IIM Ahmedabad concluded the summer internship placement process for the class of 2009-11 by placing 310 participating students in a record 4 days. At 44%, Finance roles were the single largest preference of students, featuring the return of the big names in investment banking and private equity and an increase in the number of offers made by them. At 12 offers, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the largest summer recruiter.

Pleasant as the placement report looks, it would be premature to conclude that the recession-hit economy is recovering any faster based on this report and here is the reason why: many companies recruit for summer internships with an aim to hire the interns fulltime after they graduate via pre-placement offers (PPOs). A great summer internship season now only means that companies foresee good times in the financial year of 2011-12, the year in which these students will graduate and be eligible for jobs. If the good times don’t actually happen, the companies have the exit route of not offering a PPO. For whatever b-school placement reports are worth as indicators of economic health, real recovery for right now would only be measured by how well the final placement processes in the next 3-4 months across tier-1 and tier-2 b-schools go.

Anyhow, I’m including some excerpts from IIMA’s summer placement report for the Post-Graduate Program in Management (PGPM) class of 2011 below.

This year, out of a batch size of 312 students, 310 students sat for the placement process and 2 students opted out. All 312 students who sat for the placement process were placed by the end of fourth day.

The process was comprised of 2 slots, slot 0 and slot 1, both spread over 2 days. Both slots saw participation of a large number of firms. Whereas 166 students were placed on slot 0, the other 144 were placed on slot 1.

Compared to the batch of 2007-09 comprising 262 students which was placed in 6 days and the batch of 2008-10 comprising 300 students which was also placed in 6 days, the batch of 2009-11 has, despite being the largest batch with 312 students, been placed in 4 days, the shortest time in recent memory.

Here is the sector-wise breakup:

Finance: 44%

Marketing: 18%

General Management: 18%

Consulting: 11%

IT/systems: 9%

Finance remained the top pick of students again this year, with 44% of students opting for roles in finance investment banking, private equity, corporate banking and treasury roles. Eighteen percent of the students opted for Marketing roles in Sales and Marketing management, branding, business development and marketing research. Consulting and General Management were the next two preferred domains followed by IT.

“We observed a drastic turnaround in hiring by the Investment banks over the last summer placement season. Last year, for the 2008-10 batch, the number of offers made by Day 0 Investment Banks and accepted by students stood at 35 whereas this year, this number has shot up to 77.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland saw the highest number of acceptances a total of 12 students will join the Royal Bank of Scotland for summer internships in April-May 2010. Tata Administrative Services (TAS) extended 10 offers, all of which were accepted. Some of the other prominent recruiters were McKinsey & Co, Bain, the Boston Consulting Group, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Nokia, Nestle, Pepsi, Cadbury, HUL, P&G;, Amazon and Microsoft. Many firms also recruited for the first time at IIMA campus this year. Prominent first time recruiters were Walt Disney, Nomura, Airtel, Oberoi Constructions and Western Union.

Positions offered across the globe: Banks like RBS came exclusively for international roles across Hong Kong, Singapore and London. In marketing and general management, P&G;, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Coca Cola, Renault, Starcom MediaVest, TAS and Aditya Birla Group offered overseas internships. Firms offered internships at diverse locations like France, Germany, United Kingdom, the Middle-East, Africa, South-East Asia and the United States of America. Almost a quarter of the batch (76 students) secured overseas internships.

Prof. Saral Mukherjee, Chairperson of the Placement Committee said, We had not expected such a drastic upturn in the demand for quality talent and hence the summer placements have come as a pleasant surprise to us. However, this may not necessarily translate into increased final placement hiring as often summer placements serve a different need of the recruiter. Hence, we are upgrading our expectation of final placements to one of cautious optimism and at the same time working hard towards attracting a diverse set of recruiters to campus.

Read on for a day-by-day account of the placement process for more detailed insights.

Third and fourth days (Slot 1)

Slot 1 of the IIMA Summer Placement process was conducted over November 4 and 5, with participation largely from Media, Telecom, Pharma and IT companies.

Repeat summer recruiters such as Dabur, Asian Paints, Cadbury and Renault participated in this slot.

Airtel and Starcom MediaVest offered roles in branding and sales and marketing. Five students will be joining Starcom MediaVest across locations in South-East Asia, said the IIMA press statement.

