With the economy on recovery path, the placement season brought a good deal of cheer at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) campus on Friday.
Salaries during the final placement season for the batch of 2008-10 saw a 20% increase over last year with the average domestic compensation, excluding year-end bonuses, rising to Rs 15.32 lakh as against Rs 12.7 lakh last year.
The highest package offered (domestic) increased to Rs 75 lakh compared to Rs 60 lakh last year. The average international package, exclusive of bonus, rose more than 42% to $123,450 (Rs61 lakh) against $86,785 (Rs43.33 lakh) in the previous year.
Both the highest international and domestic offers came from the banking sector.
International offers were made to 17 students. A total of 91 offers, excluding pre-placement offers (PPOs) made by a set of companies collectively referred to as Slot Zero firms, was the highest across all IIMs in the country, an official said.
Professor Prafulla Agnihotri, chairman, placement cell, IIM-C, told DNA: “It exceeded our expectations. We actually thought the entire placement would be over on March 9. Only seven students remained.”
Many of the companies said they would not come to the campus for just seven students. Many of them conducted interviews on phone or through video-conferencing. Eventually by March 11, all the 278 students who sat for the placement process bagged lucrative offers.
A unique aspect was that the roles offered this year to students were diverse and they could pick an area close to their heart.
In keeping with IIM-C’s reputation of being the pre-eminent finance campus of the country, more than 37% of the students chose to join this sector. Swiss investment banking giant UBS and other leading global investment banks like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Nomura, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland and Macquarie Bank extended offers to students.
