Consultancies dominate recruitment from India's IIM colleges
Management consultancies dominated this year’s placement season at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) across the country, amid a better-than-expected campus recruitment drive. McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) were among the top recruiters from the consulting industry.
The placement round took place across three of the oldest IIMs in India – Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Bengaluru (IIM-B) and Kolkata (IIM-C). Amid a period of overall economic slowdown, expectations were low from this recruitment season, with many predicting that businesses would hold back on their hiring drives.
On the contrary, not only was the response this year better than the last, but the average pay appears to have risen as well. While IIM-A and IIM-B did not reveal the average pay being given out, IIM-C reported a record average of Rs.28 lakh per annum, which is a jump of 10% from last year.
“We are pleased with the outcome of our final placement process that placed the entire batch within the planned time. Given the economic scenario, we were apprehensive about the results. However, the outcome has been more positive than expected and better than previous years,” said chairperson of the placement committee at IIM-A Amit Karna.
From a consulting perspective, however, the numbers are far from surprising. Consulting firms were the biggest recruiters across the board this season, which was foreshadowed by a number of businesses in the advisory sector declaring their intentions to go on a hiring spree.
Firms such as Wipro and Cognizant have both specifically announced increases in campus hiring, while members of the Big Four have also embarked on substantial recruitment drives. In the latest placement round, the top recruiters across all three business schools included McKinsey & Company, BCG, Tata Consultancy Services, Bain & Company, PwC and Accenture.
The consulting sector’s domination of IIM placements is not a new phenomenon, particularly when seen in the context of recent years. Management consulting companies were the biggest recruiters at IIM-A’s summer placement round last year, while Deloitte, BCG and Kearney dominated IIM-B’s placements last year.
The second most active sector in the recruitment round this year was the finance industry, dominated by global banking giants such as Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Barclays and Bank of America Merrilll Lynch, among others.