Some companies from the media sector such as HT Media and Star TV also recruited for Marketing roles. Global media conglomerate Walt Disney recruited for the first time at IIMA this year.

Astra Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson and GSK Pharma were some of the firms from the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector that recruited at IIMA this year.

Eight students will be joining Microsoft for summer internship. Microsoft had also recruited at summer placements last year. Some companies from the consulting sector included Cognizant and Synergy Consulting. Cognizant, which offered roles in IT consulting recruited six students for internships. Some students will be joining niche consulting companies specialising in financial services consulting and carbon finance consulting.

Firms from the realty sector were also part of the placement process. Oberoi Construction and Ramky Infrastructure were two such firms that chose to recruit at IIMA for the first time this year.

Second Day

The second day of the summer placement process, curiously named ‘Day 0.5’ (standard practice in Indian b-schools created to give companies a psychological perception of having been invited very early in the process, whereas in reality they have come on the second day), saw companies from the fields of Marketing, General Management, Consulting and Finance offer internships to students.

Hindustan Unilever and Procter & Gamble, which are on top of the preference list of students looking at a career in Marketing, were back on campus to recruit summer interns for 2010. Diageo, Nokia and Coca-cola were other sought after marketing company on Day 0.5, said Nissim Nabar, member of Media Cell.

Tata Administrative Service and The Aditya Birla Group both offered general management roles that saw over 15 acceptances between the two firms.

Feedback Ventures, a firm focused on the Infrastructure sector was one of the consulting firms present on the second day. Fortress Financial Services, another firm specialising in Infrastructure recruited for the first time at IIMA this year.

Some other companies that returned to IIMA this year and recruited from 2 to 5 interns are Citibank, Frost & Sullivan, Edelweiss and Anand Rathi.

Day Zero (First day)

The media hunger for updates on IIM placements seems to have ticked off IIM students real bad, because in a bid to ward off phone calls from anxious journos, IIM Calcutta has decided to tweet about its summer placements while IIM Ahmedabad is sending out daily press releases to the media with the day’s updates.

Here are the highlights for Day Zero of the summer internship placements for the class of 2011 at IIM Ahmedabad. Over 300 students are in the fray.

Participation mostly by Investment Banks and Consulting companies.

Namely Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, Nomura, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, McKinsey and Co, The Boston Consulting Group and Bain and Co, AT Kearney, Booz and Co and Arthur D Little.

Little is revealed about the total number of students who got a placement on Day Zero (Rohan Desai, the media secretary told me at 9 pm that the interviews were still on), but seems like each company hired in the neighborhood of 5 students each. RBS seems to have hired 10.

Here is the full text of the press release for Day Zero as sent by IIM Ahmedabad.

The summer placement process for the first year PGP and PGP-ABM students kicked off at the Indian institute of Management, Ahmedabad today. Students who will be placed in companies across various sectors during this process will get a chance to apply the learnings from class in practice and experience business management first hand in their preferred domain. Summer Internships are a mandatory requirement of the course and students will spend 8-10 weeks in these companies in the months of April-May next year.

Day Zero of the summer placement process for the batch of 2009-11 saw enthusiastic response from our regular partners from the fields of Investment Banking and Consulting. Most students today were placed in Investment Banking and Consulting roles, said Himanshu Nema, Secretary, Placement Cell.

In line with expectations, Investment Banks made their presence felt. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays each saw over 5 acceptances.

A senior manager at Royal Bank of Scotland which hired more than 10 summer interns in investment banking profiles in Hong Kong, Singapore, New Delhi and London said, I was really happy to be here at the IIM Ahmedabad campus. The students were well prepared and looked excited about the opportunity to work at the Royal Bank of Scotland. We hope the international experience provided by an internship at RBS helps them ahead in their careers.

Some of the other Investment Banks include JP Morgan, Nomura, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.

Top Consulting firms, our long-time recruitment partners were back on campus on Monday to participate in the summer placement process. McKinsey and Co., The Boston Consulting Group and Bain and Co. each will have 3-5 students joining them for summer internships in April next year. Among other top Consulting companies that recruited were AT Kearney, Booz and Co. and Arthur D Little.

A day that began with great apprehension for the first year students gradually brought relief and cheer to the students as they found that placements had indeed started on expected lines, with regular partners back to recruit and some new firms to choose from, said Rohan Desai, Secretary, Media Cell at IIMA.