponed summer internships in many IIMs.

Nine students have seen internship cancellation by three companies at IIM Lucknow, and the same has been the experience with IIM Calcutta students. Business schools like IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Kozhikode have also received communication from the companies about internship dates getting deferred.

“Keeping in mind the unfavorable conditions raised by the coronavirus pandemic, few companies have decided to opt for the virtual internship programs while few are analyzing the situations to finalize the joining dates.

Thus far, some companies have cancelled their internships affecting nine students, but we are in touch with our alumni network as well as our legacy recruiters for finding out new opportunities for the students,” placement chair at IIM Lucknow stated.

IIMs like Ahmedabad and Kozhikode have requested the companies to be more flexible while assigning virtual projects. Companies, on the other hand, are dealing with difficult situations to keep up with the day to day functioning with the majority of the staff working from home.

IIM Ahmedabad confirmed that most of the companies have proposed to students to work remotely during the internship, while others have requested to wait for the revised dates of joining the internships.

“The internship period will most probably be reduced to five weeks from eight weeks keeping in mind the present scenario, and the placement appointments will not be affected as the joining dates for most of them are around the end of May said,” placement chair Shovan, IIM Kozhikode.

IIM Udaipur has reports of 12 companies revoking their summer internships from a total of 87 companies that came to recruit first-year students.

Due to the uncertainty of the upliftment of the lockdown, recruiters are also looking at other ways of conducting internships that can benefit the students. Some recruiters have also proposed to shift the summer internships to the autumn months.

For summer internships, sectors like Finance, Consulting, Marketing, General Management, Tech, etc. are deferring from the joining dates. Institutes have requested the recruiters to reconsider their hiring plans.

Recruiters are also suffering from economic instability amid the lockdown conditions, and therefore, they are devising procedures to deploy the summer internship programs in the IIMs.

Though some recruiters have proposed to start the internships via the virtual setup, some are still observing and analyzing the conditions created by the coronavirus pandemic.

It is also not easy for recruiters to guide the interns properly with work with the help of remote onboarding, and therefore they are devising other methods to facilitate the students. The situation is unpredictable, but what al students can do is hope for the best.

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