Hire Calling

IIM placement season goes beyond Big Tech and Big 4. Offers from offbeat sectors lay out a bigger career canvas

- SARTHAK CHOUDHURY

Aniket (name changed on request) was worried since he was unable to land a job until the fag end of the placement season at one of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The sub-par placements the year before and the prevailing geopolitical tensions, including the uncertainty triggered by the American President, added to his anxiety.

"The placement season last year wasn't the best," he said. "A number of big firms weren't recruiting, and the ones that were were taking in fewer candidates." The salary packages on offer, too, had shrunk. It was a period of nervousness for students like him. A job offer eventually came, but from an unlikely sector that was nowhere on his radar when he joined IIM: Energy.

"Most of the people who enroll in an IIM think of joining a Big Four consultancy or one of the Big Techs," he said.

However, with increased focus on cleantech and sustainability, firms such as the one that gave him the offer letter are also landing at premier management schools for recruitment.

Many of those that came calling at the IIMs this time round were first-time recruiters, and represented sectors not traditionally seen on these campuses during placement seasons.

Among them were companies focused on sustainable and green tech, luxury and collectibles, fintech and digital banking, personalized health care and biohacking, electric vehicles, alternative food industry, metaverse and virtual reality, and spiritual and wellness tech. The names included DBS Bank, Welspun, Nykaa, Clear, Lava International, Juspay, Modelama Exports, Waaree Group, and Policybazaar.

The IIMs attribute this shift to the changing focus of companies.