This year was yet another feather in the cap for both Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) and Post Graduate Programme in Rural Management (PGPRM) batches of 2007. 100 pc placements were achieved for both courses on Day 1 of Xuberance 2007, annual campus placement season of XIMB. Considering the rigorous management training and social consciousness XIMB imparts to budding managers this comes as no big surprise.

In the case of PGDBM batch, a total of 98 companies across sectors had shown interest in recruiting students and 72 of them were slotted for the final placement process. Of these, only 63 were lucky to grab students.

New companies on campus included HLL, Dell International, Deloitte Consulting, UBS, HSBC Global Resourcing, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Idea Cellular, Hutch, Grow Talent, Centurion Bank of Punjab and many more.

Maximum representation was from the IT industry and included bigwigs like IBM, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Mindtree, Wipro etc. A total of 309 offers were made to the batch of 118 resulting in 2.62 offers per student. 33 students had Pre-Placement Offers / Interviews (PPOs/PPIs) from companies they had undergone their summer training with.

Companies coming up with the highest number of offers included TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, JP Morgan Chase, IBM, Kotak Bank while highest salaries were offered by Olam International, JP Morgan Chase, Dell International, Godrej, Accenture.
JP Morgan Chase, SBI Caps, Citifinancial, and UTI were major recruiters from the banking and financial services sector while Ernst & Young, Avalon Consulting, Deloitte Consulting, McKinsey Knowledge Centre were the bigwigs on campus for consulting recruitments.
The average salary for the batch rose by 23 pc and stood at Rs. 8.77 lakhs per annum. The average domestic salary was Rs.8.52 lakhs per annum while the median salary was Rs.8.5 lakhs per annum. Apart from offering the highest number of offers (7) in the banking & financial services sector, JP Morgan Chase also offered the highest domestic salary of Rs. 12.75 lakhs per annum to the PGDBM batch. The highest international offer made was by Olam International at US$ 85,000 per annum. Interestingly, there are 23 students securing a paycheck of over Rs. 9 lakhs per annum.

IT/ITES companies came up with the highest number of offers this year, closely followed by Sales & Marketing and Banking & Financial Services companies. Most students expressed their willingness to work in the IT sector with the highest number of accepted offers in this sector.

It is noteworthy that 35 students rejected a higher paying job offer in lieu of a job profile of their choice. The jobs offered were from varied profiles which included Investment Banking, Supply Chain Management Consulting, Wealth Management, Treasury Management, Talent Acquisition Manager, Area Sales Manager, Industrial Relations Manager, Channel Manager, Corporate Finance, among others.

For the rural management programme (PGPRM) at XIMB, 68 offers were made to the batch of 52, the per student offer being 1.3. The average salary for the PGPRM batch rose by 31 pc at Rs.5.1 lakhs per annum and the median salary being Rs.4.60 lakhs per annum. The highest salary offered this year was Rs. 8 lakhs per annum.
To recruit rural managers, the new companies on campus this year were ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, IFMR, Monsanto, GCMMF (Amul), RK Swamy BBDO, Christian Children Fund, and NANDI Foundation among others. Our regular recruiters; Coromandel Fertilisers Ltd., ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SKS Microfinance, Tata Chemicals Ltd., HLFPPT once again registered their presence on campus.

The companies on campus represented the three key areas in rural management, namely, agribusiness, banking & insurance, and development & microfinance. On more than one occasion the profiles offered to the candidates were developed and designed mutually by the recruiter and the candidates, resulting in very challenging and enriching profiles.

Fr. E. Abraham, S.J., Director, XIMB, commended the efforts put in by everyone involved in making Xuberance 2007 a grand success. He was pleased with the quick and quality placements of the students this year. To quote him, “XIMB is an institute known for its excellence in imparting knowledge and producing socially sensitive managers. The current placements just highlight this point even more.”

Shravan Mukundan Nair, the student placement coordinator, recalls the days spent on planning for the event. He says “Coordinating even the smallest activity, to conduct the process smoothly, would not have been possible without the combined efforts of each and every student. I am happy that the efforts laid the foundation for superior placements this year.”

Placements are just the reflection of the academic environment, the pedagogy, the dedication of the students and how the industry views a B-school. XIMB Placements 2007 exhibit how the top organizations in various fields have immense faith in the stellar students of XIMB. Excellence, after all, is a habit at XIMB.