The placement process saw participation from 109 firms across sectors, out of which 95 firms recruited in the final placements process. The placement process this year was conducted over a nine day period from February 25 to March 05, 2009, the longest ever since the MBA job boom.

The average domestic salary was reported as Rs 12.17 lakh, a 31 percent reduction over last year’s Rs 17.85.

Despite the diminutive effects of the economic crisis on the placements, one could see the effort to sound upbeat in IIMA’s placement report.

According to the institute’s press statement, aApproximately 34 pc of the batch was placed in the slot 0 firms that include international banks and consulting firms. There were several offers in this slot of more than Rs. 1 crore.a The statement was quick to add that the crore figures were international salaries converted to Indian rupees using the current exchange rate.

According to a student at the institute, aThe crore salaries have been offered mostly by investment banks as pre-placement offers for international locations spread across the USA, Europe, the Middle East and South-east Asia.a

It might be interesting to note that by current exchange rates, a salary of Rs 1 crore would translate to an in-hand salary of about US$ 200,000 in the USA, including bonuses and variable components that may or may not reach the employee. For a taxpaying person earning that much in the US, the in-hand component translates to a standard of living that is approximately equivalent to earning Rs 20-25 lakh in-hand annually in India.

This year, the largest recruiter at IIM Ahmedabad was a Public Sector Unit bank. At 18 offers, Union Bank of India scooped the highest number of IIMA graduates. According to the institute, the offers have been for senior positions.

aTwelve students were recruited by Jaypee Capital, a first time recruiter on campus a for managing their operations in financial and capital markets – roles that are similar to those offered by international banks,a said the statement.

Other prominent recruiters at the campus included Bain and Company (8 final acceptances), McKinsey and Co (8 final acceptances), Boston Consulting Group (7 final acceptances), Tata Administrative Services (7 final acceptances) and first time recruiters Frost and Sullivan (5 final acceptances). The process also saw participation from Unicon Securities, which made 12 offers, global network giant Alcatel-Lucent which made 5 offers and offers from a range of firms returning to campus such as Indian Oil, Bank of Baroda, SEBI, Bharat Petroleum and others.

Despite the global financial crisis, finance saw the highest percentage of acceptances at 39 pc. However, the number is considerably down from the last two years when practically half the batch had joined the Finance sector.

At 24 pc, consulting saw the second highest acceptance. As much 63 pc of the batch therefore opted for finance and consulting jobs, as opposed to 76 pc in the last two years each.

About 13 pc of the batch accepted Marketing profiles.

While there were lower number of offers from international banks, Indian companies such as Tata Administrative Services and Aditya Birla Group alongwith Procter and Gamble offered international locations.

aAnother factor that affected the duration of placements was that very senior executives participated in the placement process. The average indicative salary for domestic offers was Rs 12.17 lakhs while that of international offers was US$ 83,000 (exclusive of bonus),a said the statement.

As many as seven students opted out of the placements to start their own ventures this year.

The institute clarified that despite the pressures of the downturn, no student was forced to take up a pre-placement offer, while every student was allowed to sit for other companies despite having an offer in hand. It may be noted that IIM Bangalore has in the last few days gone on record admitting that it is making the acceptance of PPOs compulsory for students in order to provide opportunities for everyone.

Interestingly, the 2007-09 batch that got placed yesterday was the last batch of students that had paid Rs 5-6 lakh in PGPM course expenses at IIM Ahmedabad. It may be recalled that IIM Ahmedabad had hiked its fee to Rs 11 lakh for the batch joining in 2008. If a similar placement trend continues next year, the return on investment on an IIMA education may diminish considerably.