“At 134 offers, more than half of the batch was placed on the first day of placements. A total of 157 students had got the job of their choice and had opted out of the placement process by the end of the much-coveted Slot 0. Last year, the same figure stood at 120,” said an IIM Ahmedabad press statement.

“Although the top investment banks and consulting firms continue to have the highest number of acceptances, the student community got a much more diverse pool of firms and roles to choose from. Along with big players in the Private Equity domain, there were firms like Google who offered a role in business development and Amazon, the star recruiters in the IT/ITES domain; Chicago-based Starcom MediaVest group, a leading global marketing communications networks which came exclusively to IIM Ahmedabad and gave international roles involving business development and communication strategy,” it added.

“Many of the big private equity players world-wide – Blackstone PE, General Atlantic, Audax, Greater Pacific Capital visited campus for the first time,” said the IIM-A spokesperson.

“Other new firms on campus included investment banks and financial service majors like Macquaire, Rothschild, AIG and ING. Consulting majors Arthur D. Little and Value Partners recruited for summers for the first time. General Atlantic and ING recruited exclusively from IIM Ahmedabad,” he further said.

“Another clear trend seen was the increased willingness of firms to offer international postings to management graduates for marketing roles. Top firms traditionally hiring for their Indian offices – Hindustan Unilver Limited, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, Dabur, Aditya Birla Group offered positions abroad to summer interns this year in addition to Procter & Gamble (P&G;), which used to be the only firm in this league till last year,” he said.

The idea of building businesses from scratch and higher levels of responsibility seemed to have gained popularity amongst students of IIMA. This year, based on student interest, a ‘Startup Fair’ was organized for students on October 20th-21st, in which over 90 first year students interacted with 9 startups. The firms spanned across sectors ranging from education to finance.