What the IIMs never revealed in their press releases, a question in the parliament unearthed. In a written reply to a question posed in Rajya Sabha today, the Union Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal said that only 497 students were recruited from all the six IIMs by multinational companies in 2009 compared to 920 in 2008, a drop of almost 46 %.

According to the reply, at IIM Ahmedabad, multi-national companies had hired 155 students in 2008. That number plummeted to 92 in 2009. At IIM Bangalore, this number dropped from 203 to 119. IIM Calcutta seemed to be the worst-hit; from 240 to 121 MNC placements, the figure more or less halved. The figures from the other three IIMs were not shared in the reply.

While press releases from the IIMs were surprisingly candid to admit the bitter effect of the economic crisis on both ease and quality of placements, the data revealed was still inadequate for one to know what kind of companies gained at the expense of whom. It is well known that Public Sector companies had hired more than usual (but not drastically higher) from the IIMs this year. Some went to homegrown corporate houses involved in IT/ITES, insurance, logistics and export. What happened to the rest of the graduates is only known from anecdotal evidence. A lot of graduates have joined small and medium sized manufacturing and automation companies in their hometowns. Interestingly, around two dozen have joined small-scale local advertising and publicity businesses scattered across Delhi+Noida+Gurgaon area, a freshly graduated IIM friend tells me.

Many joined startups, presumably because the risk usually associated with startups was at an all-time low at the peak of the crisis. (Though I wonder if the IIMs really train for working at a startup. I don’t believe so based on my experience at hiring from the IIM Startup Fairs for PaGaLGuY. Startups need people who are intelligent AND ‘relentlessly resourceful‘ and not people who are intelligent and have been trained for more evolved processes better suited in large established companies, where the initial struggle of painful and street-smart business building has already been done by someone else.)

It would be interesting to see how many IIM graduates stick to these small companies as the economic situation improves. A professor at IIM Bangalore made an interesting point when he told me a month ago, “There is an entire generation of IIM, XLRI, ISB and SP Jain graduates waiting in line for a fair deal that they feel the recession snatched away from them. When things get better, they would do everything possible to get that deal they think they always deserved. On the companies’ part, they would rather hire 2009 MBA graduates looking for better prospects in 2010 than hire complete greenhorns from institutes, for no extra price.”

That’s a thought-provoking view and if it holds any water, the IIMs are not having any better placements next year either.