ISB placements duck slowdown, students bag record job offers

Hyderabad: The economic slowdown seems to have failed to dampen the hiring sentiment at premier Hyderabad-based B-school, Indian School of Business (ISB), with students of its post graduate programme in management (PGP)receiving 1,383 job offers on Day-1 of placements this year as compared to 1,194 offers last year.
As per ISB, the average CTC on Day-1 of placements stood at Rs 26.15 lakh per annum.Last year, the overall average CTC was around Rs 25 lakh.
Sector wise, consulting firms accounted for the highest number of job offers, followed by IT/ITeS, e-commerce and financial institutions.
Terming this year’s placement on Day-1 as the “best ever”, Chandan Chowdhury, senior associate dean and practice professor (operations management and information systems) at ISB, pointed out that out of 890 students, 884 participated in placements and 85% of the students accepted their offers.
Underlining the fact that slowdown in the economy has not impacted the demand for top notch talent by companies, Chowdhury said, “Companies hired talent either to cope up with the current challenges or to steer their future growth.”
On the placement process, ISB student Rayomand Neville Anklesaria said that many companies were focussing on assessing the EQ (emotional quotient) of students. “We have seen an increase in the number of offers despite a slowdown. This shows that ISB talent is getting stronger by the day and the average package has also increased,” said another student Shreyas Katta.
Consulting companies continued to hire in large numbers with Accenture, Alvarez and Marsal, AT Kearney, Bain & Company and Boston Consulting Group, among others, making a total 314 offers between them, ISB said in a release.
The hiring for leadership roles also saw an upswing among Indian conglomerates such as Aditya Birla Group, Adani, CK Birla Group, Essar, Hinduja, Piramal, Reliance Industries, RPG and Shapoorji Pallonji, which made offers for roles ranging from management trainees to executive assistants to CXOs.
Chowdhury said ISB has also emerged as an institution of choice to hire women leaders. “Hiring of women students also saw an upsurge with Axis Bank, along with a host of other companies hiring for leadership roles in good numbers. The PGP class of 2020, at 39%, has the largest-ever representation of women,” the release added.